He soon discovered running in the mountains and found it gave him a huge sense of freedom but there was something missing... Or rather something that needed to be lost, his shoes! Aleks realised that running barefoot in these remote and challenging locations added a huge amount more fun to each run, so he lost the shoes and began to do it the 'pure' way. Running Sucks - Story of a Barefoot Runner follows the story of Aleks's running career and why he finds running barefoot such a different experience to running conventially. It was filmed in the build up to a huge trip that Aleks made to run the length of Europe from Norway to Sicily along the E1 trail solo and barefoot.