Above the Clouds

by Kilian, Jornet

  When I was seventeen, the European ski-mountaineering championships took place in Andorra. Since it was near where I lived, and to my surprise I had been a youth world champion the previous year, I wanted to give it a shot, and I knew everyone wanted me to. I had prepared painstakingly and trained like never before. One day I had even left Montellà with my skis on my back, gone through La Llosa river valley by bike, and from there, walking and skiing, I hopped over to Andorra through the Montmalús to reach Canillo and train a couple of times on the vertical route before going home.

  The day of the race arrived, and without having slept a wink, I went to the start along with the rest of the team, with an hour to spare. After a quick-paced warm-up, I was ready to start. In that vertical race the runners left one by one, so later it was impossible to know if I was going fast enough. There was no strategy I could use to tell, so I had to give it my all from the start to the finish. The line at the start was getting shorter. Though I’d already taken my headphones off and wasn’t listening to any of the ten songs I’d chosen for motivation, I was oblivious to everything going on around me. All I could make out was the beep-beep-beep that announced, minute by minute, the beginning of the route for the other youth athletes ahead of me. My heart was beating faster and faster and leapt into my mouth with every beep. When the runner in front of me set out at high speed and I was left alone at the red line sprayed in the snow, I felt like my heart had stopped. The pace of my heartbeat gradually slowed, but with every pulse I felt like a bomb was exploding right in front of me. I don’t know what the referee said to me; I didn’t understand. Beep! I looked ahead for the first time, trying to calculate the speed of my competitors. Beep! It was cold, but my hands were sweating, and with every heartbeat my body shook. Beep! The starting signal went off, and I felt like my legs had lost all of their strength. I was afraid I was going to collapse right there. But no. My limbs responded unconsciously. I felt my muscles activate and contract as they always had. I set out fast. Really fast. Too fast. I sprinted 1,000 meters, giving it my all, but the race had a 1,000-meter slope, and I soon began to pay the price for the stupidity of that unnecessary effort. Luckily, in the end I was able to recover a little and repair the mistakes of my excess effort at the beginning, influenced more by my nerves than my brain, that came close to making me lose the race.

  NOW, ON THE BUS, I’M HAVING TROUBLE STAYING AWAKE. THOUGH I still feel a desire to compete, there’s no trace of the nerves and tension of years ago. To wake myself up a bit, I start thinking about the race and go over the route, which I know well after participating eight times.

  If I had to describe the mountain race I would least like to run, I’m sure I would say that it’s short, without many downhill slopes or long stretches of trail, or that it has a wide dirt road and many kilometers of flat terrain. It would have no rocks on the trail or technical terrain, and would pass by peaks that call out to you to climb them but really are just there for decoration, since you have to run through their foothills without coming close to the highest parts. If any race fits these parameters, it’s Sierre-Zinal. And despite this, I’m crazy about it.

  I guess what excites me about this race is exactly that. It’s run in terrain where I don’t feel comfortable, where I know I have to face my weak spots as a runner and fight those weaknesses in order to win. For me, that’s what gives competition meaning—seeking difficulty and embracing it. And the fact that the route is the opposite of what I prefer is exactly why I approach it as a challenge with all the necessary ingredients to keep me interested. Its organization is perfect, sublime, and it has a long history. The greatest specialists in the world get together each year, making up an odd mixture of mountain and road runners, skyrunners and orienteers, on terrain that is favorable to some and not to others. Too flat for those of us who are happy on the highest ridges. Too steep for those who run marathons in under two hours ten minutes. Too long for the mountain runners and orienteers. Too short for the long-distance runners. You can already see that with such a variety of styles among the participants, this is the perfect setting for a spectacle and a fight, undesirable elements for all of us. That’s why there’s every reason for us to put on our numbers.

  AT THE STARTING POINT, THERE’S A MIXTURE OF NERVES AND JOYOUS excitement. Some people smile, and others are anxious to try to get a few centimeters ahead, positioning themselves close to the first line. I don’t like to put myself ahead, and I only go to the first row if I predict complications at the start, if the terrain narrows early, or if I think I might fall easily. Generally, I prefer to be in the second or third row. People start too fast and they often push you, or in ski mountaineering, someone might break your pole by accident or take the skin off one of your skis. Furthermore, in the first row, the runners’ anxiety is more intense. It seems like the activity is more important than it really is, and there’s always some journalist who wants you to grin and pose or say something stupid.

  The horn blows, and the stampede begins. I pass from the third to the sixth or seventh row; everyone gets ahead, sprinting and elbowing me out of the way. I open my arms a little and make space for myself so I don’t lose my balance, then take a run up and find my pace. After 100 meters, most of the fifty or so runners I had in front of me have drastically slowed their pace. I pass them on one side of the road and catch up with the group in the lead.

