Kílian Jornet: Summiting The Mind Of The World’s Greatest Mountain Runner

Never meet your heroes, they say. Fortunately, this entire podcast is based on ignoring that advice. And today, that's a good thing. First, Kílian Jornet — one of the most humble, accomplished and inspiring athletes in the world — rarely sits for long form press. Second, this hero lives up to the hype. And this conversation is everything I hoped it would be. For the uninitiated, Kílian Jornet is inarguably the most prolific and dominant mountain runner of all time and amongst the world's greatest athletes, period. Born and raised at 6,000 feet above sea level in the Spanish Pyrenees, at age 5 he climbed an 11,000 foot mountain — the highest mountain in the region. Now Jornet adores the mountains with the same ferocity with which he runs them. Racking up wins in most of the world's premier ultramarathons, his many accomplishments include: * 4x champion of Europe’s Skyrunner World Series; * 3x champion of the grueling Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc; * 2011 winner, Western States 100; and * 4x consecutive winner, Hardrock 100; and * 2017 winner at Hardrock 100 despite dislocating his shoulder at mile 14 In search of inspiration outside formal competition, Kílian embarked on a self-styled adventure project dubbed Summits of My Life — establishing the fastest known recorded times (“FKT”) to ascend and descend the world's most challenging peaks, including the Matterhorn, Kilimanjaro, Mont Blanc, Denali and even the planet's tallest summit. Not only did Kílian set the Mt. Everest FKT at 26 hours from base camp, he did it without supplemental oxygen or ropes. A mere six days later, he repeated the performance — an accomplishment that inspired Adventurer of the Year accolades from National Geographic. Kílian's feats of poetic athletic prowess are beautifully depicted in his gripping memoir Run Or Die*, the new documentary Path To Everest, and his latest book Summits of My Life* — all of which I urge you to check out. Today he shares his remarkable story. This is a conversation about what drives one of the planet's most uniquely gifted fleet of foot — a man devoted to redefining what is possible, continually pushing the limits of human ability, and never failing to astonish competitors with his near-superhuman fitness and ability. So what lies behind the success? Kílian's motivation isn't what you might imagine. It has nothing to do with race results. And his happiness derives not from victory. Instead, it's adventure that sparks Kílian's joy. Immersion in nature. Living outside the comfort zone. And always, always exploring. A truly amazing human, what strikes me most about this other-worldly athlete is his profound humility. Kiílian's passion and respect for nature's prowess is earned. Refreshingly grounded, he lives simply, an ethic and aesthetic reflected in the minimalistic purity of his athletic pursuits. Today I'm glad I met a hero. I think you will be too. Enjoy! Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Kílian Jornet?

  I normally like solitude, and I like being alone, being alone with mountains. It makes sense on the way that it's this feeling, like this feeling of feeling very small, it's really interesting, I think, and facing yourself. We are so much about, we want to leave a legacy, or we want to be remembered, or we want to do something important, and at the end, nothing we do is important. And I think when you realize that we are not important, and what we do is not important, then you realize how wonderful it is.

• 1:44Rich Roll?

  That's Killian Journay, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:59Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. How you guys doing? What's happening? My name is Rich Roll. I'm your host. Welcome to the show, to the podcast. Good to have you here today. As the saying, the adage goes, never meet your heroes. And I understand the sensibility behind that piece of advice, but from time to time, I choose to ignore it. And in the case of today's guest, I'm so glad I did because Killian Journey, truly one of the greatest, if not the greatest, living athlete, somebody who inspires me and inspires millions of other people all across the world. This guy really lives up to the hype. We had a tremendous conversation.

• 2:44Rich Roll?

  He's beautiful, he's humble, and it was a real treat because he doesn't do a lot of long-form type press or media. And I'm so excited to share it with you guys in a couple few. But first, let's take care of a little business, shall we?

• 3:05Rich Roll?

  Okay. Killian. Oh, Killian. All you ultra runners out there, you know what I'm talking about. You get where I'm coming from. But hey, if you've never heard of this guy, that's okay. Don't feel bad because I'm going to tell you all about him. Killian is perhaps the most prolific and successful professional skyrunner, trail runner, ski mountaineer, and long-distance runner. He's a six-time champion of the Long Distance Running Skyrunner World Series. And he's the winner of some of the most prestigious ultra marathons on earth, including the UTMB Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, the Grand Raid, Western States, the Hard Rock 100, and so many more.

• 3:47Rich Roll?

  In fact, this is a guy who won so many ultra races so readily that he started looking for different kinds of challenges, unique challenges, outside of formal competition, just to keep things fresh for himself. And that's what ultimately led him to this self-styled adventure series that he calls "The Summits of My Life Project", which essentially involves Killian picking off FKT records, which means setting the fastest-ever recorded times to ascend and descend some of the world's most challenging peaks, including the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc... Denali, the Bob Graham Round, which you might recall I discussed with Ross Edgley

• 4:29Rich Roll?

  recently, and Mount Everest. Yes, that Everest. Kilian set the fastest recorded time 26 hours from base camp, which is a feat that he accomplished without supplemental oxygen or ropes, and then repeated six days later from slightly higher up on the mountain. It's insane. It's a feat that led National Geographic to name him adventurer of the year, which is beautifully chronicled in a new documentary called Path to Everest, which you can download from summitsofmylife.com or on Vimeo. And I'll put links up to the documentary on the episode page on my website. Kilian is also the author of Run or Die,

• 5:14Rich Roll?

  which is an amazing read, and more recently, a book called Summits of My Life: Daring Adventures on the World's Greatest Peaks. And that book really beautifully illustrates all of his awe-inspiring feats and accomplishments. So, this is a conversation about many things: his life, his training, his racing, but essentially, it's about what drives him, how his happiness derives not from results, but from immersion in nature and adventure, and living outside of his comfort zone. We talk training routines, of course, and just to give you a sense of what a savage this guy is, in December, he tweeted that in 2018,

• 5:55Rich Roll?

  a year in which he had three injuries and took three whole months off, Kilian still managed to put in 804 hours of training with 1,521,000 feet of elevation gain of climbing. And this was apparently the least that Kilian has trained since 2006. What can I say? Kilian is amazing in some respects, otherworldly, but also refreshingly humble and grounded, somebody who lives a very simple life, and in many ways, is a minimalist, which is an ethic and an aesthetic that I think carries into the simple purity of his

• 6:35Rich Roll?

  pursuits, you know, minimal gear, and this very real and profound love and deep respect for the environment. In any event, I really enjoyed talking to him. So, without further ado, I give you the great Kilian Journey.

• 6:55Rich Roll?

  Well, I'm sure you'd rather be up in the mountains just over the way right now than sitting here in a studio. This is like, I think we have, how many people do we have in here? This is the biggest crowd I've ever had for doing the podcast here. I'm like, wow, we're performing for an audience today. I've wanted to meet you for a very long time. You're a huge inspiration to me and I'm just delighted to talk to you. So I appreciate you taking time out. You're in, you just got in, you just told me you've been in like 20 different places in the last like two weeks or something like that. Your time code must be completely upside down.

• 7:28Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, but I think it's good because we are changing like time zone every day. It's good because you don't know where you are or when you are. So like you don't feel any jet lag. It's just like the motto these days is like, if you have 10 minutes and you can't sleep, sleep because you don't know when it will be the next time.

