Run or Die

by Kilian, Jornet

  Although this new plan relieves me of only 6 miles a day, the project seems to change radically. I leave in the mornings without the pressure of feeling I will be struggling at the end of each stage. In fact, the difference between a run of 68 miles in 15 or 16 hours and a run of 62 miles in an hour or two less may not seem like much, but it means that I have the leeway of an extra day, and that I can be sure I will see the sunset when I’m having dinner rather than from the last plateau on that day’s run. Being able to sleep one or two hours more every night does radically change the character of my adventure. If my only worry so far had been wondering whether I’d be able to make it each night, I am now convinced that gradually, if I keep up a steady pace, we will arrive at the Mediterranean. My real worry, then, this morning is what shape my feet will be in at the end of the day, since I’ve been suffering from heel blisters. My knees are beginning to stiffen; my muscles are tired, and so is my heart.

  After warming up on a 6-mile gentle downhill run to loosen my joints, we start on the long climb to make the leap to Benasc. I think how incredibly well my body is responding this morning after the way I suffered in the first hours of the run on my second and third days. Where is the pain hiding? Where are the shooting pains in my thigh muscles and the strain in the knees? What are they waiting for before they put in an appearance? Can my body have possibly gotten accustomed to all the effort? Or is it waiting for a moment of weakness to attack?

  These thoughts vanish as I run uphill between Joan and Neto along comfortable paths among meadows and woods. On earlier days I’ve had to concentrate on simply taking one step at a time, eyes glued to the ground and gritting my teeth so that my muscles obey my thoughts, ignoring the pain. This morning, though, I can look up, surveying the landscape being warmed by the sun, following the animals running through the woods, or sprinting ahead to take a photo of my friends who are accompanying me. Or just enjoying the fact that I am running without having to think about my body or my brain—simply running. It has taken my body almost four days to start to enjoy this long trek to the Mediterranean.

  Routine has set in, a cycle repeated from sunrise to sunset: My musical alarm goes off, and I wake up with my head buried in the pillow. A good breakfast of cereal and bread and jam to build up strength. I start running before the sun comes out, while it is still cool. I reach a steady pace, not so gentle that the miles stick to me like my sheets in the morning, but not too brisk so as to prevent me from enjoying the landscapes where we are leaving a trail of footprints. Benasc, Cerler, Bassiero, the beautiful lakes in the National Park of Aigüestortes, the lake of Sant Maurici, the Pallars valleys. I’m able to share all this time and scenery with friends who have come from near and far to accompany me and give me support.

  I eat a roll at midday, then set off running again, leaving the cool of the morning behind. In the heat that hits this central part of the crossing, light pain returns—slight tendinitis in my feet and knees, small heel blisters or blisters between my toes that Sònia treats as they appear.

  We go down to the valley bottom, where we rest before we need to switch on our headlamps, and we wrap up well against the low night temperatures. My legs are beginning to suffer the accumulated effect of the efforts I’ve been making day after day. A good plate of pasta for dinner while we talk to the rest of the team and to friends who have come on the run. David gives me a painful but necessary massage, and to end the day, it is back to bed and to sleep, thinking about what to expect in the morning and dreaming of moments we’ve experienced on the day that’s just ended.

  In this way time goes quickly, and without realizing, we have already reached the gateway to Andorra. As we start to climb the Tor Valley, I breathe in air I soon recognize. We’ve had a lot of routine days, getting on with it, making steady progress to the Mediterranean. In fact, I’ve had too many days like that and have forgotten the last time my legs felt pain caused by acceleration, the last time they suffered because they had accumulated so much lactic acid, which prevented me from taking long strides, lifting my knees high, and feeling my leg stretch behind in order to drive my body forward. I can no longer remember what my heart feels when it pounds so energetically and accelerates, bringing a taste of blood to my mouth, or how my breathing cuts out when it can’t bring more oxygen to muscles that are clamoring for it. I can’t even remember what speed is, and I miss it. I feel slow and heavy. Everyone is running shoulder to shoulder with me, accompanying my lethargic feet out of sympathy. Everyone can overtake me, accelerate, and help me while I stay steady and still, like a truck that keeps its brakes on downhill. I am easy prey for any predator—my senses are dozing, and my sharp reflexes and usual nimbleness lie forgotten in some corner of the Pyrenees.

