Run or Die

by Kilian, Jornet

  From the day we first met, Jordi has always said that I have a gift for this sport, that my genetic makeup is perfect. But I’ve always been reserved and was never convinced that was true. I can remember the first ski event I won in an adult category. I was in my last year as a junior, and to reward my good results, the International Ski Federation took me to the European Cup. My eyes lit up when I saw that my idols—Florent, Manfred, Dennis—were there, and I could hardly believe it when I lined up next to them at the start.

  The race started off at a very fast pace, and I was immediately left in no-man’s-land between the trio of favorites who were 40 or 50 seconds in front and the group in pursuit that was a minute behind me. All of sudden, on the last climb, I joined the leading trio. What’s happened? Why have they stopped? I wondered. Why are they waiting for me? I couldn’t grasp the fact that I had caught up with them. I was completely at a loss for a few minutes. How could I possibly be with them? My body was numb. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was now running alongside my idols, the real people in those photos that filled my walls. When my mind started to function properly and I recognized the real competitive situation I was in, I didn’t hesitate for a moment: I overtook them and went on the attack with all the energy I could muster. I continued to wonder, Why don’t they come after me? Why do they lag behind me? I couldn’t understand, but I pressed on to the finish line, where I hugged the team selector, crying and jumping for joy, unable to believe that I had beaten Florent, the best Swiss runner, whom I partnered with years later in various races and who became the closest of friends.

  However, as Picasso said, inspiration exists, but you have to work at it. Jordi and Maite always told me that talent and genetic makeup are useless without hard work. We must work constantly throughout our sporting lives, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. No holidays or days of rest. It is the labor of an artisan, where artist and work are one and the same. It is work morning and afternoon, on leisure days, in good weather, and on trips to discover new valleys or to share training with friends. But there are also many days when the weather is bad, when you run in heavy rain, when it is cold or muddy, when your body is tired and you just want to stay in bed. When you get up and feel like staying warm inside, watching a movie and drinking tea, but you must go out and battle against wind and water. There are also many days of solitude, of more of the same, with only your iPod and a few wild animals that watch you from their dens for company as you run uphill and down.

  We have been running in single file for some time, and no one wants to go on the attack. Tarcis takes the initiative and is leading the group at a very fast pace. I have positioned myself immediately behind him in order to react as quickly as I can if he decides to make a move. I have two cards to play: the first is to attack down the side where there are huge boulders and, using my technique, fire off 3 miles from the finish line, which would give me some margin to play with. The second is to start my attack later, on the last downhill slope, just under 2 miles from the line. While I’m thinking about what might be the best strategy, Tarcis starts accelerating, making it increasingly hard to keep up the pace, and we start to fall a few yards behind. He speeds up and looks to be making his definitive spurt. He is leaving Robert and César behind. Perhaps now is the time for me to attack…. I look behind. They look as if they have accepted defeat. I am just about to change pace in order to pass Tarcis when he falls down in front of me. He had been taking too many chances on the descent, and his legs failed to keep up with his brain. I brake abruptly, look down, and give him my hand.

  “Are you all right? Have you hurt yourself?” I ask.

  “Shit! I’m fine, I’m fine,” replies Tarcis, getting up.

  As he does so, I hear those chasing us make a spurt. My first strategy is in tatters. I will have to wait for another opportunity to go on the attack. In the meantime, the four of us run together. I have few options left. We will reach the finish in just over 12 minutes, and though I am a runner who likes to control a race from the front and wait for the right moment to attack, I prefer to do that well before the finish in order to have more than one option if my opponents attack again. Now I will have to lay everything on a single card, and it will have to be the right one.

  I feel Robert putting the pressure on behind me. I can feel his desire to overtake me. He has the strength to do so, and I don’t have what I need to make a spurt myself. I must wait for the signal, for intuition to tell me now is the time and for my strength to flow back all at once.

  Robert accelerates. I can’t see or hear him, but I know he is making a move. I grit my teeth to finish a short climb and start downhill. Then I attack, speeding up and clearly stunning the others. As I pass, out of the corner of my eye I see Robert turn to look at those chasing him, and I register a tiny reaction that now becomes crucial: His eyes are no longer full of fire; they are small and have lost their brightness; the finish tape they want to smash through has vanished from their view. That tells me he is defeated, and I accelerate even more.

  I never know when I will go on the attack. It is in that tenth of a second that the future of the race, victory or failure, will be decided. It is a moment you cannot plan; intuition must drive you to make a decision. An overconscious reaction will never come to good. If you attack too early, you will certainly pay for the excess effort, and if you leave it too late, you will lose. You have to make good use of the element of surprise. Find the key moment. This moment to change pace and go for the tape will always be the moment when the balance between self-confidence and doubt is shattered. You have to feel the fear that you can’t do it in order to overcome it and launch into proving which of the two is right. And you must allow intuition to tell you when that moment has come, allow instinct to compel you forward, to tell you, “It’s now or never.” I’m a rational athlete; I enjoy analyzing races, planning them in advance, imagining how they will develop, dreaming them and rehearsing them in training, broadcasting them via imaginary commentators in my head. Sketching the outlines for the screenplay. I think I almost find writing that series of decisions in my head more satisfying than carrying them out for real, given that the screenplay we mark out is never respected, that there are always surprises. That is what makes competing so exciting, what makes it magical and turns it into an art—being able to follow the right impulse, knowing the one powering you into the lead is the right one, and keeping hold of it.

