Kílian Jornet on What We Can Learn From Pushing Our Bodies to Extremes

Summary

Podcast Summary: Kílian Jornet on What We Can Learn From Pushing Our Bodies to Extremes

Podcast: The Interview (The New York Times)
Date: January 17, 2026
Host: Lulu Garcia-Navarro
Guest: Kílian Jornet, professional ultramarathoner and mountaineer

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the world of Kílian Jornet: renowned ultramarathoner, mountaineer, and boundary-pushing athlete. Host Lulu Garcia-Navarro explores not only Jornet's extraordinary physical feats—such as his record-setting ascents and the grueling “States of Elevation” project—but also the deeper mental, emotional, and philosophical lessons he draws from pushing the limits of the human body and mind. Their conversation traverses Jornet’s upbringing, his relationship with risk, the meditation-like state of extreme endurance, coping with loss, and finding meaning (or questioning it) in a life built around such extremes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Connection to Mountains and Nature

• How Jornet Describes What He Does

  • Jornet sees himself fundamentally as someone who explores mountains rather than as a competitor.
  • Quote: “I just love to be in the mountains and… connected with the landscape and the environment. And what I do is just like, to explore them… Running or climbing or biking… are just tools to explore those mountains.” (02:49)

• He sees outdoor movement as a deeply ingrained part of the human experience—a way to keep alive ancestral forms of existence.

• Early Lessons in Nature

  • Growing up in a mountain lodge with a mountain guide father and teacher mother, Jornet learned to be at home in the wild.
  • His parents encouraged comfort and “acceptance” of nature rather than viewing it as something external or adversarial.
  • Anecdote: Night walks in the forest with his mother, learning to use senses beyond sight to connect with nature. (04:51)

2. Innate Drive, Competitive Spirit, and Pushing Limits

• Natural Masochism & Self-Experimentation

  • Jornet describes a childhood and adolescence marked by an unusual love for suffering and endurance (“I loved to suffer… My dream was like an uphill that never ended.”) (06:27)
  • Notable anecdote: In school, he fasted for a week as an experiment in bodily limits—passing out mid-run on the fifth day. (07:18)
  • Quote: "Probably my curiosity went there on trying to explore my body to understand it better." (07:34)

• Extreme Physical Capacity

  • Jornet’s body is built for endurance: light frame, extraordinarily high VO2 max.
  • With experience, he's learned to finely calibrate his sense of physical limits—recognizing that the edge of physiological capability is often less a physical boundary and more a mental one.
  • Example: Surviving an Everest avalanche alone with broken ribs and little food, pushing beyond normal human capabilities due to “finding resources in different ways” under life-threatening conditions. (09:12)

3. Mental States: Fear, Euphoria, Meditation, and Survival Instincts

• Handling Fear and Euphoria

  • Jornet maintains that fear is essential and can keep you alive, but in dangerous moments, he aims for acceptance and calm.
    • “It’s very important to listen to the fear… but when these situations come, I try to be as calm and just like accepting it. All the panic… only makes me take bad decisions.” (10:53)
  • Euphoria is equally dangerous (“as dangerous as the fear”)—it can blind one to risk and lead to fatal mistakes. (10:53)

• Mountains as Meditation

  • Jornet, though not religious, likens high-intensity alpine activity to meditation—extreme focus on the present, intense self-awareness, and detachment from past/future.
  • Quote: “Climbing mountains, it's a sort of meditation… the past and the future don't exist because you need to focus so much on the movement that you are executing that nothing else exists.” (13:12)
  • Compared to Buddhist practices of movement and focus.

• Transcendent/Hallucinatory Experiences

  • Describes prolonged déjà vu and hallucinations at high altitude (“I had a vision of a second person… I knew that it was an hallucination. But I somehow needed to save this person. [It] somehow… kept me alive.”) (14:23)

4. The States of Elevation Project—Adaptation and Endurance

• Feats of Endurance

  • In fall 2025, Jornet climbed 72 of the highest peaks in the western U.S. over a month, biking 2,400+ miles between them (“basically… ran a marathon and rode a stage of the Tour de France every day for a month”) (17:48)
  • Reports the body slowly adapts to extreme exertion: after initial suffering, “my body stopped to fight those things and started to adapt… That’s the new normality.” (18:12)
  • Consumed ~9,000 calories daily, at times drinking olive oil mixed with water to keep up with caloric needs. (20:27)

• On Physical Sacrifice and Adaptation

  • Jornet dismisses the notion of sacrifice: hunger and fatigue recalibrate desires and priorities.
  • Reflects on how the human body adapts to repeated stress (“if we are never hungry, if we are never tired… the body will not develop the capabilities to fight those things.”) (19:25)

5. Social Aspects: Companionship and Community

• Shared summits during the project brought deeper connections—climbing with locals who love their “home” mountains brought richer perspectives.
• Quote: “To be able to share those mountains with people that have the same connection, you really feel the love, they carry it inside themselves, that knowledge of place.” (21:59)

6. Risk, Death, and Grief

• Risk Tolerance and Mortality

  • Jornet acknowledges high risk tolerance and strives for rational, analytical decision-making, but recognizes luck’s role in survival.