• 7:49Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Well, if there's anybody who can endure, endure this, I think it's you. So you're, you're, you're perfectly suited to be able to manage that kind of crazy schedule. And first of all, before we even get into it, like, congratulations, you have a baby coming on the way.

• 8:06Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, thank you. It's exciting. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Exciting and scary in the same way. But yeah, really, it, yeah, looking forward. I think like we need, we'll need to work in logistics the next year. Yeah.

• 8:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, things are going to change a little bit, I would imagine. Yes or no? You're looking at me like, no, they're not going to change.

• 8:24Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, no, like, yeah, of course, like they will change. And especially like because both me and Emily, my girlfriend, like, we both do the same lifestyle. So like, we will need to decide like, who is racing which race or the other can like be babysitting when they are racing. So, yeah.

• 8:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that is a little bit of an adjustment, I would imagine, because for people that are listening, I mean, Emily is an incredibly accomplished ultra runner in her own right. You guys were just in Nepal, right? And she was doing FKTs like recently?

• 8:55Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, actually, she was this summer, like she was doing some FKTs in in in some 4000 meter summits in the Alps, like Mont Blanc and and Monrose. And then like she was doing some like long distance run, like a 300 mile run in in Sweden. And all these when she was pregnant, like she didn't know at the time. But and and yeah, we were in Nepal now, like and she was just climbing up to to 5000 meters, so 1700 feet. And yeah, no, it was feeling good. Yeah.

• 9:26Rich Roll?

  Right. So five and a half months pregnant. So that means sometime this winter.

• 9:31Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, it will be winter, baby. That's that's good, like to start like in the cold.

• 9:36Rich Roll?

  Does that change how you think about risk and how you calculate, you know, the challenges that you want to undertake?

• 9:46Kílian Jornet?

  It's like, it's hard to to know, because like, risk, like, risk is nothing that is objective. It's something that is very subjective, like it's, it's, it's more a feeling that that that mathematics think. And I think it change all the time. Like, sometimes you go to to take to do a climb. And like, you always calculate, okay, it's it's this objective thing, like it can be avalanche, or it can be like a serp falling, or crevasses, or like the technical skills you need. And then you decide if you are, yeah, if you can do it or not. But then it's something a feeling that sometimes, like, you say, I

• 10:31Kílian Jornet?

  can do that, but I don't feel for it.

• 10:33Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 10:34Kílian Jornet?

  And other times, it's like, okay, I feel that it's I'm in the flow, and I can do all this. So it's, yeah, I think it's many things that affect that. And probably like. Having a baby can change that, but then I have friends that they have babies and they continue doing the same. So I think I will need to discover when it comes.

• 10:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think you'll know when it ha- it's hard to anticipate, as somebody has four kids, it's hard to anticipate beforehand, but then when the event occurs, there's something that changes, I think, in your, in your, I don't know, your emotional being or your, you know, your sense of self, that, that like, everything that you do has an impact on this other person. Like, when you're talking about risk calculation, it's very much an internal, it sounds like you're, you're just calculating this internally, like, how do I feel? How do I feel like I can, you know, whether I can handle this or not? But then, in the back of your mind, thinking, well, there's this other person who's relying on me. Like, I'm, I'm curious as to whether that will impact that, or maybe not, I don't know.

• 11:36Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's very interesting, I think, because like, when you, yeah, as you say, like, we don't know, like, how it will affect, because it's, because it's a feeling, it's not like saying, okay, we have a kid, so like, I will not do that, or I will do that, because you don't know how you will feel. And at the end, like, you can calculate and take a reasonable decision of doing a thing, but then the feeling, it will say someday, like, no, like, it's, it looks so cool, I need to go there, even if it's this, yeah, this possibility of a risk, you anyway, need to go. And, yeah, yeah, I think I will, yeah, I will see, yeah.

• 12:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you will find out soon. Well, within the world of multi-sport and endurance and ultra-endurance, I mean, everybody knows who you are, they know your accomplishments, but there's a lot of people that listen to this that, that don't necessarily come from that world. But perhaps they became familiar with you because of the Everest expedition that you went on in 2017. So can we talk about that a little bit?

• 12:45Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, for sure, yeah.

• 12:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that, that made headlines across the world. In a five or six-day period, you, you summited twice. So I wanna walk through that. But maybe even before that specifically, how did you prepare for that? How did you wrap your head around getting ready to do something like that? And what was it that you were seeking to accomplish?

• 13:13Kílian Jornet?

  Well, I think the preparation is like a long one and a short one. I would say the long one, it starts like very, very long time ago, when I was like probably three or two years old.

• 13:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 13:26Kílian Jornet?

  So like I think it's not that you decide, okay, next week I want to go to Everest, and what I do, or like next month or next year. But like you need to have a background, or like a long period of training before being able to do some things. It's like when you race, like it's not that you decide, okay, I want to win like western stage or hard rock and you start preparing and the month after you are able. But I was starting when I was kid to go to the mountains and to start to do like long days out, then racing. So it was like during, I have been training for more than 15 years, like yeah, the last

• 14:09Kílian Jornet?

  15 years I have been training at least 1,000 hours a year. So that's the background. And then in top of that, during the last, the last two months before going to Everest, it was more specific preparation. So actually, the different thing compared to only endurance training or like more technical climbs, it was to prepare, to be really confident and to be really comfortable in situations that you are not supposed to be comfortable.

• 14:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 14:46Kílian Jornet?

  So, for example, like I always say, okay, if some problem arrives up there, I will be by myself and I will have not any help. So I need to be able to, yeah, to take the good decisions. And for that, like I was going to train home and to do very long days, like sometimes like 15, 20 or more hours alone. And in some situations that they were a bit risky, like that I needed to be always in tension for avalanche or for things. And to put myself in the, in the really like limit on my technical skills, to be

• 15:25Kílian Jornet?

  always in this, yeah, tension situation and to be able to take decisions on a reasonable way and not to let the emotion to interfere on that, yeah.

• 15:36Rich Roll?

  Right, so. On some level, it's a natural progression of everything that you've been doing your whole life since you were three years old, since as long as you can remember. Like, I think there was a quote where somebody said, "How long did it take you to prepare?" And you're like, "Well, my whole life," right?

• 15:50Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah.

• 15:50Rich Roll?

  This is your life, yeah. And as somebody who's been training, you know, 1,200 hours in the mountains, you know, per year for many, many, many years, it seemed to make sense as the culminating point of this, you know, summits of my life thing that you were doing. But I would imagine there were specific things around a client, like you're somebody who, who, I mean, you have a, your resting heart rate's like 34 or something like that. You have a crazy VO2 max, like 92, right?

• 16:21Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Rich Roll?

  2012. I mean, for perspective, like, I think Lance Armstrong's was 85. Like, it's crazy high. So you have these, you know, these, these perhaps genetic or created gifts that have, that are a result of the training that you've done in your upbringing. But there were also, I would imagine, specific things that you had to do to get ready for acclimatizing, even though you acclimatized better than most people. And I think I read you, you were training with, like, oxygen deprivation, or like masks on, on the bike and on the treadmill and things like that, to try to expedite your ability to, to acclimate once you got there?