  We’ve covered just over a kilometer, and we make for a steep dirt trail. A dozen runners who know each other from other races end up alone together. There’re a couple of Kenyans, two Colombians, Petro Mamu from Uganda, Robbie Simpson from Scotland, and the odd European or American. Halfway up the steep ascent, Petro, who won the IAAF mountain running world championship just two weeks earlier, begins to speed up in short, intense bursts to break up the group. After a couple of attacks, we let him go. There’s a lot of race left, and these efforts so early could cost me later on, I think. One of the Kenyans, Geoffrey Ndungu, the mountain race specialist who has run marathons in two hours eight minutes, and William Rodríguez, a Colombian who’s always at Sierre-Zinal, follow him. Behind him, we’re trying as hard as we can, our calf muscles accumulating lactic acid, and our lungs fighting for more space inside our chests. The leading trio is just over a minute away, and they don’t gain any more time.

  When we reach the high point of the climb, a long forested stretch begins. This is where my tired mountain runner’s legs usually make me feel like a snail surrounded by road-running gazelles, but to my surprise, we move ahead quickly together until we reach the first three runners at the race’s midpoint, right at the entrance to Chandolin. We leave the town and about 10 kilometers of flat terrain behind, along paths and trails that lead us to the highest point in the race, the Hotel Weisshorn, at almost 2,500 meters. This is where my legs remind me that on terrain like this, I’m not a fast runner but more like a tractor, and I can’t prevent the runners who are more used to the road from starting to lunge through the air as if in flight. I pay no attention to the wise little voice in my head that tells me to slow my pace and stay in my comfort zone, and I keep fighting the heaviness of my legs, trying to lengthen each step a little more, trying to push my feet forward faster. I struggle for one or two minutes, knowing that after the hotel comes a stretch more favorable to my condition, and on the small uphill slope just before the highest point of the race, I pass William and Petro, who seem to be paying for the effort they made at the start.

  I run by the front of the Hotel Weisshorn and have three runners ahead of me at a one-minute interval. There’s no time to look up, but I glimpse the silhouettes of the surrounding mountains out of the corner of my eye. It’s an idyllic landscape, a typical Swiss postcard scene with log cabins in bright green fields, cows grazing here and there. I recognize the sharp ridge joining the peaks of Zinalrothorn and Ober Gabelhorn, and the perfect pyramid of Matterhorn outlined behind them. To the west, the imposing north face of the Weisshorn (which gives the hotel its name) dazzles the valley, and to the
right, the Dent Blanche casts its shadow. I try not to lose focus remembering the good times I’ve spent on those peaks. That’s what I really love. What the hell am I doing suffering here, trying to overtake that gang of gazelles? But my legs know the answer. I keep running, trying to speed up and gain time with every step. Deep down, I know I love the stupid, simple game of competition. I focus again, because now the more favorable stretch is coming up, the descent, where my mountain runner’s technique gives me an advantage over the others.

  Little by little, the gaps shorten, and I pass Geoffrey Ndungu and then José David Cardona from Colombia, and finally, 3 kilometers from the finish line, I pass Robbie Simpson, one of the most talented and accomplished young runners, as much on the road as in the mountains.

  What comes next feels familiar: without resting, but feeling secure, I run the rest of the way until I reach the end.

  WE’VE FINISHED. I’VE RECOVERED MY BREATH AND WE’VE HAD OUR pictures taken. I go to the anti-doping test station, stopping to pose for selfies and sign some autographs on my way.

  “Congratulations! You’re amazing!” I hear someone say.

  It’s a woman of about forty. Since she’s sweating and dressed in shorts, I ask how the race went for her.

  “Good. Well, it was really tough. It took me five hours, twice as long as you, but I’m a teacher and I can’t train that much. I just go out on weekends and some weekday afternoons.”

  I congratulate her sincerely and keep going toward the test station. After a few meters, someone else crosses my path.

  “Good work, dude!” says a guy who must be about my age, a happy belly showing under his shirt. “It was too long for me. I’d never done sports in my life, and last year while we were building a chalet up here, a coworker and I saw the race and I made a bet to run it. But after twenty kilometers I couldn’t go on and ended up walking. But you . . . you’re an alien, dude!”

  I finally make it to the building where the anti-doping test station is, and as I collapse into a chair with the bottle of water I need to drink to extract the ninety milliliters needed for the test from my dehydrated body, I start thinking about my brief conversations on the way here. Those people were anonymous and, in a certain sense, slow runners.

  For me, running is easy, and doing it fast is, too. Winning, on the other hand, is harder and demands many hours of training and effort. But without wanting to seem arrogant, winning has also become relatively easy for me over the years. In the end, I do virtually nothing else all day, and I hardly think about anything else, either. I run and make money. Today I’ve earned a few thousand euros, and thanks to my victories, brands want to sponsor me. That teacher and the guy who works in construction, on the other hand, will never be on the news or sign an autograph. In the end, it’s paradoxical, since the world would work just as well without runners, but without anyone to teach us to write and count, or build the houses we live in, life would truly be difficult.

  I feel bad about myself. Today I’ve earned money from a useless activity. I’ve monopolized the attention and admiration of children and adults, and all I’ve done is put one foot in front of the other faster than them. I accept that, inwardly, running is everything to me. On the other hand, outwardly I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s pointless.

  Come on, Kilian, don’t be so simplistic.