  • After the death of his friend Stefan Brossa (who fell in front of him during a climb), Jornet processed grief not by withdrawing, but by increasing risk-taking to see “if it was me that was meant to die in the mountain that day.” (25:13)

  • Over time, the reality of death—both normalized and feared—has shifted his sense of responsibility, especially after becoming a father. (28:59)

  • On fear of death: “I'm not afraid of the feeling of dying, but I'm most afraid… of my kids losing a father.” (28:59)

7. Family Life, Fatherhood, and Changing Priorities

• Raising his children to be competent and comfortable in nature, focusing on connection—kids can already identify local berries and mushrooms. (30:37)
• Home life with another elite athlete (his wife) is strictly egalitarian, with shared parenting and training responsibilities. (34:10)

8. Questioning the Purpose and Value of Extreme Sport

• A pivotal moment: abandoning a planned Everest summit after the 2015 Nepal earthquake to help with relief. Sport then “felt dirty” and selfish compared to genuine helping and giving to others. (38:51)
  • Quote: “When you are helping others that are in need, it’s about giving, and sport, mostly, is about taking.” (32:01, 39:25)
  • Jornet is clear-eyed about the selfishness at the core of elite sport, even as he sees broader social and mental-health benefits.

9. Aging, Acceptance, and Indulgence

• Expects to find meaning in slower, less extreme activity as he ages—admiring elderly friends who simply keep moving.
• Detachment from conventional forms of indulgence (restaurants, socializing) is not self-denial but clarity about personal preference: “I really do what I want to do and try to not fit onto what people expect me to do.” (42:40)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On pushing the body:
  “My dream was like an uphill that never ended. I just wanted to be climbing on my bike or running in an uphill forever.” (06:27)

• On suffering and curiosity:
  “Probably my curiosity went… on trying to explore my body to understand it better.” (07:34)

• On survival and mental limits:
  “The limit is something we don’t want to reach because it’s probably death after that. And it’s a very fine line.” (09:12)

• On fear and euphoria in the mountains:
  “It’s very important to listen to the fear… Euphoria… is as dangerous as the fear, I would say, because then you are kind of blind.” (10:53)

• On mountaineering as meditation:
  “Climbing mountains, it’s a sort of meditation… you need to focus so much on the movement that you are executing that nothing else exists.” (13:12)

• On collective grief and risk:
  “Somehow after a moment it felt that you get kind of used to death and you… normalize it in a way that it’s… not… sane because it’s just something that you really accept at some point.” (36:27)

• On the selfishness of extreme sport:
  “When you are helping others… it’s about giving, and sport, mostly it’s about taking.” (32:01; 39:25)

• On indulgence and authenticity:
  “Today I was going to ski in the powder and that’s pleasure. Now I’m in a point of my life that I really do what I want to do and try to not fit onto what people expect me to do.” (42:40)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 2:49 – Jornet on his basic motivations and relationship to the mountains
• 4:51 – Lessons from his parents in being at home in nature
• 6:27 – The innate drive for pain and endurance
• 7:18–7:34 – Fasting experiment in youth and self-curiosity
• 9:12–10:41 – Knowing one’s limits, mental resources in survival situations, Everest story
• 10:53–12:49 – Fear, euphoria, and emotional risk on summits
• 13:12 – Mountain movement as meditative state
• 14:23–15:51 – Hallucinations and transcendence at altitude
• 18:12–20:27 – Adaptation during the “States of Elevation” project
• 23:58–25:13 – Grappling with risk, recounting a friend’s death
• 28:59 – Shifting fear of death after fatherhood
• 30:37 – Raising children in nature
• 32:01, 39:25 – “Helping is giving, sport is about taking”—on the selfishness of competition
• 42:40 – What indulgence and pleasure mean to Jornet

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Takeaways & Final Thoughts

Kílian Jornet’s extraordinary achievements are matched by his thoughtful reflections on the human condition. Whether he’s pushing through unimaginable physical suffering, navigating the razor’s edge of risk in pursuit of connection and flow, or questioning the very purpose of athletic accomplishment, Jornet’s perspective is remarkably grounded. His humility and constant reevaluation of his motives—especially when confronted with mortality, altruism, and his responsibilities as a father—offer profound insights into the psychological and spiritual dimensions of endurance and exploration.

