El Hayani, 27, has been a runner since he was 14 years old. He tried running with shoes at first, but quickly opted to run barefoot; he and his friends always played barefoot in his home country of Spain, and the sensation of his feet confined in shoes wasn’t pleasant to him.
Since then, he’s been running barefoot, even as he’s moved to colder parts of the world. He continued to run barefoot
Even when El Hayani moved to Quebec a few years ago, he continued to run barefoot in the cold. At first, he could run for 10 minutes before it became too cold, but he adapted.