• 17:01Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah. Well, as you said, acclimatization is something very important before expedition, and especially, like, the goal of the, of the whole thing, it was to try, like, to don't spend too much time in, in the mountain, like, in, in the travel. First, for two things, because I like to do many things, so like racing and, and climbing and skiing. So I didn't want to spend like three, four months in, in, in a base camp, like, just sitting.

• 17:31Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 17:32Kílian Jornet?

  And, and then, because, like, I think if you arrive, acclimatize in a, in a mountain, like, you are fresher, like, mentally. So you keep the motivation. And, and also, you are physically stronger, because you, you came from home, you have been eating well. It's not like you are in a base camp, just eating fried rice, like, for two months and then, like, so the goal was to... Arrive in the mountain already climatized. And for that, I have been doing the last five years, different expeditions and trying different things. Most of them didn't work.

• 18:15Kílian Jornet?

  And this year, I think we finally get what worked. And actually, it was like home before departing, we were spending like around 300 hours in altitude. So both sleeping, like in the night, we were sleeping in a hypoxic tent at 6,000 meters. And then during the days, in the morning, I was doing my normal training, like five to 10 hours in the mountain. And in the afternoon, I was doing like one hour every day, very intense, like, I will say, like in the threshold or like even higher, like anaerobic intervals during one hour at 6,000 meters elevation.

• 18:59Rich Roll?

  And could you feel the difference when you got there? Did you feel like you had, you know, expedited the process of being comfortable at that kind of altitude?

• 19:07Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, it was, it was cool because like normally the first day you arrive at 6,000 meters, coming from, from Europe, you arrive in the mountains and like you see like, okay, I feel like shit. And that time, it was like at 6,000 meters, first day, we were able to run. And like three days after coming to Tibet, we were able to climb to 7,000 meters and feeling good. So it was a huge difference, I think, to feel climatized for 6,000.

• 19:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so for, for most people that attempt Everest, it, there's a period of weeks where they're kind of inching their way up and getting used to it and all of that so that they can be as safe as possible for the summit. And you're compressing that into literally a number of days. And so how long were you there before you're like, okay, you know, tonight's going to be the night?

• 19:57Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, like we were actually before going to Everest, like I fly from Europe with Emily and we were going to show you that it's a mountain just by the side, 8000 meter summit. So we were going there and we spent like 10 days in Shoyu. And then, so I reached, I don't think the summit, but the summit plateau. So around 8200 meters. And then I was driving to Everest Base Camp, it's just like a couple of hours from there. And then it took like one week to feel ready. So I would say like between two to three weeks period is where like if you are acclimatized from home, like you need, yeah.

• 20:42Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. And right beforehand, were you like running up, you know, 1000 meter ascents like in under an hour, like getting ready, like people are like, what are you doing?

• 20:54Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, like I, I think like it's, it's cool to do things and especially like in Base Camp, it's very, very boring. Like you are sitting in a wonderful place, like you have beautiful mountains all around and you are sitting in a tent doing nothing, like that's not like what I want to do there.

• 21:13Rich Roll?

  That's not you, yeah.

• 21:14Kílian Jornet?

  No, so like, okay, you need to rest, like, like the year before, I wanted to do everything, like everything, every day. So I was doing a lot every day and then like after one week I was completely destroyed.

• 21:28Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 21:28Kílian Jornet?

  So this year, okay, I say, okay, I will need to rest a bit, but we figure out like one day resting, one day activity is enough. So yeah, they like it was a one day off and then the other day like you could like, if you are well acclimatized, like I think going up to 8000 meters, it's, it's not this hard, like and you can run up and or like, you can walk slowly up and run down kind of, but it's fine, yeah.

• 21:54Rich Roll?

  And so the first attempt, you decided to start at like 5100 meters, right?

• 21:59Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah.

• 21:59Rich Roll?

  Which is lower than, than where most people start.

• 22:03Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, normally.

• 22:04Rich Roll?

  Like at the temple, right?

• 22:05Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, normally people like start from the like the the final push that it takes a few days from A B C, Advanced Base Camp, that that's at the feet of the mountain at six thousand three hundred meters. But actually, to get there, it's a long, long hike. It's like maybe thirteen miles. And from Rambuk, it's where the road ends, like it's a it's a road that finished there. So I wanted to like the goal of the of the whole expedition, it was not to set a F K T F K T in the mountain because like it's you cannot talk about F K T in these high mountains

• 22:47Kílian Jornet?

  because conditions and style make huge difference. So it was mostly to try to go from the last village to the summit and back. And only with, yeah, my means, like carrying all the gear I needed and not having any assistance. Because then I wanted to know if I was able to climb the mountain by myself or if I wasn't.

• 23:12Rich Roll?

  Right, so there's a there's, you know, the spirit behind all of this is a sense of purity, like that infuses everything that you do, which is, first of all, like, can it be done? And can it be done without all of the gear? Like, how how minimal can this be accomplished, right? Just with man and mountain and nothing else?

• 23:34Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, like, I think like, as animals, we are a mammal. And and we are a very bad adapted animal to the mountains, like, because like, as you see, like, you can see, like, the fastest man on earth, like, Usain Bolt. He runs like around forty kilometers an hour, four hundred meters, and that's probably like what a cow can run. So like, we are by far not the fast animal. And if you see in the mountains, like you, we were in Nepal or in Tibet, and you see the yaks, and like, we are there like with down jackets, and we need to eat a lot to keep fitness. In altitude and you see this yak that is staying there for weeks.

• 24:17Kílian Jornet?

  He eats one time a week like just a hand of grass. He's not drinking anything, he's not cold.

• 24:24Rich Roll?

  This is like you though.

• 24:25Kílian Jornet?

  Ah, yeah, no, I am very far from there. So like, so like, we need to have some gear. We need to have some that, but to try to get as close as we are as an animal to climb, yeah.

• 24:37Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. And all right, so the first attempt from fifty one hundred meters, you make it to the summit. And back down twenty six hours?

• 24:47Kílian Jornet?

  Up twenty six hours.

• 24:48Rich Roll?

  Up twenty six hours, okay. And no ropes, no supplemental oxygen.

• 24:56Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable. Like, what was the hardest part of that for you?

• 25:01Kílian Jornet?

  Hmm. Well, like, the hardest thing in the first lesson is that I feel like I had stomach problems.

• 25:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you ate something bad, right?

• 25:10Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, like, um, I eat something bad. Probably the day before, like in the base camp. So at the beginning, I was feeling okay for a few hours. But then I started to have like diarrhea and vomiting. So I decided to stop eating to avoid that. But then like energy goes low. So like during the last hours to the summit, it was very, very slow. And it's not like, it's not hard in a way that, uh. Up there, like it's more like only two decisions. Like you are saying, okay, is this gonna kill me? And if it's yes, then you turn. And if it's no, then you continue. So like.

• 25:55Rich Roll?

  But why not bail when your stomach's turning on you and say, look, I'll just do this. You know, I'll go reboot and do it again another day. Like that decision to continue. I mean, were you too far into it? What was the decision to persist?

• 26:08Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, mostly it's like it's very long, like from Rombo until you get to the mountains. Like it's these thirteen miles in the moraine. It's painful, like it's not fun. So then I was there and I was like almost when I decided, okay, now it will be hard.

• 26:25Rich Roll?

  Uh huh, but I'm not gonna die.