Listeners are left with a sense of both the possibility and the peril of extremity: the sublime states of connection, clarity, and transformation that come on the edge, but also the ever-present shadow of loss and self-questioning that must be faced.

Transcript

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Nobody would ever think that people like us would be spies. Streaming on Peacock. The one thing the Russians would never do is bring on a woman.

[Kilian Jornet]

Most people are not cut out for it. But these women are not most people.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

That is terrifying. It's exciting.

[Kilian Jornet]

It means we're alive.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

No, it means we're about to be dead. Starring Amelia Clarke and Haley Lou Richardson.

[Kilian Jornet]

To the kgb, I'm a person of interest. But you two are ponies. Ponies.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Persons of no interest.

[Kilian Jornet]

Ponies.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Streaming now only on Peacock. From the New York Times, this is the interview. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro. Imagine yourself on an isolated mountain pass. The wind is whipping. The air is thin. There's nothing around you except the sky and the sound of your feet hitting the craggy ground. Many of us have experienced the wonder and exertion that comes with being in the world's wild spaces. But for Killian Jornet, it is much more, much more than that. Jornette is a professional ultra marathoner whose life's work is to literally run up mountains. But even in that world of elite athletes, he is exceptional. He holds the fastest known time for scaling Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, to name just a few. He's gone up Everest twice in the space of a week, and he did it with no supplementary oxygen and without support. His physical stamina has been studied by researchers, and he's pushed the limits of what is considered physically possible. And then, just last fall, he completed his most radical adventure, which he called states of elevation. He climbed 72 of the highest peaks in the western United States over the course of just a month. And for good measure, he also cycled between all of them a ride totaling over 2,400 miles. I mean, I'm exhausted just imagining it. But as I discovered in our conversation, he also. He also is a deep thinker who has important lessons to impart about what our bodies and minds are capable of when we push them to extremes and the joy and danger that effort can bring. Here's my interview with Spanish ultra marathoner Killian Tournette. Killian. You know, I am not a athlete, certainly not an elite athlete. And I find what you do so incredibly unusual. When you tell people what you do, how do you describe it?

[Kilian Jornet]

I always said that I. I just love to be in the mountains and, like, it's where I feel home, and it's where I feel, like, connected with. With the landscape and the environment. And what I do is just like, to. To explore them. And I think, like, running or climbing or like, biking or. It just Tools to explore those mountains. And as humans, like, we are made to walk and to run and to do that for hours. That's what we did, like for thousands of years, like just hunting. And now we don't need to do it. So we find the sport, like, as the excuse to continue moving our body. But really for me, just like to be out as long as I can in the mountains.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

You've written in your book that what made me fall in love with traversing mountains at high speed is the feeling it gives me of being naked and inconsequential, unrestrained. It brings me freedom and connection. What are you connecting with?

[Kilian Jornet]

I think in the first essence, it's to connect with oneself. We, we live in a society that we are over connected with so many things. And like we are every day getting like every second, like we are getting information like in social media, on the news, on, on everything of things that they are very far away and we don't find the. Often the time to connect with ourselves, with our body, with our mind and with our. Yeah, the people that we love. So often when I go to run in the mountains is to find this connection and it's through this connection with the landscape that we find ourselves. Hmm.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

You've been connected to the mountains since you were a child. You grew up in a mountain lodge in the Pyrenees. Your father was a mountain guide, your mother was a teacher. What did your parents teach you about how to be in nature?

[Kilian Jornet]

What's funny is that both my parents, they were really far away from competition. Like they had the background of classical mountaineering and it was never about like competing and winning, but it was always about exploring. I remember when we were kids, often, like before going to bed, we were going out to the forest with my mother and we were going out for a few minutes and then we were closing our lights, our headlamps, and then we were like getting back to the cut to the lodge. At the beginning we were very scared, like me and my sister, like, okay, we don't have any light, how we will find our lodge. And my mother was there, like saying, no, just like listen to see the nature through other senses, like with the wind, with the sounds, and we get more comfortable there. So what they probably teach us was to, to accept the environment, to accept, to be there. Like, it's often we see nature like something that is external and we go there to visit and to take pictures and say, wow, that's wonderful. And then we go back to our safe place that it's like cities and urbanizations and probably what they teach us. It was just to feel calm there, to feel comfortable, because at the end, it's just like other creatures like us that are living there.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Even though your parents didn't instill that competitive drive in you, you seem to have had it innately. You've said that as a teenager you discovered you had masochistic tendencies.