  My thoughts can’t find a way out of this vicious circle; they make me feel even slower, crush me against the earth. My eyes fill with tears as I think how my stride is no longer that of a nimble runner who imagined he was a mountain goat leaping from crag to crag. I’ve changed into a bear that lumbers slowly and steadily. I have only steadiness, strength, and weight to protect me against predators. I don’t like to feel like this: lethargic or that I must protect myself against myself. I begin to fight back. No. I am not a bear; I have always been a mountain goat. I am swift and nimble, and that is the spirit I carry within me. I want to feel that, need to feel that, or I will sink into a spiral of self-destruction: I need to know I can still fly.

  I have been running with Marc along the riverside for hours. We have not said a word to each other in ages. It’s not the place. He is here to accompany me, to help me, and he gives me confidence and strength, the reassurance that I’m not alone, that I’ve got him if I need anything. He can urge me on if I’m tired or if my own mind is not up to it, can talk and argue if I need to be distracted from thinking about pain or monotony, can help to find the path, whatever I need. However, right now, I need to find myself, the rapid, self-starting runner I once was. That I am. I need to reengage with that unflappable spirit that enables me to ratchet up a gear when my body tells me I can’t; that spirit that makes me continue the struggle when my thoughts are telling me to stop. If I am going to win a race, I need confidence in the knowledge that I can succeed. It’s not rage, wildness, or the need to feel superior. It is the need to feel that I am wholly myself and not losing a grip on the person I was when I began on this crossing. I will take flight again.

  The road to Tor starts to our right with a steep uphill bend. As I run uphill, my body, accustomed to protecting itself from physiological or muscular excess or the dangers of nature, slows the pace, reduces the length of each stride, and my breathing and my pulse flatten out. I accelerate, fighting against all this moderation. I’m fed up with so much restraint. My pulse accelerates, and my leg muscles begin to push so that I can lengthen my stride, raise my knees, and stretch my leg back to drive myself forward with every stride. My feet start to feel within each stride a movement powering me forward from my heel to the whip of the last metatarsal in my big toe. I open my mouth wide to take in air so that I can feel the air rushing against the walls of the trachea and the alveolus taking oxygen to my lungs. I breathe hard, blasting out air, then take in a fresh round. I straighten my body to let my lungs take in as much as they can, and my legs cover as much terrain as that new flexibility will allow, leaving my hip free to advance a few inches with every stride. I concentrate on my breathing, on keeping my legs moving at that explosive pace. My body is as straight as a rod, and my eyes seek out the quickest route, as if the road were a ski track and I a skier whose mind is set on how to attack the next stretch.

  All of a sudden I realize I am running by myself. Marc has stayed back, and so has the film crew. I feel alive again, finally feel I am myself, and I am pleased; my spirit perks up at last.

  The miles speed by, though the road climbs steeper and steeper. My legs accelerate at each stone wall I pass, playing with my lactic acid and giving me just the right amount to continue accelerating without having to st
op, as if I’ve just come out of a sprint. I enjoy feeling the simultaneous sensation of being heavy and light, steady and explosive.

  It’s cruel to wake up from such a dream. My body has allowed my mind some 6 miles of frivolous entertainment, of blissful acceleration. However, when we reach the bucolic town of Tor, my body abandons me and leaves me no energy to feed my whims or strength to renew them. My body is neither heavy nor light: it is simply empty and hasn’t the strength to go on. I try to eat and my stomach reacts violently. I do not have the strength to open my mouth or to utter even a single word.

  But I’m back on home territory. Three miles on and 1,600 feet lower, I’ll find Andorra, roads I know, and friends waiting to run the last lap with me. It’s only another stage on this long cross-country run; I’ve still got three days to go, around 186 miles. But at the back of my mind, from the very beginning, I knew if I could reach this far, if I could overcome all the obstacles and find the way, I would reach the sea. Right now, I have 3 miles to go, and a 1,600-foot descent.