• 26:26Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, that's. And then I was at a thousand meters. So it's like, okay, should I go all the way back and start it again? Like a couple of days or like anyway, like I'm here. It's, I will go slow, but I will not die and. Somehow it will be some fun.

• 26:42Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 26:42Kílian Jornet?

  So why not to continue and yeah.

• 26:45Rich Roll?

  Fun for you.

• 26:46Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, it's it's special fun, yeah.

• 26:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you do that, but then I presume eh because of that stomach illness or a sense of eh knowing that you could do it faster or better, you make this decision to go once again.

• 27:02Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, it was um it was funny, like I was going down from the first summit and during the downhill, I I was thinking, okay, like we still have like five days till the plane leaves from Lhasa to home. So we had some extra days in the base camp. It's nothing to do in the base camp. So instead of like of packing during one week, like it was like, I was thinking, okay, uh why not to try to go up again? N n not for the doing a a fast time because I knew that I will be very tired after this first lesson. But also it would be it started to interest like if it would be possible to recover fast and to see how this recovery affects and to see if it, yeah, if it was possible.

• 27:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and from from what I understand is eh eh you know, being somebody who's never attempted anything like that, but people who who really understand this, that's the most miraculous aspect of all of this, which is that it generally takes somebody weeks to kind of recover from an experience like that before they're prepared or physiologically ready to attempt another summit. But just literally days later, you decide to go again. And I think it speaks to your natural ability to recover more quickly than the average human being on some level. But also, like, what is that like? Did you just felt like internally you did a gut check and you're like, I'll be fine. I feel good.

• 28:33Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I think it was, um, I felt, I felt okay, like, uh, you feel tired, but it's like, okay, yeah, I can move. So, um, but mostly, I think the recovery, uh, it's because we had been long in the mountains. So like, as I said before, like with the fast acclimatization and with the, uh, being like short travels, like we were there and I was still fresh on kind of like motivation and like healthy, like strong. And in the other side, like, I never slept high in the mountain. Like all the nights I spent, it was always, uh,

• 29:16Kílian Jornet?

  maximum it was 6,300 meters. So like not sleeping high, uh, it makes a big impact for the, for the recovery. Then you need to be able to go to the summit, like from, so do a long elevation from 6,000 meters. So it's, it's very long days, but it's good nights. So that makes also good for recovery. And yeah, like during the second ascent, like I was feeling, uh, tired, like normally, but, uh, it was, I think it was better than what I expected. Like I was able to, to kind of walk.

• 29:50Rich Roll?

  Was there anybody in your, your contingent, your group of people who, who pulled you aside and said, maybe you should wait a little bit longer? Or did they just trust you that you know yourself?

• 30:01Kílian Jornet?

  Well, like this group of people, it was only one person.

• 30:04Rich Roll?

  Oh, so that was it, right?

• 30:06Kílian Jornet?

  That was it. So it was a seven month. So that was, it was.

• 30:10Rich Roll?

  It's just your filmmaker, the filmmaker, right?

• 30:12Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, it was, uh, yeah, it was him and, and me. And the good thing is like we didn't have, uh, like kind of much internet or anything or sat phone. So it was like, I was only just sending like, uh, maybe, uh, every few days, like a message to my team or my family saying, okay, everything is okay. We are, we are good. So we didn't have much input.

• 30:34Rich Roll?

  No, you have more people with you here today than you did on Everest.

• 30:37Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

• 30:38Rich Roll?

  And that second time up, the conditions were worse, right? There was, it was snowing and windier.

• 30:46Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, it was supposed to be the best day in the summer or in the spring. Like all the like big groups like Adrian Bollinger. Uh, they were uh climbing the that day. Uh, also like the the Swiss Expedition, um Cory, uh Carrie Cobbler, they were climbing this day. So they were saying that's the day, it's marked to be the best one on the on the season. So I was saying, okay, that's that's cool. Yeah. And then we started climbing and the the bad weather was coming faster than than supposed.

• 31:25Kílian Jornet?

  Uh, and because I I didn't have any radio or any kind of communication uh with the others. Uh, they could not tell me. And then like I I saw like it was okay, the the sky is a bit more white and. But it was windy, but but not that bad, like it's not wind that it it throws you away the face. So, yeah.

• 31:49Rich Roll?

  Right. And and so you summit. Um, and this time you started from advanced base camp, right? So that was like sixty five hundred.

• 31:58Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, this time, yeah, actually, after the first summit, I was going down to the base camp. Um, then actually, we.

• 32:06Rich Roll?

  You got lost.

• 32:07Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, or yeah, no, that that the second time, but the yeah, after the first time, like we were packing everything to get ready for leaving. Last because I knew, okay, if I go back to the summit, like it will be super speed after. So we pack everything. And then we went up to ABC to sixteen hundred and then we didn't have any tender, but it was a. Uh, Alpen Glow that they had an expedition there and they were up in the mountain. So we could sleep in their dining room.

• 32:35Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 32:36Kílian Jornet?

  And then I started from from there. Uh, yeah, then going down, I I get lost from the mountain. That was kind of fun to, yeah.

• 32:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and you end up perilously close to the that north face ri- that ridge, right? The drop off.

• 32:52Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, it was um, it was strange, like I, I think like now, like I has been talking with a lot of doctors and, and start to understand why I had, I had a blackout period during a few minutes. So actually I was climbing and it was fine, it was windy, so like the tracks and the, it was covered. Like uh, even like in spring climbing, you cannot talk about Alpine style because even if I wasn't using the fixed ropes, like it's, it's the second ladder or the third ladder in the second step that I use it. And then it's the fixed ropes there, so like even if you don't use it, like it's easy to, to follow the way because they are there.

• 33:35Kílian Jornet?

  But during the second ascent, uh, with all the bad weather, like it was snowing a lot uh, and windy, so all the ropes and all the tracks were covered. Um, but that was okay and in the way down, uh, I remember very well, like until I reached the eight thousand three hundred meters, but from there I have like a blackout period, I don't know what it happened and

• 34:00Rich Roll?

  Like you don't know how you got there, like I think you said you thought you were gonna wake up from a dream and be at base camp?

• 34:06Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, because from there, like the next memory was like I was down climbing, something technical, in a big face, I'm not, I was not anymore in a ridge where I was supposed to be, but in a big face, snowy, rocky, it's like where I am, what I'm doing here, um, it's this dream because I didn't have any connection with the last memory, so I didn't know if it was reality or if it was a bad dream and I was going to wake up in the base camp. And yeah, the, the bad or the worst thing, it was like I didn't know where I was, so I didn't know if I was in the northeast face or in the north face or in the south face, so it was like,

• 34:46Kílian Jornet?

  okay, it's in the middle of the night, it's bad weather, I'm in a face and I don't, I have no, absolutely no idea where I am.

• 35:00Rich Roll?

  So how do you keep it together? How do you avoid panicking? How do you avoid your emotions getting the best of you when you're in a moment like that?