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, like, I was very competitive since a child. Like, I loved to suffer. Like, I was really, like, loving. Like, just to get out and push my body and. And it's not many kids that like to do that. Especially, like as teenager, I love to go out and cycle for six, seven hours. And my dream was like an uphill that never ended. I just wanted to be climbing on my bike or running in an uphill forever. And so I was going with grownups. Like all my friends doing that were like in their 30s or 40s, because it's what not many kids like it to. To go and do that. And I remember many days I was going to school running, and it was like 16 miles one way. And yeah, I think I just loved that feeling of pushing the body.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Yeah. I read a story that when you were in school to test your body, you stopped eating for an entire week, only drinking water. And then five days into the experiment, you passed out mid run. Where does that impulse come from?

[Kilian Jornet]

I think it's our nature to explore. We explore landscapes. It's also about exploring ourselves. And probably my curiosity went there on trying to explore my body to understand it better, to understand how this physiology works and that I did it at university. I remember, well, like, I was just telling a friend, like, okay, you take all my food from my dorm, and if I don't pass out, don't give me anything, even if I really beg you. And yeah, for four or five days, I was just training normally. And after that I passed out. And it was like.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Did your roommate tell you you were insane?

[Kilian Jornet]

Well, he know me well, so he was like, okay, whatever. Just like, yeah, do your things. But yeah, I think that curiosity has been always there.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Let's talk about your body, because that is the thing that makes all of this possible. I just want to give a few statistics. Every year you put in over a thousand hours of training. You climb over a million vertical feet. But you're also starting with some real physical advantages. Like, you know, your body, it's small, it's very light. You have this incredibly high VO2 max, which is a key indicator of aerobic endurance. And in fact, yours is one of the highest ever Recorded. How do you know how far you can push yourself? I mean, how calibrated are you to what your limits are?

[Kilian Jornet]

I think physically, with experience, you get to know your body pretty well. That's very connected with the mind too. And there is where it gets tricky. Like I was two years ago in expedition in Everest in Himalaya. I was climbing. Not the normal route, a different route. I was alone and at 8200 meters I got hit by an avalanche and I broke some ribs. I had a long way down. I had more than 15 hours to get down from that point. It was not good weather. I had not been eating for, I don't know, 15 hours and I was completely alone. And if you look to the physiology, it's like, okay, normally you need carbohydrates to be able to sprint or to get the energy at that level, but somehow you find resources in different ways. How a parent can lift so much heavier weight than he or she would thought if their child is in danger. How in life threatening situations, we are able to develop strength or endurance in a way that we are not thinking of being capable. The limit is something we don't want to reach because it's probably death after that. And it's a very fine line.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Killian, can I just note that you have told me a terrifying story. Were you scared?

[Kilian Jornet]

I wasn't scared. I was alert. I would say, and. I think it's important to be afraid. Many times then I say, okay, it's the conditions, they don't look right or I don't feel ready for that. And I, I turn around. I think it's very important to listen to the fear. But when these situations come, like, I try to be as calm and just like accepting it, of course, like, it's a lot of adrenaline and it's a lot of tension going on. But to leave all the, all the panic because that's only like making me take bad decisions. And the same comes from euphoria. Another time I was going up to a summit and I was climbing and I was feeling like super strong and super good. And I was like doing things that technically were at my limit and I was surpassing all the dangers. And I came to the summit and I felt like superhuman. I felt like, wow, I feel incredible. I feel that I can do anything. And the euphoria was there and therefore is as dangerous as the fear, I would say, because then you are kind of blind and it's important to like. It's very anticlimactic, I think, like mountaineering, because you are doing something that. It's very extreme on the emotional side because you are, like, sometimes, like, very close to death. You climb a summit and you just want to be there, like, super excited. And your reason is saying, just breathe and be calm and not think that you are strong. Just, like, be reasonable. So it's. Yeah, probably. It's kind of the. One of the most exciting sports that exists because you are able to live and to view so many exciting things at the same time. It's very anticlimactic because you are not able to enjoy it at that point. You enjoy back home when it's already passed.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

That's fascinating. Are you religious, if you don't mind my asking?

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, no, I'm not religious because it.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Sounds very Buddhist in a way. I mean, it's sort of like meditation where you're taught to watch your emotions, watch the pain in your body, but look at it at a distance and not let it overtake you.

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, exactly. And I think, like, I'm not a religious person, but I would say the climbing mountains, it's a sort of meditation on that aspect that you are often very present on the moment, like on thinking. Okay, there you cannot think. It's. It's really like you are focusing on the present and. And it's moments where, like, the past and the future don't exist because you need to focus so much on. On the movement that you are executing that nothing else exists and. And that sort of meditation. And. Yeah, I always joke that I'm not a smart person. I cannot do meditation like, normally. I need to climb mountains and expose myself to find the same peace that you can do. Probably just sitting and meditating.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Have you been to Tibet ever?

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, I have been to Tibet because.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

I spent a long time in Tibet. And you know that their religious practice is actually movement. You know, they do circumambulations of holy sites, Mount Kailash, others, and it is that exact practice of movement and focus to actually reach a state of enlightenment, if you will.