  Life outside the race doesn’t exist at such moments. The race is life, and it stops when you cross the finish line. An afterward doesn’t exist; you can only think about getting there as quickly as possible. You don’t think about the consequences the effort you are making might bring, the knocks or injuries awaiting you, because nothing else exists after the watch has stopped. Because the life we have created is at an end and we are left searching for a new one to create.

  My legs can’t stand the pressure; my breathing stops with each step, tries to minimize each impact. I’m not thinking about anything; my mind is blank. I only follow the sequence of emotions that I want to experience again. And as more come to mind, my legs accelerate and my heart beats faster. Seemingly out of control, my legs hurtle between rocks and undergrowth, but with each step they know exactly where they must go, where they must direct their strength. There are no feet, legs, or knees in reserve; there is no strength to retain. My body is at peak speed and my mind at the peak of concentration so as not to fall at every step.

  I reach the asphalt, 100 yards, a bend to the right, and I look behind me. Nobody is in sight. And I have that feeling again.

  But what does it mean to win? What is the real victory? When I cross the finish line, what is it that makes my hair stand on end or makes me feel that my feet are afloat, makes it so that I can’t suppress the need to cry, makes me want both to run on and collapse to the ground? The real victory isn’t the act of smashing through the tape and crossing the finish line; it’s not seeing your name first on the list or standing on
the highest step on the podium. This is not what makes your legs shake with fear and excitement. Victory, the real victory, is what is deep down inside each one of us. It’s what we can’t believe will ever happen despite all the training and will on our part, and yet it is what finally happens. Despite all the thinking and brandishing of calculators, after so many hours of preparation, after so many days of training, of telling ourselves that we can win—or simply finish the race—it is as if something in our unconscious is constantly telling us that it is impossible, that it would be too wonderful, too brilliant, too incredible for it to become reality. That what we want to achieve is only a dream. And when you cross the line, when you look behind and see that it is real, that you are flesh and blood, and that what seemed possible only in dreams has become real, you realize that that is the true victory.

  Winning isn’t about finishing in first place. It isn’t about beating the others. It is about overcoming yourself. Overcoming your body, your limitations, and your fears. Winning means surpassing yourself and turning your dreams into reality. There have been many races in which I have finished first but haven’t felt that I was the winner. I haven’t cried when I crossed the line, haven’t jumped for joy, and haven’t been swept up in a whirlwind of emotions. I merely had to win the race, had to finish in front of the others, and before and during the race, I knew and was sure that I would finish first. I knew it was no dream and didn’t think for one moment at any point what it would be like not to win. It was too easy, like a chef who opens his restaurant each day and knows exactly how all of his steaks will turn out. There’s no challenge, no dream to wake up from. And as far as I am concerned, that isn’t winning. On the contrary, I have seen big winners, individuals who have overcome themselves and have crossed the finish line in tears, their strength gone, but not from physical exhaustion—though that is also there—but because they have achieved what they thought was only the fruit of dreams. I have seen people sit on the ground after crossing the finish line of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, and sit there for hours with blank looks, smiling broadly to themselves, still not believing that what they have achieved isn’t a hallucination. Fully aware that when they wake up, they will be able to say that they did it, that they succeeded, that they vanquished their fears and transformed their dreams into something real. I have seen individuals who, though they have come in after the leaders have had time to shower, eat lunch, and even take a good siesta, feel that they are the winners. They wouldn’t change that feeling for anything in the world. And I envy them, because, in essence, isn’t this a part of why we run? To find out whether we can overcome our fears, that the tape we smash when we cross the line isn’t only the one the volunteers are holding, but also the one we have set in our minds? Isn’t victory being able to push our bodies and minds to their limits and, in doing so, discovering that they have led us to find ourselves anew and to create new dreams?

  Night begins to fall at my back, the sun sinking behind sharp peaks and snow-swept walls of rock, offering up its last shards of light to tinge the sky red to match the autumnal leaves. Following the rhythm of my steps, the brightness in the west gradually begins to disappear as the mantle of darkness covers the sky, hiding the daytime oranges and greens of the woods, which take on darker, duller, rawer hues. The track begins to vanish beneath my feet, and I find it hard not to stumble on the stones that stick up. The heat vanishes along with the light; the temperature drops, and my cheeks starts to freeze in the icy air, as does my nose. The pupils in my eyes dilate as much as they can to anticipate what the soles of my feet will be feeling. In those first minutes in the dark, my steps are clumsy and I fall to the ground when I trip over a tree root that straddles the track. However, my eyes gradually adapt to the darkness, and as sight gives way to the senses of touch and hearing, I can see as if it were daylight. Today, for the first time, I am tired. For the first time in many days, my eyes feel heavy and my mind sinks into a world of heavy darkness. I remember this feeling. It’s a memory from a few years ago, when I was running along the paths of the Tahoe Rim Trail.