• 35:10Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I think that's what you need to prepare for and to feel, as I said before, feel confident in situations that you are not supposed to be confident and to be comfortable. It's exactly this kind of situations. And I think it's just to really accept and to mentally accept before going to an expedition what you can find there and to not be surprised when these situations arrive because they are possible. And I think when I was there, it was more like a checking saying, "Okay, I am cold. No, I will not die because I will have frostbite

• 35:54Kílian Jornet?

  or hypothermia. I didn't feel any edema, like a brain edema or like edema. So I was saying, "Okay, this is okay. This is okay." The only problem is that the night, and I don't know where it is, but I will not die because it's night and I will not die because I don't know where I am. So then it was like, "Okay, I just need to figure out these two things." Like the night is this. Like you wait until it's daylight so you can see where you are. And then it was mostly to know that. I was physically feeling good. So I was thinking, "Okay, I'm at 1,000 meters." At that time, I was between 8,200 and 8,000 meters. I was saying, "Okay,

• 36:36Kílian Jornet?

  if I'm by, I don't know how, in the south face and I need to climb up again to 8,500, it will be hard, but I feel like physically okay to doing it." So I wasn't afraid of need to go up again or to, yeah.

• 36:53Rich Roll?

  Right. So just like really to compartmentalize all of these things and be as logical as possible and not let your emotions or any fear creep into how you're making those decisions?

• 37:04Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I think emotions up in high mountains are dangerous. And it can be fear, like if you panic in a situation like that, probably you do mistakes and then you fall. But also like a failure, like if you are summiting and in the summit, like you start to have like adrenaline and you start to feel wow, that's done and like excitement, then probably during the downhill, like you will do mistakes because you don't take care. So I think both good and bad emotions up there, like any emotion is bad in a, yeah, in norm, yeah.

• 37:39Rich Roll?

  So that's something I would imagine you've just learned over the many years of just always being in the mountains and being in, you know, countless situations where risk was a huge factor.

• 37:49Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, more, yeah, we learn a lot of mistakes, I would say, and doing mistakes, having accidents or doing stupid things, uh, we all do. And, and these situations that you, when you come home, it's like, wow, today was very, very stupid. And it's there when you learn, when you say, okay, next time I need to do better.

• 38:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and your, your adventures have not been without some consequences to some loved ones. I mean, I know you were out with Emily and, you know, outside Chamonix and you had to be rescued and you've lost a couple of friends. Um, so I would imagine that, does that weigh on you when you're out there?

• 38:32Kílian Jornet?

  Sure, like, um, we do an activity that we know that it's possibly, like we can die there in the mountain. And it's nothing that we look, we are not doing that because the, because we are close to death, but because we are alive when we're doing, but it's the possibility of, of, uh, yeah, of an accident. And, and when you have some close calls, it can be like, uh, yeah, some friends that they die by your side, or it can be like some accidents. But all the times, uh, I think it's funny that when you start to do, uh, mountainering,

• 39:15Kílian Jornet?

  like you are afraid about your capacities because you don't know yourself, but you see the mountain as something solid, that it's, uh, it's there, it's like a ball or it's something. And more you go into the mountains. Less you are afraid about yourself, you know better your capacities, your technique, your experience. But you see that the mountain is moving and it's dangers there that you don't see, but they are there. So you are more afraid about the mountain. So it's this thing that it's many things that you cannot control. Like you can think logically, but then avalanches come where it's supposed to not, or like some rock fallings and things.

• 39:56Kílian Jornet?

  And you need to accept in a way that that's part of it, that it's many things we can control, but it's some of them that is not possible to do.

• 40:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I look at you as somebody who, despite all of your accomplishments, you know, is very humble, like you have a very healthy relationship with humility. And not to project, but I would imagine that comes from an appreciation and respect for nature. Like you're never going to beat the mountain, right? And if you don't have a respect and a healthy level of humility when you're attempting these challenges, then you're putting yourself in great peril. So it keeps you like sort of right sized about everything.

• 40:37Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I think conquering mountains is a very, very ironic word. I think like we are not conquering mountains, like we can conquer ourselves and the mountain is where we is this big mirror where we see ourselves, but we can never pretend to be fighting against the mountain or to be fighting against nature because first of all, because we are part of it, like we are part of the nature. So I think it's important to pass there lightly, so we can only see our footsteps.

• 41:18Kílian Jornet?

  But we like leaving no trace is not only like about leaving rabies, but it's also about like.

• 41:27Kílian Jornet?

  Being, being accepted by the mountain or being try, yeah, kind of like being there, but trying to don't aggress the mountain. And I think on a way, I don't think that if you don't aggress the mountain, it will respect you more, but at least it keeps you aware of like, okay, you are really, really nothing. You are very, very small, even if you are like, and especially because sports, it's so much about ego and, and how the sport is organized. Like you win a race and you are in a top of a podium that it's like, it's something very artificial, like why you are better because you run faster than the guy that is second or one, the one is third or the one is last one. So we'd really

• 42:11Kílian Jornet?

  like building kind of this egocentric mindset, how a sport is organized. So you can think, and it's easy to believe that you are someone good or that you are better than others. And especially mountains, that's very dangerous. And, and at the end, like it will put in your side, like, yeah, you are nothing.

• 42:34Rich Roll?

  Right. Yeah. That's super interesting. Um, you know, and, and I think impactful coming from somebody who's, I mean, you basically won every big race that there is to win. You stood atop all these podiums until there was really no, no challenge left for you to conquer, other than it, it seems to make perfect sense in retrospect that you would then go onto this Summit of My Life experience because just you and the mountain and you, without any fanfare, well, there's probably some fanfare wherever you go, but, but, you know, without the structures and the kind of logistics of, of, of racing, to be able to just go out on these mountains and, and make it as pure as possible and see how fast

• 43:17Rich Roll?

  you can go up and back and have that experience just for yourself.

• 43:21Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I, I, I am like, I normally like solitude and I like, uh, yeah, kind of like being alone, being alone with, uh, with, uh, mountains. It's, it makes sense on the way that. It's this feeling, like this feeling of feeling very small, it's very interesting, I think, and facing yourself. And of course, in racing, you can find great challenges. Because like racing at the end, like at the beginning, it was like a pure competition motivation. Like, I want to win the race, or I want to become world champion, or whatever. And that really drives me to achieve that.

• 44:04Kílian Jornet?

  And I think it's a very interesting process. Because having this goal in mind, you put so much effort. Like, it's easy to train very hard if you have this goal in mind. But at the end, like when you achieve the goal, it's like, the satisfaction, it's second. But then it's like, okay, what next? And of course, like, doing the same process is not as exciting. But actually, I think now, and now racing, it's cool. Because it gives me like, both like a motivation to train hard, to do some kind of trainings. Like, seeing young people that it's going very fast, like, and wanting to beat them, is like,

• 44:49Kílian Jornet?

  what, maybe sometimes when I'm training, like, it gives me this like, more, yeah, motivation to push a bit more the button. And then, it's also a good checklist, like, if you are racing and you are doing good performances, it means that you are in okay shape. So, I think that's important after for going to mountain racing, because it means that I'm keeping good, in good shape. And then that I can use this racing shape for going to mountains. But there, I know that, at the end, like, I will be by myself, and it's only, yeah, a fight against yourself.

• 45:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, a couple of interesting things about... Your training and your racing and your preparation, you don't have a coach. You haven't had a coach since you were a kid, right?

• 45:37Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, since I was seventeen years old, yeah.

• 45:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you learned everything there was to learn from that coach. And now you go, you go out and from what I understand, like you don't really create training plans. It's more of a, this is how I feel today and I'm going to go out in the mountains for two hours or ten hours, or maybe I'll decide when I'm halfway out there, how long I'm going to be out there.