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, exactly. Like sport, intensive sport. It's kind of the same. And I mean, it's some things that you can't explain, like, rationally. And I. I remember, like, when I was crossing in the Pyrenees and in the Alps in the last years, I. I had a lot of episodes of deja vu and deja vu that they lasted for a very long time. And I remember, like, one time climbing in Himalayas also. Like, I. I was completely without any nutrition at. I had not been drinking or eating anything for more than 30 hours. And I was at 8200 meters. I was in the middle of a storm and I was hallucinating. I had a vision of a second person that it was following me and I couldn't see what was this person. And I knew that it was an hallucination. But I somehow needed to save this person. I felt very responsible of this person. I'm happy that I had this hallucination because somehow, like having the responsibility to save this person, I didn't give up. And I survived that day that if not probably I would be dead in the mountain. So sometimes it feels that it's our unconsciousness, that it's finding tools to keep us moving, to keep us alive.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Some people would say it was a miracle.

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, you could say it's a miracle. You could say that it just. That when your rational is not working anymore, that your unconsciousness is taking over and acting for you. So you can call it like, whatever, but then it's some ways that we have to keep going and that normally in our daily life we are not able to activate.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

What are you thinking about when you're putting one foot in front of the other and you're in these wild spaces? What is on your mind?

[Kilian Jornet]

I mean, if it's a very, very demanding or very technical route, then it's really like you are just thinking about the next movement. And it's just like, if I go this direction or this direction, if I do this move that way, if I. And what's the danger in the next two steps? So it's not really any deep thoughts, but then it's like, I would say most of the time it just like enjoying it. And I was doing like the past September, a long project here in the US like from Colorado to Washington.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

States of elevation.

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, exactly. Like I was biking and running and mostly on all these national parks. Like it's so wild in nature and it wasn't technically demanding, so I could like really enjoy the landscapes and just like arriving to a summit and seeing the nice sunrise and the shape of the mountains and having an encounter with an elk or any wildlife, like goats in the summits, and it's just like having those encounters and being amazed. I mean, every day, like I go up and I look around and it's like, that's beautiful.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

It's funny that you said it's not technically demanding. Let me just describe what you just did. This fall, in just over a month, you ran up 72 of the tallest peaks in the Lower 48. If that wasn't enough, you Biked between them. Basically, as one newspaper described it, you ran a marathon and rode a stage of the Tour de France every single day for a month. That wasn't demanding.

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, it was very physically demanding. Like, I mean, like it was very demanding for the body, but technically, like it was not dangerous and it was not technical climbing with the skills that I believe I have. But physically it was very challenging, mostly because it was so big. And sometimes in this journey I was for more than almost 60 hours without passing any village. So then you need to carry a lot of things and that's, that's very physical demand. Like the first week I was feeling horrible. Like it was the altitude plus the dry air plus the physical effort that I was doing for more than 20 hours every day. Like, I just, I was on my edge and then suddenly I really felt that my body stopped to fight those things and started to adapt. And I. I don't know how to describe it, but I really had this feeling of like my body opening up and. And accepting what I was putting on it. And at the end of the trip, like I could continue for another month, my body was feeling. That's the new normality of this guy. So it find the ways to change the physiology to adapt to this effort.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

How are you sleeping?

[Kilian Jornet]

Well, I have three kids. They are very young, so actually we're joking with my wife. Like you are taking a vacation there? I think I average like sleeping four to five hours per night, which is the same I do home now with the kids. Probably that's something that I'm lucky that I don't need much sleep to recover. Like normally. My average over the year is around six hours of sleep per night. Six, 6:20. So I'm not a great sleeper. We often think that we need to treat the body well, but sometimes, like if we try to protect our body at every cost, if we are never thirsty, if we are never hungry, if we are never tired, if we are never stressed about something, the body will not develop the capabilities to fight those things. And I think it's because I had been exposed very often to these things since I was a kid that I have been developing the capacities to adapt.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Before I go on, I want to note that I read that you drink olive oil while you're in the mountains so you don't lose weight burning so many calories. I mean, that sounds pretty gross. I'm not going to lie.

[Kilian Jornet]

I merged it with water. It was not like pure olive oil. Drinking that, it was just a bit of olive oil on the Water.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Do you think of it as a sacrifice when you have to ingest that kind of stuff just to keep your physical self going?

