For most parents, stepping on a rogue Lego brick could cause unbearable pain, now imagine walking over 10 km of those bricks.

One Cochrane woman is ready to go for a world record by doing just that this Saturday at Brick Fest Live in Calgary.

Shannon Birkmann is no stranger to tough barefoot challenges, as she has been going shoeless for the past 12 years. She has ran half marathons during the winter, walked across Alberta and just returned from a barefoot ride down south.

“I cycled to Mexico in September and when I got back, I was really bored,” she says. “I needed a new challenge. I've walked on broken glass and walked on fire twice. So I was like, what next?”

“I was going to walk on a bed of nails but I didn't know where to find one and then my friends were like, try Lego. So I walked on Lego and I'm like, that’s not so bad.”

The current Guinness World Record is held by Salacnib "Sonny" Molina. He walked over 8.8 km of Lego bricks in Woodstock, Illinois, USA, on 1 May 2021.

Before Birkmann could make the attempt, there was one major hurdle. 

Where do you get 10 km of Lego bricks?

She reached out to the organizers of Brick Fest Live and the convention has actually been the location for previous record attempts and will set up a track for her to do laps around.

She says living a barefoot lifestyle is more than completing challenges for her.

 “I started going barefoot because I was born with scoliosis, so my spine was ‘S’ shaped. Doctors were like, you're gonna need surgery to fix it. I don't want the surgery because it is quite invasive.”

“I'm a little bit stubborn. I'm like, I'll just try to fix it myself, so I did a bunch of muscle and balance training and it was just easier for me to figure out how I'm holding the weight on my feet if I was barefoot. If you're wearing shoes, a lot of the muscles in your feet don't work because the shoes are doing the job. So if those muscles aren't working then your hamstrings and your glutes are out.”

Cochranites can cheer Shannon on this Saturday at Brick Fest Live starting at 10 a.m.