Karl Fitzpatrick’s favourite trainers may be Adidas Adios Pro 4’s, but there’s one particular shoe that holds a special place in his heart. He’s had a love-hate relationship with this shoe since 2022, after his close friend’s dad passed away at Jersey Hospice. Seven days after this phone call, Karl decided to run his first half marathon: “I’m not really a runner,” he said, “so I decided to run 10K Monday night, 10K Tuesday night, 20K on Wednesday night, and then the Hospice Half at the end of the week”. From there he ran the London marathon, before fully embracing his calling: running in the Hospice mascot costume – a giant running shoe.
“It’s quite hot, it’s quite chafe-y and about 7kg when dry and 10kg when wet,” noted Karl, filling me in on the logistics of running in a massive shoe. “I’ve sort of taught myself how to run slightly strangely… it digs into my shoulders and I have to carry it, so you have to run without using your arms.”
“It chafes in places you don’t want to know about,” Karl remarked. “It’s not good.” He added that despite the uncomfortable side effects, “the shoe acts like a little superstar that kids and grannies love. It puts a smile on people’s faces, so it’s worth it.” The struggles of Bodyglide gel and flying to London with an oversized hold bag fade in comparison.
“I was standing at the starting line once, and I could see a poor lady who seemed a bit sad,” Karl recalled, “she had a picture of either a brother or a dad that passed away, and that’s why she was running in London. And then, as she was getting upset, she looked at me in the shoe and the fella next to me who was in a banana, eating a banana, and just instantly started laughing. Moments like that make you realise why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
The shoe has brought a lot of joy to both the spectators and runners of the London marathon, but there’s plenty of people closer to home that have fallen in love with Karl and his shoe. It’s essential for him to train with the shoe before races, to perfect his adapted running technique and learn how to shoulder the extra weight. “If you run 20K in the shoe, it feels like you’ve been run over by a tractor,” he joked, before telling me about a run he’d recently completed around Jersey’s green lanes.
“I ran 17K in the shoe yesterday,” Karl said, adding “Lots of people always stop me to take a selfie, but yesterday I must have stopped about 20 times, chatting to people, taking pictures, telling them about the Hospice. Sometimes people give me cash as I run, and I always try to remember their name so I can thank them on the fundraising page.”
Karl also whips the shoe out for the annual Christmas Day Swim at Greve de Lecq, organised by the St Ouen’s Football Club in support of Jersey Hospice. Each year around a thousand people pile onto the bay, half in the ocean and half on the beach, in honour of one of the Presidents of the club who spent his last days in the Hospice. “I’m the foot soldier,” Karl described, “I don’t swim, but I go around in the shoe costume, making sure everyone’s having a good time and getting donations in. After that I just run around, taking photos with the kids, making sure that everybody has a good start to their Christmas Day.”
When I asked Karl if he’d consider branching out from the shoe into other effective forms of fundraising attire, he joked, “if somebody wants me to, I’d run with my hair pink. I’d carry a fridge if I had to, as long as it’s for Hospice and raising money for a good cause.”
“But at the moment, the shoe is what people recognise me as. There’s a million spectators at the London Marathon, and people like seeing the shoe. They like shouting out the name, and it’s quite a little novelty. It’s a motivation to keep you going, and that sort of gets you over the line as well.”
Profile
Name: Karl Fitzpatrick
Nickname: ‘The Shoe’
Age: 52
Favourite roadside heckles:
“That’s sole destroying,”
“I’d love to run a mile in your shoe,”
“A-Shoe (sneeze),”
“Your lace is undone.”
When not being a shoe I am: Husband to Claire, and Dad to son Harley and dog Rafa. Also enjoys walking, biking, football and golf.
Running shoes recommendation: Adidas Adios Pro 4’s – “it’s like running on marshmallows.”
Shoe height and weight:4 foot, 7kg (10kg when wet)
Total money raised in the shoe: £20,000+
Total miles run in the shoe: 1000+