[Kilian Jornet]

Well, like, I don't know if it was a sacrifice. Like, you're very hungry also. Like, I mean, like after 20 hours running, like, you can eat everything. Like, it's. It doesn't matter. I. I mean, like, at some point, like, your body feel that it needs calories. And I was like using around like 9, 000 calories per day. So that's a lot of calories that I need to eat, like, to. To not lose capabilities like day after day. So of course you want a very nice meal, but at some point you don't care at all. It's just like, okay, I just want to eat.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

One of the things that happened during the states of elevation is that different athletes joined you along the way, and one of them described you as full of peace. And we sort of talked about the meditative parts of what you do. What is it like doing that alongside other people?

[Kilian Jornet]

I think especially in this project, it was incredible to share with people that they are from these places. I had, like, I think on the project, like half of the summits I did alone and half with people. And they are very different experiences. But doing it with people from there, you get a much deeper connection with those places and those landscapes. And the funny thing, it was like I was doing the first summit long speak in Colorado with Kyle. He's from Boulder. He has the. The fastest known time to climb long speed. He's been spending like years and years on that mountain and climbing with him. Like, he was like, just telling me everything about the mountain, everything about the possibilities, saying this is the most beautiful mountain on earth, like, because you can do that and that and that and see the rock. Everybody had this deep connection with those landscapes. And if you ask me, like, the most beautiful mountains on earth are the ones I see from my house because I develop a relation with them and I feel connected with them because I can play much more on them because I have a more deeper knowledge. So to be able to share those mountains with people that have the same connection, you really feel the love, they.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Carry it inside of themselves, that knowledge of place.

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, exactly.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Another endurance athlete who has been in the mountains with you wrote that it's frankly not a great idea to rely on his, meaning your judgment if you want to have a safe and fun time in the mountains. And I think he was talking about risk tolerance. How do you think about the risks you're willing to Take in the context of knowing your limits, understanding your body, understanding your own mental strength and training, and the risks that you're not willing to take.

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, I think it's. That's one that I'm still trying to figure out because I know that my risk tolerance is high. It's something that I'm aware and it's something that I try to be very analytical when I'm in the mountain, to try to analyze well, the situation and to know not what I'm good at, but what I'm not good at. To see if I'm capable of doing something or not and to turn around. But sometimes it has been happening that I have been just continuing in situations where I knew that I was rationally not comfortable with it, but somehow I fell okay with it. And it's something that I. Yeah, I don't want to experience much more because I know that in mountains, like, a big part of surviving is luck, but you cannot be relying on that all the time.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

I can hear you grappling with this. And I mean, people have died doing what you do, and people close to you have died doing it. In fact, your friend Stefan Brossa died right in front of you in 2012. Can you recount what happened there?

[Kilian Jornet]

We were in Mont Blanc area in the Alps, and Stefan was first on an idol. When I started ski mountaineering, he was winning all the races. It was something that I look up to. And then he became a friend. We were living nearby, so we started to do some projects together. And we had this project of crossing the Mont Blanc range, like in one push in skis. And we were like in the before last summit, so we were almost finishing and it was like we were happy. We were like, just in the summit, like, enjoying and like it was some birds that they were flaying around and we were just like. I remember, like, we were like smiling and laughing about where we were and how fun it was. And we were walking on that ridge and we didn't notice that we were walking on a cornice. So it's this snow that with the wind, it forms in the ridges. And because the wind is strong, the snow is compact, but it's not holding into the rock. So we were walking there and the snow break in between our feet. So he fell like 600 meters and I was in the other side and. And I stayed on, on the snow. And for me, it was kind of, yeah, the first time. Like, I grew up in a. In a family of mountaineers, so I. I knew about the risk. I knew about what death is, but not until that point that it really happened close to me. I really understand that. Yeah, that's something that is real and that it's happening and it's happening here. And at that point, I was, like, 20 years old. He was 40 years old with a family. And I felt like it would be so much easier if I died instead of him because, yeah, my parents would be sad, but I didn't have that many connections. I mean, like. So I. Yeah, it took me a time to accept that, and probably the years after, I was taking too much risks in the mountain just to try to see if it was a mistake that he was dying instead of me.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

What do you mean? Can we just stop here? Because it's interesting to me that you didn't deal with that death by taking a step back. You actually pushed yourself harder. Why?

[Kilian Jornet]

I don't know. I think it's like, probably for me, it was more like to try to see if it was a mistake that. I mean, if it was me that was mean to die in the mountain that day. And he was just in the wrong side of the ridge. And somehow, like, mountains is the place where I felt connected, where he felt connected to. So it's not a place that I would abandon because it's dangerous. It's just. I think I was just dealing, like, the grief. And I was young, and at the same period, I was racing, and after every race, I was going to the party of the race and drinking a lot of alcohol, and I don't like alcohol. I don't like the flavor. I have never drink. And for a couple of years, I was just getting drunk a few times a year after the races, and it was just ways to try to escape and to deal with the grieving.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

We've talked about controlling fear, but I do wonder, after that experience, are you afraid to die?