  We start off slowly, bodies bent, breathing silently, smoothly, our feet close to the ground, trying to ensure that our muscles do the minimum in order to cover the miles that they must run. We continue silently without looking at each other, only watching the light on the land as the sun starts to dip behind us. We leave the forest trail and go up though the woods. It’s a steep slope, so steep we have to use our hands, grabbing roots and branches to haul ourselves up. It’s a terrain I would love in normal conditions. It reminds me of when I was small and we played at climbing up to the most impossible places. That makes me smile, and gradually my spirits and strength return.

  While we playfully climb these rocky, tree-lined slopes, always looking out of the corner of our eyes at the majestic sunset that brings its golden light to our faces and the grass on the path, I hear voices above our heads. It’s not two or three people talking. It’s not the team waiting at the top of the climb. It is the gleeful buzz of a large crowd. It gets louder and louder, and when we leave the rocks and trees behind and emerge onto the road, I find 40 or more people, mostly faces I know—from school and racing, friends and relatives—waiting for me and reaffirming even more strongly the feeling that I have finally returned home.

  The sun’s last rays have faded when I am only about 2 miles from the valleys in the Botella Col, the gateway between Pallars and Andorra—2 miles, however, between my adventure’s failure or triumph, darkness or light. But my body doesn’t feel the miles at all now that it is running in the company of friends, of my mother and my sister.

  DAY 6

  What has really changed since yesterday? How has my body changed? Has it adapted to my efforts? My body is as tired now as it was yesterday morning and the day before yesterday. My feet feel equally weary, and so do my knees and hips. So what has changed this morning? Getting up for breakfast wasn’t tough, punishing, or miserable. My mind wasn’t blank, and my eyes weren’t lost in an infinite void. My first steps of the day weren’t painful and tottering. So what has changed this morning? Nothing in my body, everything in my mind.

  I set a good pace at the outset and from the very first minute make fast progress with agile strides. The valleys and peaks pass by, don’t even register as I run up and fly down steep slopes, sharing every moment with colleagues, friends, and family who have come to run with me. Everything is easy today. I know the path and don’t have to stop to consult the map; my legs lead me straight to tracks and shortcuts I have used so often when training in winter, summer, spring, and autumn. My body works away, advancing of its own accord, freeing me to talk, look at the scenery, accelerate in order to take photos, or find the best stride to cross a river that surges down after so much snow has melted in recent days.

  The day passes quickly amid smiles, and before I realize it, I’m home, by the Bulloses Lake, behind the Calma ski slopes where I have surely spent more hours skiing and running than I have spent at home. I start to climb steeper and steeper ski slopes but keep running, keep driving myself on as I do every day in training. My companions start to walk and drop behind, but I continue to run; I’m home now and can run up this slope. I reach the top of Los Moros, where the view opens out over the Cerdanya. To my right, the Puigpedrós, Cadí, and Tossa d’Alp mountains. In front, Puigmal, Eina … I know every corner of this landscape. No secret, no animal eludes me. I had imagined this moment, had longed for it, had dreamed about it. I want to cry. I want to sit on the ground and look ahead in silence and think about every moment that has gone by. It has been a magnificent day; I have not felt exhausted, and strength of mind has finally overcome my body. But I find I cannot cry. Why? Don’t I have any emotion or feeling left within me? Has my sweat consumed all the water I had left and, with it, the ability to feel? Has this trip finally made me insensitive to pain, suffering, and fatigue, as well as to the emotions and feelings they bring? Has the monotony finally neutralized all sensitivity?

  As these thoughts buzz around my mind, my companions reach the top of the slope, and we start to go down into the center of Font-Romeu, where everyone is waiting: friends from university, training, and school; teachers; shopkeepers; and restaurateurs. Everyone has come to congratulate me and give me support to the end. But suddenly I am absent, lost in the mists swirling around my mind, looking for my senses. I want the pain to return, want even the suffering to return, if that is the only way to reclaim my feelings.

