FEET FIRST

Ross Edgley – the ‘extreme adventurer’ best known for swimming around the UK, and the man pictured here – once spent two months living and training with Namibian bushmen. In 2008, he abandoned all home comforts to join the San people in the Kalahari Desert. There, he “hunted for miles every day wearing nothing but a loincloth, sandals and a smile.”

Often covering more than a marathon distance each day, like his hosts he chose to eschew shoes altogether, running in bare feet instead.

“Essentially, barefoot biomechanics was improving my running technique and efficiency to such an extent I was evolving into something that resembled a semi-good endurance athlete in as little as 30 days,” he says. He describes how his hosts “would glide across the sand with impeccable forefoot striking, leaning forward and without wasting any energy.”