  I don’t believe that sport has no social function. Since the Roman period, it has served as entertainment, and with the rise of wellness in modern times, it has promoted a healthy lifestyle, diet, and exercise, and set standards that show the rewards of hard work and discipline. But today, despite everything, sport seems to be going back to its roots, to spectacle and to the Roman circus. In the modern version, there are millions of spectators in front of a screen, watching a small number of athletes perform their acrobatics, while they celebrate by drinking beer and eating junk food.

  Competitive sport is also overvalued, and increasingly exposes the dark side of human nature. The monetization and mythification of sports have turned it into a classic spectacle, causing it to be simplified, and the results to be organized more hierarchically. In the Olympic model, what matters is your place on the podium, with the winner situated visually above those who come second and third, and all three obscure the existence of the other athletes. People only remember the results and the winners. At the same time, countries exploit their athletes’ success to reinforce nationalist discourse, even those countries that are in decline. Just as in climbing victory is signaled by planting a flag on a mountain’s summit, in world championships or in the Olympic Games, national symbols become propaganda tools.

  For our part, athletes have come to believe that winning makes us better than the person in second place, since everyone applauds and congratulates us. This has allowed us to sign contracts and experience the illusion of relative fame. But in this context, sport loses its essence and enters a different realm, obsessed with winning at all costs. Of course, everyone has their own technique, but it’s clear enough that the temptation to cheat is high. There’s always someone who breaks the rules of the game to increase their chance of victory, which, by definition, is futile.

  Luckily, the sports I practice still preserve a solid amateur component. They’ve been spared the black mark of the period of doping by big teams or countries, when publicity and reputation were considered much more important than athletic performance.

  Although in mountain climbing, victory was glorified more and practitioners often resorted to drugs like amphetamines and corticosteroids or to using oxygen, trail running and ski mountaineering were marginal, minority sports and had no influence beyond a few media channels with limited reach. Somehow this was what saved them. In the first decade of this century there’s been a certain amount of change with the boom in mountain races, Ultra-Trails, and to a lesser degree ski mountaineering. Social networks have begun to dictate what sparks interest more than traditional media, and minority sports have carved out a space for themselves. Trail running has achieved this to a strong degree. With this evolution, the mythification of champions, the false sense of victory, and the power of winners have taken hold, and some competitors have begun to cheat.

  A few months after Petro Mamu competed in the Sierre-Zinal, the athletic federation handed him a sixth-month suspension for taking a prohibited medication during the world championships, which took place two weeks before the Swiss race. When someone gets caught doping, I don’t get mad because I think I should have won. What really bothers me is that their performance isn’t authentic and isn’t a valid reference point, and it sets a bad example for sport in general.

  That’s why we have be tough and support the fight against doping. Not everything goes, and the most important thing is to know our limits. But maybe the best weapon against doping and cheating is to de-mythify the sport and get rid of the podium. There’s no such thing as a hero.

  NOT EVERYTHING IS BLACK-AND-WHITE. WHILE IT’S TRUE THAT THE Olympic approach and the current system have distorted the values of competition, they’ve also helped many to progress. People have invested a lot of money, and not only have first-class competitors appeared but also major progress has been made in the study of biomechanics and outstanding training methods have been devised. Climbing walls have become a basic tool for getting the most out of climbing techniques. Technical sprinting circuits have allowed us to train for the transition of putting skins on and taking them off in ski mountaineering. Vertical races on prepared ski slopes have provided a better method for improving physique and resistance, which would have been impossible in the mountains, where the required technique prevents an athlete’s full physical potential from being deployed. But while they are interesting in terms of performance and necessary for progress, these tests should not be confused with the ultimate nature of the sport. If, one day, when someone says “ski mountaineering” the first thing that comes to mind is a three-minute race on an indoor circuit, or when someone mentions “trail running”
we picture someone running in circles around a large city with artificial obstacles, that will mean we’re in terrible shape and we’ve taken a wrong turn.

  IT SHOULD BE CLEAR THAT, FOR ME, THIS IS AN EASY POSITION TO take. Or for us, the majority of Westerners. It’s clear that we have the good luck to practice a sport just for pleasure, and those who compete do it largely to feed their egos. In many parts of the world, though, sport isn’t the final goal but rather a way to make a living. In countries where life isn’t easy, competition becomes a route to survival. The goal of fame, if it arrives one day, isn’t to satisfy an athlete’s vanity but to buy a farm for their family to work. But let’s not kid ourselves: victory is so tantalizing, and money is so appealing, that in any part of the world people can lose sight of why they run.

  I DON’T MIND ADMITTING THAT I MAKE QUITE A BIT OF MONEY COMPETING, but I also spend a ton to be able to do so. I was born in Europe, I’ve had the good luck to do this for pleasure, and I’ve never had to see it as a way to make a living, though I’d be lying if I claimed that was never an incentive, especially when I remember that at the beginning of my career I was pretty broke. But I knew deep down that if it didn’t work out I could earn a living somehow or another, or keep studying and take whatever path interested me most. I live in the first world, after all.