[Kilian Jornet]

I think I'm more afraid to die now with kids if something happens. I remember last year, I was doing this crossing in the Alps, and one day it was just. Yeah, the mountain was, like, falling apart. Like, it was with the melting of permafrost. The mountains are just collapsing a lot in the Alps. So it's big blocks of rocks, like size of a car, that they collapse at some time just because the ice is melting inside the rocks. And I was doing this crossing, and for many hours I was exposed to those things. Some rows were falling very close to me, and. And I ended up that day, and I was feeling, why I'm so stupid, like, why I didn't Turn around at the first point where I saw that that was going to happen and I was like feeling I, I really want to like it's not just to want to see my kids growing up but I like see them and just like for them to have a father. So I know that the activity that I'm doing, the activity like my wife is also doing mountaineering. So it's activities that we do that they have the risks. And yeah, I'm not afraid of the feeling of dying, but I'm most afraid of that, of my kids losing a father. I don't know if it makes sense but it's more, it does like that what I feel.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Since you mentioned your children and we talked about how you were raised, how are you raising your kids?

[Kilian Jornet]

Well, we are lucky. We live in a, in a nice place. They can go outdoors, they can play outside, they can do things and that's something that we want them to appreciate. We do hikes every like every day, every holidays, every weekend we are going to the forest or to climb a summit or to do long hikes. So they can walk a lot, they can do a lot of activity but mostly it's just like this appreciation for nature. And they are like six and four years old and the youngest is seven months. But the six years old and the four years old they can name all the berries. We can go to the forest and they pick the berries and say no, this one we can eat, this one we cannot. We can tell them can you go and grab some mangold or some rucula or some mushrooms out in the garden or in the forest and they can go out and identify the species and things. So I think that's what we are trying to do that they feel that connection with the landscape where we are living.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Kili and Jornay, thank you so much. Will speak again.

[Kilian Jornet]

Thank you very much.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

After the break Cillian and I speak again and we talk about his doubts about the purpose of what he does.

[Kilian Jornet]

When you are helping others that are in need, it's about giving and sport. Mostly it's about taking.

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[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

And unlimited welcome.

[Kilian Jornet]

Hi Lulu, how are you doing?

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

What's the weather?

[Kilian Jornet]

So actually it's pretty nice weather. It's been snowing. Like we have like a foot of snow in the backyard. I just came back actually now from skiing. We can start skiing from our place, from our home. So I was doing two hours of ski touring and then this morning it was my wife that was skiing and I was with the baby. So yeah, we were switching roles to go training and, and having the kids and yeah, I was enjoying a lot the powder today.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

I'm glad you mentioned your home life. Your wife is also a professional ultra runner, right?

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, she is.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

How do you divide up the responsibilities at home with two sort of top tier athletes having to go out and train and figure out your day?

[Kilian Jornet]

I'm lucky that we are in a part of the world where the culture is very equal. On that I would say that we spend half of the time each with the kids and the babies and it's the norm here with how society is structured. So we train most of the time from Monday to Friday when the kids are in school or kindergarten. And then the weekends we train much less. We just go to do activities out with them and then we do one session each either early in the morning or in the evening when they are sleeping.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

I mean, it sounds very equitable.

[Kilian Jornet]

Well, yeah, I think it should be like that. And it's also like for the last two years I have been doing projects and racing and my wife have not. Mostly because it was first like the pregnancy and then just a month after giving birth that she couldn't compete. So I would say now it's time for her to do the things that she wants on a sport and I need to my goals in this next year.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

I mean, I'm curious about this because we've talked a little bit about how dangerous your job is and how being a dad has made you think about that more. Is there anything now that you've decided not to do because it's too risky?

[Kilian Jornet]

Hmm. I not really like it's. I think I have always been kind of trying to analyze pretty well what I'm doing and I have been taking risk on my life many times and I would lie if I say that now I'm not taking them. But you are never on a risk zero situation.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Yeah, I mean, because I used to be a war correspondent, but after I had my daughter I started to think more about the dangers of that job and I just didn't feel like my own head was in the right place to be able to do it anymore, you know?

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah. No, and for me, I don't think it hasn't been when the kids came. I think it has been like with age too and like with experience. And I don't know, I think the arrival of the kids didn't affect data, but I think more the lose of friends, like over time. Like it's something that. I don't know how it's in the wars and that, but somehow after a moment it felt that you get kind of used to death and you get same. Yeah. That it's. Yeah. People dies and you normalize it and you normalize it in a way that it's. I wouldn't say it's sane because it's just something that you really accept at some point that it don't surprise you. I mean, it's just right.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

It's just part of what you do.

