Eco-Challenge Fiji: The Shoes That Carried Teams Through the 'World's Toughest Race'

We queried a few prominent teams that raced ‘The World’s Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge,’ the expedition adventure held in Fiji. Here’s what the racers said about their gear.

“The jungle is trying to eat you. You’re going to be wet and cold.” Racing in the Eco-Challenge is no walk in the park. And to keep you and your team afloat, it requires a lot of gear.

Unlike expedition races of the past, this year’s Eco-Challenge race made things more egalitarian by providing each team with a gear stipend. That means there was no need for teams to self-fund or rely on sponsors for equipment. That expense often presents an insurmountable hurdle and — along with travel and entry fees — has become an Achilles heel for the sport.

Never heard of the race series? Here’s what you need to know. In Eco-Challenge, teams race nonstop: navigating together on foot, mountain bike, raft, outrigger, and canyoneering and climbing to cover more than 417 miles of terrain and sea. You can see the teams put their gear to the test on Amazon Prime Video in the 10-episode series.

In this second installment of our Eco-Challenge gear stories, we asked four team members about their footwear. If you aren’t familiar with the Eco-Challenge teams, consider reading their bios here first. Or read our first Eco-Challenge gear story here.

Read on for first-person assessments about adventure racing footwear from the teams that competed in the race.

Josiah Middaugh, Eco-Challenge Team Out There

We swapped out shoes regularly, but we all used Salomon shoes with some custom drain holes. Most of the time, I was in the Salomon S/Lab Ultra 2, sometimes in the S/Lab Amphib 2, and I also used HOKA ONE ONE X XTERRA Torrent.

Our feet were wet all the time, but you didn’t want anything like GORE-TEX because that would just trap moisture in. We also took our shoes off any chance we could in a boat or on a SUP. It would have also been good to test some different types of rubber on the river rocks since river tromping for hours and hours was an issue.

We ran intermittently, but in an expedition race that is over a week long, it’s important to limit the amount of running. The terrain in Fiji was extreme — sometimes the only route was actually in a river. This meant hopping slippery rocks and wading and swimming through deeper sections, sometimes at night.

The alternative was literally bushwhacking a trail through the bamboo with a machete. At times, we were going as slow as 1 km per hour.