  DAY 7

  As if in response to my prayers on the previous afternoon, the heavens have unleashed a heavy storm to return me to reality and to signal that the previous stage had been a mere oasis on our cross-mountain run, a dream too good to last.

  It is raining very hard. The water rushes through the streets in rivers that flow into the fields at the end of the town. We start running with Martin, a leading light in French biathlon who has recently returned with an Olympic silver medal. Before we even leave Font-Romeu, our clothes are soaked, and the cold penetrates the marrow of our bones. We run in tandem, not saying a word, trying to think about what lies ahead as we leave the safety of the meadows and woods to confront the mountain. An hour later we reach Eina, where the trail starts its climbs to the ridges of Núria, and from then on, we will face 25 miles over peaks before we return to the safety of the valleys.

  Just as we reach the start of the trail, we hear thunder and lightning over the peaks and ridges that are swathed in a thick blanket of mist. It would be too risky to continue on at this altitude, far too risky. The rain hasn’t stopped. On the contrary, it is pouring down ever harder as if to warn us off the peaks. We confer with the whole team, joined now by friends from Font-Romeu, Martin, and teachers from the university, sheltering under the open trunk of the car, trying to think about how best to continue. Sopping-wet skin and clothes are not the best allies against the cold, which is beginning to freeze our bodies, and we decide to continue the debate in a warm room with cups of hot tea in our hands.

  We spread out and consult all our maps and decide that the best solution is to continue our route by going along the GR-10, turning off halfway up through Carançà, to El Canigó, and thus joining the route we’d initially planned for tomorrow in Ceret. This option will allow us to continue safely in the rain, but it will add a considerable number of miles to today’s stage. The five or six hours along ridges will now become ten or eleven twisting though valleys. In any case, the miles won’t go any more quickly chatting in a warm room.

  It’s midday by the time I start running again, in light rain but with a threatening sky and black clouds over the peaks of the mountains. The extra hours of rest have refreshed my legs, and trying to make up the hours we have lost, I set off with Greg at top speed along the paths that take us through the woods to Carançà.

  The thick mist filters into the leafy woods, and we begin to have doubts about our route. With so many changes in our itinerary, we’ve barely had time to study the maps and are none too confident of the way, though we cling strongly to our intuitio
n. By the time our doubts start to make us anxious, a shirtless young man with a beard appears among the trees, as if he’s sprung straight out of the ground.

  “Andreu!” I shout.

  Andreu accompanied me on the central Pyrenees stages and has been a refuge guard for a number of years in Carançà.

  “Follow me,” he says. “It’s quicker if we head into the woods.”

  He immediately launches us off into a fast run up through the woods, along a stream that avoids many of the twists in the trail, and up to Rodó in next to no time. We start downhill, and after several hours, the rain starts to pour down once again. The hours go by, as do light rain, hard rain, eating while sheltering from the rain, thick mist that erases the path and soaks our bodies, mud, slipping and sliding, and gradually the miles, until I am alone again, running under the mountain walls of El Canigó.

  I feel good. I don’t know if it’s still the revival I felt yesterday or if the daytime cold has invigorated my body. But today I have recovered my sensitivity. It’s not simply freshness and speed I have recovered but emotions and feeling. The moment I reach the northeasterly ridges of El Carlit, I can’t stop tears from welling up, and I sit on the ground and take in the view.

  Behind me the sun is sending its last beams across the ridges of El Carlit. But that isn’t what brings me back to life, what makes me cry. I can see the sea again, for the first time since I left the Atlantic Ocean a week ago. In the distance, the Mediterranean appears before me for the first time.

  I sit and wait, without thought, not reflecting on success or what we have achieved. I simply gaze at the wonder before me. Several thousand feet beneath me, the infinite expanse of the sea. Like an old man who has just returned home after many years in exile, I cannot help but feel moved by the panorama extending before me.

  The sun has stopped shining on the rocks behind me, and the landscape is starting to fade. But I myself have just reignited, have rediscovered feeling and the strength to continue, and I am full of hope once more. I know where I am heading.