  You don’t need to compete to be able to feel the intense emotions of finishing, the excitement of crashing through the finish line tape. You can feel that same boundless happiness even if you eliminate the highs of the cheering spectators, beating other runners, the flashes and spotlights of photographers or television cameras. It is a happiness you alone feel as you experience that strength powering you to succeed. It is a deeply internal happiness, without the rage that comes with racing, a calm, soothing happiness that transports you to a world of total peace, where time and space come to a halt and you feel that your body and your soul are completely, blissfully at rest.

  I hear footsteps running this way and that along the black wooden balcony that spans all the rooms in this American hotel where we are staying. I turn over in bed and stretch my hand out to the clock on the bedside table. It is 4:25 a.m. The alarm won’t go off for five more minutes, and even though I don’t feel at all sleepy, I turn over, wrap the blankets around me again, and shut my eyes. Outside, the footsteps sound faster and faster and the whispers louder and louder. I put my head under the blanket and press myself down into the soft mattress. I notice the heat running through my body, from my toes to my cheeks, and feel almost as if I were lying by a fireside. I also feel my arms, legs, and torso move subtly, seeking the best position, one I could enjoy for hours. My muscles are completely relaxed. My mind feels at peace in a silence that is broken only by the footsteps and whispers outside my window. I could spend hours, even days, like this, not moving a single finger, with my body and mind completely at ease, not having to worry about anything. My body doesn’t exist for the moment; it doesn’t bother me or hassle me; it doesn’t provoke cold or heat; it doesn’t prompt pain or require any effort. For the moment my mind is alone, its links to the earth severed; for the moment I can enjoy my thoughts and let my dreams give me a body that can fly. When it comes to separating body from mind and being able to fly free, isn’t a good bed much more practical than those 165 miles waiting for me outside?

  I am seduced by these ideas as the heat and tranquility afforded by my comfortable bed contrast with the excitement mounting on the other side of my bedroom walls. What if I have already resolved the search I took on to test myself and find happiness? Have I traveled into the mountains of California’s Sierra Nevada, to run the Tahoe Rim Trail in record time, only to understand that a good bed was the solution in life?

  I burst out laughing. I was on the brink of letting my thoughts trick and persuade me, but that isn’t happiness; it’s the comfort zone! With that thought, I jump out of bed and switch on the light and the radio. I get pineapple juice out of the freezer and heat up a slice of energy cake. While it’s heating up, I take off my pajamas and put on the clothes that will probably stay on me for the next two days and nights. Socks, shoes, leggings, thermal shirt, polar lining, hat, and watch. I look at the time: 4:45 a.m., five minutes left before I have to head to the start of the race. Even though this isn’t an organized race, and in the end I decide the starting time, we had settled on 5 a.m. so that the support team would be able to predict the times when I would pass by each point on the route, though even then only approximately, because when a route lasts a good 40 hours, it is hard to anticipate exactly when you will reach any one particular point. I quickly devour the slice of energy cake, grab the GPS and a few snack bars and gels that I’ll take for the first few hours, and switch off the light. Before I leave, I grab another piece of energy cake. I’ll need it.

  Swallowing the last crumbs, I head toward the start. It’s still dark. It’s 4:55 a.m. when I reach the bridge over the Truckee River in Tahoe City. The 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail is a circuit around Lake Tahoe, though not around the lakeside; it passes through the mountains that surround the lake, with severe dips and peaks. I had been looking at those dips and peaks and decided I wanted to get the worst over on the first day, noting that Tim Twietmeyer, who holds the reco
rd of 46 hours, decided to make this his point of departure. I, too, thought it was a good spot. But I am questioning the decision to leave at 5 a.m. If this were a race lasting 15 or 16 hours, a 5 a.m. start would be quite obvious, since that way we could take advantage of every hour of daylight and run the least amount of time at night. However, if it were a cross-country trail lasting some 20 hours, it would make more sense to leave at night in order to run the first hours in the dark, when the body is fresher, and then to run most of the course under the heat of the sun and finish with the last light of day. If it were a route taking in the range of 30 hours, it would make sense to leave at dawn, since that way we would run only one night and two days. However, today, at 5 a.m., still in the pitch-dark and in freezing cold temperatures, I don’t understand why we must leave so early if I will have to spend two nights and two days running. Really, you can make whatever combination you like: day-night-day-night, night-day-night-day. I could even start at midday, after lunch, because I’d still have to run for two nights and two days.