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e waves a hand around dismissively, making the unnecessary items sound dull with his expressive Spanish accent, then beams: “Just with crampons, ice axes and things for eat and not be cold.” The world's fastest mountain runner is clearly excited about what he could achieve in the world's highest mountains.
In the past, trail-running heroes were relatively unknown in the wider world; funding was limited to t-shirts and trainers. But in recent years the sport has exploded in popularity, and into the newly-available limelight has jogged Kilian Jornet, the sport's fi rst stand- out sponsored hero. His mountain dreams are funded by Salomon, he's starred in a fi lm about himself, had his memoir translated into several languages and become so famous that, like 'Madonna', he's now just 'Kilian'. Small, dark and good looking, with a shy smile and casual attitude to shattering world records, this 25-year-old Spaniard makes an ideal poster boy. Yet the intriguing thing is his relaxed approach. Kilian sometimes waits for friends to catch up in races, so he can enjoy the mountains with them. He's not showing off, he just fi nds it easy. I ask if he won the fi rst race he ever entered. “For running? No, no,” Jornet says, head on one side, recalling that he was 17, “My friend fell and had a big break, he needed to take the helicopter so I waited with him, then I fi nished second. I think.” During winter, Kilian runs up and down mountains on lightweight skis instead of trainers, and there’s a similar story behind his fi rst adult European Cup ski mountaineering
race. In his new book, Run or Die, Kilian recounts excitedly spotting his idols, the sport’s top players. He then tentatively catches them up –“'What’s happened?' I wondered. 'Why are they waiting for me?’” He went on to overtake them and win. “When I recognised the real competitive situation I was in, I didn’t hesitate for a moment.” A few years later, Kilian quit university to follow his dreams, even though he wasn't sure how he’d make ends meet. “The fi rst year living the life of sport wasn’t working,” he remembers, “I was a lot of months not paying.” Then, aged just 20, he was untouchable in the prestigious Ultra- Trail du Mont Blanc, a brutal 168km mountain race usually won by gnarly veterans. His win made history, headlines and attracted him major sponsorship. Five years on, he's won every trail race on a wish-list he drew up as a teen, ranging from 1km vertical sprints to 260km ultras, and is now seeking new mountain speed challenges.
How does Kilian do it? Jordi, the Spaniard's trainer, says he's blessed with the
“perfect genetic make-up” for mountain running. Kilian is boy-size – just 5'6” and 8 ½ stone – with the sun-burnished and stubbled face of a seasoned mountaineer. He doesn't like the sea (“I swim like a dog and can maybe stay taking the sun on a beach for one minute”) or cities (“Maybe half a day. Chamonix [where he lives] is too big for me”). Mountains are his all-consuming passion. Kilian runs, or skis, around around 30 hours a week in them, 51 weeks a year, travels to a trail race nearly every weekend and can be elusive as a marmot. He likes it that way: enjoys life on the hoof and prefers shadows to limelight. Track him down and get him talking about trails though, and his speech fl ows like a stream,
24 | 70TH ANNIVERSARY | FOR BRITISH CLIMBING AND WALKING SINCE 1944
R Kilian Jornet: up and down Mont Blanc in less than fi ve hours.
PHOTO: SEB MONTAZ.
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