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, exactly. And it's the point that you say, okay, I normalize that and it shouldn't be normalized. Maybe it's a time to take a break and stay like a few months or a year in activities that they have not these high risk. Because I think that your attention level, it goes down because you get more and more comfortable and then it's when you can make more mistakes too.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Does it feel like culture shock when you come home, having to take care of the kids, having to spend your weekends, you know, changing diapers?

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's the least. I think, like, I think the time with the kids and these like routines is something that I really, really love. But it's. I think it's coming down from like something that it's very simple, life. You are like focusing on one activity and it's tiring and it's difficult and it's stressful, whatever, but it's somehow simple. So you come from this kind of environment to something that it's much more complex on the things that happening. But also the consequence is much lower. Like going to supermarket is like, okay, should I choose pasta or rice? Or I'm going to having a meeting. And if I say that or that it's not that you are going to die. So the consequences of the actions are much less. And I think probably this rush of adrenaline, you are missing them, like this consequence of what you are doing. And I think that's the hardest to come down from.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

I mean, I think this is related. I am curious about how you think about the value of what you do, because in the spring of 2015, you were in Nepal and. And two days away from starting an attempt of Everest when there was a devastating earthquake, you immediately abandoned your plans for the summit and you instead threw yourself into the relief efforts for weeks and weeks. And you said competition at that point felt dirty. Can you explain what you were feeling then and maybe how it's changed your view on things?

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, I think like racing, competing, it's, it has a. Like, it's the ego, drive and activity while like when you are helping others that they are in, in need, it's most of the time it's because like it's, it's natural, it's human like you are. You see someone in difficulties, you try to help them. So it's, it's about giving and sport. Mostly it's about taking.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Does it feel selfish to you?

[Kilian Jornet]

Yeah, it is selfish and I think it have a meaning to society and I understand that the health and mental health role of a sport, it's clear. But I think for most of the athletes, and for me too, it's something that it's secondary that it comes with. It's not something that mostly we do that because itself is because we want to, to perform one to win one to progress. That, that don't mean that it's something that is harmful, but it's not something that it's directly helping others.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Have you thought about what happens when you get too old to be an ultra athlete?

[Kilian Jornet]

Well, like yeah, it's, I think like I've seen like for example, like my mother, she's always been very active and she's never been competing but she's very competitive with herself and she had a struggle when she started to get slower and saying oh, now I'm taking longer time to do that or I'm not able to do that anymore. Until she accepted and now she's enjoying a lot like when she goes out in the mountains. So I think it's a bit. It's probably hard at some time when you see that your body is not responding as it years before. But I mean like I, I really admire, like I have these friends that they are 70, 80, 90 years old and they still go out and, and that's like, I mean like it's not about. It's not about performing, it's about like just doing what you can, what you have. And, and I hope that I can accept that. Like I, I think so. I, I think I will be able to just accept that I'm going slower and I enjoy the same. I know that the body don't respond as good. Maybe now it brings Me like a hundred miles far and then it will bring me like 50 miles far and then like 20 miles far. But to be able to enjoy, just to be able to move, I think that's what we need to learn when we grow older.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Cillian, before we end, I have this question. Reading about your life and listening to you and it made me wonder about indulgence. You know, for me, sort of part of the joy of life is also not doing hard things. But, you know, you've talked about how you've only managed to spend one day on a beach relaxing before having to be on the move again. You know, you've talked about never eating in restaurants when at home you don't really socialize. I mean, what does indulgence look like for you?

[Kilian Jornet]

No, I think it also comes like, with what, what I really like. Like, I mean, like I. I don't go to restaurants, but I don't really enjoy it when I go to restaurants. Like, I'm. It's not what I want. I think some, many things we do it because it's socially like, accepted and it's socially like the norm and, And I think that I. Before I was trying to force more those things, but now I think I'm very. Today I was going to ski in the powder and that's pleasure. Now I'm in a point of my life that I really do what I want to do and try to not fit onto what people expect me to do. Or if I have a gala and a dinner now, I can say no, I really don't want to do that because I enjoy to go early to bed and just wake up early and have a quiet morning and see the sun rise and so many times just like embracing this beauty.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

Thank you so much for talking to me. I appreciate it.

[Kilian Jornet]

Thank you very much.

[Lulu Garcia Navarro]

That's Cillian Jornet. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orme. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Sonia Herrero, original music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker and Marian Lozano. Photography by Devin Yelkin. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Seth Kelly, Paola Neudorf and Brooke Minters. Our executive producer is Alison Benedikt. Also, we have a YouTube channel where you can watch lots of our interviews. [e-mail] the Interview podcast. Next week, David talks to filmmaker Chloe Zhao. I have been terrified of death my whole life. I still am so afraid. And because I've been so afraid, I haven't been able to live fully. I haven't been able to love with my heart open. I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro and this is the interview from the New York Times.

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