• 46:01Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, well, no, it's not, it's not that fair. Yeah, no, no, like.

• 46:06Rich Roll?

  Alright, so explain.

• 46:07Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, actually, yeah, I, I, I was with a coach until I was seventeen. So I was kind of learning the basics, like to be methodic and like to, to follow like kind of different what, what it happens when you do these volume trainings or when you do like a short intervals or long intervals. So I had this basic and then I, I like to study. Like I spend a lot of hours every week, like just reading articles that they come about physiology, that they come about psychology, that they come about training, looking to what other people is doing out there,

• 46:46Kílian Jornet?

  both in, in, in climbing and in ultra running, but also like in athletics and in like a cycling. And so I, I really like to read these subjects to understand how the body works and to try things. And especially I like to, to try things, like to see how it works. For example, body training, like for example, doing thirty thirty, like thirty seconds super fast and then resting thirty seconds. Like during some periods of time, I wanted to really push that to the limit. So I was doing that like as long as possible during like three hours or like doing that only thirty thirties, like all the time.

• 47:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 47:29Kílian Jornet?

  And then like saying what it was happening the next week.

• 47:32Rich Roll?

  And are you journaling that and writing it down so you can look back and?

• 47:36Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I have, I have an Excel with like all the trainings and all the descriptions since two thousand three. So yeah, I memorize everything.

• 47:45Rich Roll?

  It, it, it strikes me as somewhat. You strike me as very similar to Alex Honnold in your approach and your lifestyle and this, you know, the purest aspect in what you do. And I think what gets missed in Alex's story, maybe not so much now that the documentary is out, is the rigorous preparation that goes into his free solo climbing. And it's the same with you. Like, people want to think, well, you're just out there doing whatever, but you're very methodical in your own way about how you approach your training and your racing and the feedback that your body is giving you. I mean, I read, didn't you create also like this spreadsheet of this chronology over the course of history of what's required to go fast in the mountains? Like, you're a student, right?

• 48:30Rich Roll?

  You're a scholar of the sport and the human physique.

• 48:34Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I can be geek sometimes, and yeah, I have some friends that they are on that. No, I think it's interesting, and especially like to understand what has been done before and to understand what's going. And yeah, studying, I think, is what makes us interested. Yeah, like, if we read a lot what's going on and if something new is happening, to understand why and to understand how and to try to apply that. And I know that many things I can try or I can read.

• 49:12Kílian Jornet?

  Like, I would not be able to use by myself because I have not the capacities. But it's interesting to try and to see if it's working or not. And sometimes this test or these things can work on me, and other times it can work for other people, but it's interesting to try it, yeah.

• 49:33Rich Roll?

  What is something that you've changed, like, over the last couple of years in how you approach your training that was different than what you were doing maybe, I don't know, five or six years ago?

• 49:47Kílian Jornet?

  I would say that I I take a bit more care about resting today. But that's not fully true because I don't rest much.

• 49:54Rich Roll?

  You don't, yeah. You don't really periodize or taper at all from what I gather.

• 49:59Kílian Jornet?

  No, but but tapering, I think, like when you see, like, for example, the the marathon athletes like Elliot Kipchoge or these guys, like, they don't do much either, like, they trained very hard until last week. Um, but I think like on on planning seasons is important, like, uh, to find some some periods. But mostly, I would say, like, now, I I think with the base of the last fifteen years of training, I'm able to to perform in a okay level without doing very specific training. So like only like training average, like, I'm able to do some good results in in long and short distance.

• 50:42Kílian Jornet?

  But then, uh, it's more about like thi- this specific training, like, as I say, like, forever, it was this acclimatization. I'm doing this very hard intensity training for, uh, in in very high altitude. That was very interesting. Or like, uh, so I think now, maybe it's like I have already the base. And during these last years is these more specific trainings that I can put for some period. That this period can go from one week to to three, four weeks. So that's, uh, yeah, that's what I change.

• 51:14Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. But it's not unusual for you to go out and train seven, eight hours in the mountains. And I think you you go, like, you can go out for seven hours without even any water, right? You don't bring a lot of stuff with you. It's not like you're packing a ton of food and drink. When you did Denali, you only had like a liter of water for that eleven hours.

• 51:36Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah.

• 51:37Rich Roll?

  Is that true?

• 51:38Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, uh, that that's the double I have in my second Everest. Because it froze. So, yeah. No, but, uh, yeah, I I don't, yeah, I can train for like ten hours without any water.

• 51:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 51:51Kílian Jornet?

  Or food. Uh, and I think.

• 51:54Rich Roll?

  Has somebody studied that? Like, what is it that allows you to do that? You're just so efficient.

• 51:59Kílian Jornet?

  I think it's years of doing like I remember like when when we were kids like maybe seven, eight years old, like we were sometimes with my mother to do like a ten fifteen hours walk. And we didn't bring water, so we were very, very thirsty, but but I think doing that. Like, I don't want people to start now to run ten hours.

• 52:20Rich Roll?

  No, yeah, let's be clear, this is you're not advising anyone to do this, but you you started, I mean.

• 52:25Kílian Jornet?

  But it's important, yeah.

• 52:26Rich Roll?

  When you were a teenager, didn't you try you tried to see how many days you could go, like, training without eating? You went like five days until you passed out or something?

• 52:34Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, and that's what I was, yeah, that's what I was saying before, like, it's.

• 52:39Rich Roll?

  Please don't do this at home.

• 52:41Kílian Jornet?

  No, but but it's it's very interesting to know where are your limits and and to to experience that by yourself. Like, that time, like, it was, like, many times when you are in a race and you you you miss one aid station, it's like, okay, I don't have food, and you start to panic. Whatever, like, it's not because you miss that that you will lose your race. And I think if you know, like, when that time, like, I was seventeen years old and I was in university. And I was like, far away from the racing seasons, and it was like, yeah, why to see how the body can be efficient in different metabolisms? And how far away, so it was very interesting because I I stopped eating.

• 53:26Kílian Jornet?

  And I was training, like, not a lot, but like the normal, like, three, between two and four hours in the morning and one hour in the afternoon.

• 53:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, not so much.

• 53:33Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, no, but like, not very, very long days.

• 53:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I got you.

• 53:36Kílian Jornet?

  Uh, and then, like, the the first day, like, you are okay, the second day, you are hungry. Uh, but actually, the endurance is the same, like, I was able to run almost the same pace for the four-hour run. The only difference, it was like I lose like a power and speed, like I wasn't able to do a sprint. And this was keep going, like, the endurance, I almost didn't lose at all during five days. Then I passed away and and, yeah, I was really close to to the university, so I wake up and I was going to do it. But but then it's interesting because, you know, okay, until five days, I don't really need to worry, or like, I know that the fat are burning or. And and I think then the body

• 54:19Kílian Jornet?

  starts to be also more efficient on on how to use uh energy.

• 54:24Rich Roll?

  You also, uh. Cross train quite a bit. You're skiing all winter, you're mountaineering, you're doing a variety of different things. And I would presume that keeps you fresh and keeps you from burning out. You know, you see a lot of ultra runners who explode on the scene. They have a season or two in which they're crushing it and winning races. And then they either overtrain or they get injured. And then it's very difficult for them to have a presence at that level once again. And you've been able to maintain, you know, a consistent presence at the top for many, many years. I mean, it wasn't until like the last year that you even really had any injuries.

