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

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.

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)

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)

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

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.