Man does 100-mile ultramarathon in smart shoes and jeans – runnersworld.com

Imagine doing a 100-mile ultramarathon across Mongolia. Now imagine doing it in smart shoes and jeans. Peter Messervy-Gross had packed carefully for his race, selecting the specialist equipment that would help him complete the trek over four days, in temperatures as low as -25 degrees.

However, when he landed in Mongolia, he found that the airline had lost his bags. Rather than turn back and abandon the race he had trained for, Messervy-Gross decided to continue with the race, wearing brogues and jeans.

The 47-year-old father-of-three told The BBC Emma Barnett Show, “it was a somewhat intimidating prospect. The generosity of the people on the trip was just phenomenal. As soon as word got around that my kit really wasn’t turning up, people kept coming up to me and offering various items that they felt they could spare.

“Starting the trip in a pair of dress shoes was suboptimal, to say the least, so I just had to change my mindset. Yeah. You do 25 miles a day for four days and over that time your feet tend to swell up a bit.I literally became too big for my boots, as the saying goes, which caused a bit of rubbing and some blisters.

“That got challenging as the event wore on.”

Messervy-Gross decided to run and walk parts of the race, and has kept the shoes as he’s now “worn them in nicely”.