"To do that, you have to be crazy, they tell me. But for me, it's something normal, I grew up like that. I met Sahrawis who said to me: + We live here , we have sandals and it hurts! And you go where it's miserable to pass by car+", tells AFP the one everyone calls Karim, still turned upside down by the cocktail of emotions that surrounds him. went through after his performance.

He achieved what no one had ever imagined to be possible: running barefoot the Marathon des Sables, a five-stage extreme endurance race in Moroccan dunes and on sharp stones.

Leaving on Sunday, the 28-year-old runner completed the first 30 km stage in six hours, an average of 4.70 km / h.

It took him 32 hours to complete the fourth stage of 86 km (2.65 km hourly average) and more than 11 hours for the 5th and last stage on Friday (42 km at 3.71 km / h).

minus 37 degrees

"The most difficult was the fourth stage, it affected me a lot, my soles were painful for several kilometers. But I'm surprised, I have zero blisters on my left foot and no blisters that have exploded on my right foot", notes the Spaniard for whom the most painful thing was... the heat.

"I live in Canada, it's minus 37 degrees. Here it's the opposite!", Says the sportsman, who is not his first feat.

On March 3, 2021, by minus 13 degrees, he set according to the Guinness World Records a new record for a half-marathon (21 km) run barefoot in the snow in 1 hour 36 minutes, 30 minutes better than the previous one. record set in 2007 by Dutchman Wim Hof.

Abdelkarim El Hayani during the 4th stage of the Marathon des Sables in the Moroccan Sahara, March 31, 2022 JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK AFP

"Now Canadians are contacting me, a guy from Tangier, to find out how to train to run barefoot in winter!" He laughs, speaking in French.

"When I arrived in Spain, I was 12 years old, I spoke only Arabic. Today I speak five languages. I was lucky to arrive there (in Spain)".

Karim el Hayani grew up in a poor family with his three sisters and his brother.

He had enough to eat but not much more.

He played football barefoot and watched with curiosity some returning from neighboring Spain with a car and well dressed, he remembers.

"It's possible"

Without telling his parents, he tried several times to cross the border by hiding in a bus, in a boat or in a truck.

He eventually managed to be placed in an orphanage and then in a center.

"I learned to cook and started doing athletics, which got me on the right track in life."

Abdelkarim El Hayani during the 4th stage of the Marathon des Sables in the Moroccan Sahara, March 31, 2022 JEAN-PHILIPPE KSIAZEK AFP / Archives

Spotted during a cross-country race, El Hayani has since never stopped running.

Without running shoes, first in sandals and then barefoot because he feels much better that way.

A specialist in mountain running, he won the Spanish Cup (2013), the ultra-trail Javelina Jundred (100 km) in 2015, the Coldwater Rumble (50 km) in 2017.

One day he decided to leave Spain to learn French in Montreal, then English in Alberta (where he lives today): "I was earning a good living but I couldn't interact with the international athletes I I met, I felt stupid".

His next goal is to be the first barefoot climber of the highest peak in Mexico, Pico de Orizaba (5675m) at the end of the summer.

"I'm telling all this because I want children who leave their country for a better future to see that it's possible," he insists.

© 2022 AFP