• 55:04Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, as you say, it's, it's, it's interesting to see why, how, yeah, why how many athletes they burn out after two seasons. And that's very common in ultra running. And probably because people is training, running so, so much, like so many miles every week during, during, like, many years. So I think the mileage there, it really affects. So combining with other activities, like it can be cycling, or I do like a skiing, like during six months, like from November to, to end of April, I don't run a single day. It's only, only skiing.

• 55:46Kílian Jornet?

  So like doing endurance activities, but that they are not the same movements. And both for the mind, like to, to change and to be excited to run and to, and for the, and for the body, like to use other muscles and other articulations. It's, yeah, it's very healthy.

• 56:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What was it like being injured really for the first time this past year? I mean, you had two shoulder surgeries and then you broke your fibula.

• 56:11Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah.

• 56:11Rich Roll?

  Which had you in a boot for a while, although you still managed to get on a bicycle and ride around with a boot on and do a push up or two.

• 56:17Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah. No, I think like injury is like

• 56:23Kílian Jornet?

  The first one, I really like, I, the shoulder surgery, it was something I wanted to do, so it was not, not like I had an accident and the day after I,

• 56:32Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:32Kílian Jornet?

  I stopped, so it was.

• 56:33Rich Roll?

  It's like a persistent thing that you just had to deal with?

• 56:35Kílian Jornet?

  No, I needed to do one time, I was saying, okay, I do now. So then you enter in a mindset, okay, of doing that. So I used that time to, to read a lot. So when I was like reading all the, this chronology of, of things and, and then like studying also like a lot of physiology. Um, so it was kind of fast going because it was things going on and I was prepared for that. But then for sure, the fibula, it was just an accident. I had a ski accident in a race. So that was a bit more like, okay, it has been like three months stop and now like two months like on and, and back again. So I wasn't worried about coming back to shape because I knew that after like some recovery, it will be okay.

• 57:19Kílian Jornet?

  But it was more like, okay, now it's like one or two more months like without doing anything.

• 57:25Rich Roll?

  That's probably the first time in your life you had to literally sit in a chair.

• 57:29Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, it was long. Then also like, I didn't tell my doctor all what I was doing. So it was like, I was starting to cycle, like with the, with the, with the ferrula, yeah, with the boot. So I was starting cycling, okay, it feels away. So after two weeks, I tell my doctor, can I start cycling? He started to say, yeah, you can start to do some easy things.

• 57:53Rich Roll?

  But you'd already been doing it.

• 57:53Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, and same with running, like I was running some long distance things. And then he was saying, yeah, you can start gently. So, um, that's not an advice for people either, like, listen to your doctor, but I think it's, you can do things like at the first weeks, like I could work a bit more my upper body or I can work a bit the other leg. So I think not stopping completely, it's important for, for having a fast.

• 58:20Rich Roll?

  Trying to move however you could. And then you ended up, I think it was three and a half months after you suffered the injury, you won the marathon de Mont Blanc?

• 58:28Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, that was, I didn't know how I would, I would be, so that was interesting on that. But, uh, yeah, no, it was good.

• 58:35Rich Roll?

  I mean, how much running were you able to get in before that race?

• 58:40Kílian Jornet?

  I was able to run during one, yeah, like one month, I would say, or yeah, something like three weeks, one month. And yeah, like I did some long days, some very, very long days, and then some short running. But yeah, I was like, I wasn't afraid about the amount of running, but I was more afraid about the speed, like going downhill very, very fast.

• 59:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, speaking of downhill, I mean, that's really where you shine and where your style kind of comes through. You're like this ballet dancer, you know, prancing down these mountains, you know, precarious, very technical trails with just incredible agility that even the best ultra runners, you know, marvel at. And there's all these videos of you with a GoPro attached to your head and you're like on the precipice of some ridge where it's thousands of feet down in each direction and it makes everybody's palms sweat. So it begs the question of your relationship with fear. I mean, people would say, oh, well, he's not afraid, he doesn't have fear, but that's not really accurate, is it?

• 59:51Kílian Jornet?

  No, and first, I think is the thing is like, fear, like it's important to keep you alive. Like if we were not afraid of anything, like we would climb thirty floors building and jump because we are not afraid to die and we would die. So like fear, it keeps us alive, like because it tells us, okay, you are not ready for that, or you cannot do that. And in the other way, like, every person have different skills on what is used to do. Like, I, for me, probably it's more dangerous to be like walking in New York or like Los Angeles in the streets because like I'm not a city person at all, so I would start to

• 1:00:36Kílian Jornet?

  cross the streets without looking.

• 1:00:39Rich Roll?

  That would be terrifying. That would be the most afraid you would ever be if that was your life.

• 1:00:42Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, because you are not used to that, but if you are every day in the mountains, it's like when you are in the highway. If you take your wheel and you just turn it, probably you will just have an accident. But you don't do that.

• 1:00:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:55Kílian Jornet?

  So it's the same in the mountain, like you put the feet in the good place, like, and you don't fall. So if you are, if you know how to run, like, then you will not fall, yeah.

• 1:01:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and we should probably talk a little bit about your upbringing. I mean, you grew up in the mountains, your parents were guides, right? So you were hiking and mountaineering from as long, as far back as you can recall.

• 1:01:20Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I didn't have my exceptions, yes, kid. Uh, not sure, like, um, my, my father was a mountain guide and, and, and my mother, she was also passionate about, about mountaineering. So since we were children with my sister, like, we were going to, to do some summits or to do some crossings. So that was kind of like everyday, uh, yeah, everyday activities were like going out, out in the nature, out in the mountains. So it was, I don't think it affects much like on, on physiology, like on how my body was built, maybe within the ankles or that, but it's mostly about being comfortable and to, to, to read the, the landscape.

• 1:02:05Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. When did you first realize that you had this talent?

• 1:02:10Kílian Jornet?

  Or I, I don't think I have a, like, I, I am good running, but I don't think it's a, it's a big talent, but.

• 1:02:17Rich Roll?

  Why not?

• 1:02:19Kílian Jornet?

  Um, it's, it's, it's a stupid thing, like, it's just, it's running, like, it's to put the feet after the other and that's all, but.

• 1:02:26Rich Roll?

  But you recognize that you have some gifts.

• 1:02:29Kílian Jornet?

  Uh, I, yeah, like, I think, like, I have a morphology that is adapt for, for running and that's like, of course, like, if I, if my dream was to be a, a, a basketball, yeah. Like, probably I would not go far, even if I put a lot of work, because I'm like 170. So, but then it's, it's work, I think, like, yes, the, the morphology and, and some genes give you something, uh, and then you need to put a lot of work. And I think, I think it was mostly like when I was like teenager.

• 1:03:06Kílian Jornet?

  I I wanted to do that and I prioritize that over other things. So I didn't want to socialize or I didn't want to go parties or I didn't want to go after school to do something. When I was after school, I wanted to go training and perform. So I think it's during that time that you start to choose your way and yeah, put hours on it.

• 1:03:28Rich Roll?

  Your coming out party was was it UTMB when you were like 20 or 21? Was that like the first time where everybody kind of knew who you were?

• 1:03:40Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:41Rich Roll?

  That first race where you were like winning by a ton and they thought you were cheating?

• 1:03:45Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46Rich Roll?

  No one had ever heard of you?

• 1:03:48Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, no, it was it was funny because like I before that like I I already like won some sky races or like a ski mountaineering, World Cup and things. So I knew I had the level to win UTMB like and I prepared the race very well like I was doing during doing the the round in in two days and and I knew that I was able to run in in less than 20 hours. So I say, OK, I I can win that and if nothing happens like I will be winning. But then like I think the the ultra running world at that moment, it was very, very close.

• 1:04:28Kílian Jornet?

  So like it was they didn't think that someone young could could win a race. And we see today like it's almost only like a young guys winning the races.

• 1:04:40Rich Roll?

  But at that time, yeah, it was much older people who'd been around for a long time.

• 1:04:43Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Rich Roll?

  You didn't just show up out of nowhere and win a race.

• 1:04:46Kílian Jornet?

  No, no, like at that moment, I was already I had already like eight years of racing and performing so but it was just that the people of ultra running, they didn't look around, they only look to ultra running. So they didn't they didn't know like what other people was doing.

• 1:05:03Rich Roll?

  Right, you were you were crushing it in in skiing, ski mountaineering and all these other races.

• 1:05:08Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, like this same year, yeah, or the year before, I won the Sky Running World Cup and the Sky Mountain Nailing, so it, I think, yeah. I think in ultra running, experience is important, but it doesn't matter if you put like from thirty to forty years old, or from like twenty to thirty, or from ten to twenty years old, so it's just like you need to have the amount of miles, but it can be before or after.

• 1:05:35Rich Roll?

  Right, and in that race, you were like winning by a ton, and then near the finish, they detained you for like an hour and questioned you and made sure you had the right gear, or wanted to know like what was going on, and then they released you and you still won by an hour?

• 1:05:51Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, it was like, I don't have a very good memory of this first edition, because I put a lot of like, yeah, I really wanted to the race, and for me, like, run a hundred miles, it was like, I will be able to do it, so I didn't doubt about like going fast, but I was doubting about keeping the distance. So during the race, it was very cool, and then they started to stop me, like, to check the gear, like, it was a mandatory gear at the time, or now too, but, and they were checking me, like, if I had all the gear, and they checked me that like for five times during the race, and all the time it was there, so, one hour before finishing, like, just

• 1:06:34Kílian Jornet?

  at the top of the last climb, they stopped me and they give me the radio to the organization, to the race director, and it was like, okay, we know you are sitting somehow, you stop here one hour, like, we will find what are you doing, and then we decided if we let you finish or not, and it was like, what's going on here, and like, I wanted to quit at that moment, I just say, okay, let's go home and keep in Skimontaneering and Skyrunning.

• 1:07:04Rich Roll?

  Screw you guys.

• 1:07:05Kílian Jornet?

  Screw, and then it was actually one guy there, a friend that was saying, no, no, just calm down, like, keep going, finish, and like, you will see that everything is good, but at that moment, it was, yeah, not.

• 1:07:19Rich Roll?

  Right, how do you think about?

• 1:07:23Rich Roll?

  Ultra running, how this explosion of growth that it's had over the course of your career? I mean, what it is now versus what it must have been like back even, I mean, 2008 wasn't that long ago, but it's changed quite a bit. It's become so popular.

• 1:07:36Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, in 10 years, it has changed. Like at the beginning, it was more an easy sport. It was not that many people. It was just a few races. And yeah, in 10 years, it's like races everywhere. I don't know how many hundred miles is in in US, but it's like hundreds of hundred miles and that's insane. It's like one race every weekend at least and so many participants, like races about, it's races in Europe with more than 10,000 runners. And the good thing, I think, is that it keeps the, like, the soul of the sport, like, it's

• 1:08:15Kílian Jornet?

  not preformatting to something like illogical. Like, I think the beauty of those sports is to do logical things, like as UTMB, for example, is running around the mountain. That's something like you would do, like, just for fun, or like Western stages from A to B, like, in a nice place. And I think every race have his charm and it's not only like about performance, but like...

• 1:08:40Rich Roll?

  The soul.

• 1:08:40Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, the soul and it keeps, it's interesting. I don't think it's, of course, like, it's an elite of the, like, some fast runners that we want to win races and we want to perform, but that's not the big part of the sport. The big part of the sport is that everybody can feel the same thing and like, you can be a top athlete or you can be a new beginner and you can be in the same race, doing the same path and experiencing something similar. And at least for the moment, I think it's keeping that and that's very, that's important.

• 1:09:15Rich Roll?

  The community, you know, it's an unbelievable community of people and you being somebody who likes your alone time, who likes to be out in the mountains by yourself, I mean, I also see somebody who really embraces and loves the community and that's a big driver for you. I mean, you race all the time. You're at all of these races, like, I don't know, you have 15 or 20 of these a year, it seems like.

• 1:09:37Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, it's a lot of racing, as you said, community, it's something that it's... It's important because it's what makes a sport living. Like if it's only like, if it would be like only top athlete racing by themselves, it has not sense and it's because it's this. And I think it's a cool community. It's people that loves, like challenging themselves, loves sport, but they also like, it's sort of a connection with nature. It's a connection with the places. And especially here in US, it's a big difference, I think, with Europe on how these, you need to be like kind of related to the community

• 1:10:19Kílian Jornet?

  and to the place with the, like all the 100 mile races almost, they require like a trail service. So you need to work on the trails before you are able to resist it for a race.

• 1:10:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's built into it.

• 1:10:35Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I think that really cool thing is that it's not only about racing, but it's also like, I think feeling, you can feel the race in a racing perspective, but you can feel the race in our organizing perspective, in a volunteering or in a pacing. And all have the same importance. And I think here, especially in the US, it's, you feel that much more that they respect, yeah, they respect as much the pacer or the volunteer than the one that wins or than the participants.

• 1:11:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's something that's really cool and unique about the world, I think.

• 1:11:19Rich Roll?

  Do you think that you have a different relationship with pain and suffering than the average athlete? Like, how do you think about those things?

• 1:11:32Kílian Jornet?

  I don't like pain, but I accept that it's part of the job.

• 1:11:36Rich Roll?

  Do you think that you feel it in the same way other people feel it? Obviously, you only have your own experience, but you have this ability to tolerate it at a pretty high level. I mean, was that Hard Rock race, you broke your collarbone at like mile 13 and still... Not just finish the race, but like won the race.

• 1:11:54Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, but like it's the arm, like you you you don't run with your arms, so it's like it's not.

• 1:12:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Did you just like, did you know it was broken right away and put it like harness it somehow? Like, what did you actually do when that occurred?

• 1:12:08Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, it was very stupid of me, like actually, and I was a bit embarrassed, like. We were running and it was in the beginning of the race, like mile, I think it was my like mile thirteen or something like that. And then it was this like small, like, uh, just like. Maybe only like fifty meters, a snow field. And I was saying, okay, I want to like, it will be fun to go in this snow field and do like skiing. And I was going there and I was like gliding in the snow and then I completely lost the control, so I just.

• 1:12:41Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:12:42Kílian Jornet?

  You just hit the rocks after and and.

• 1:12:44Rich Roll?

  Like you were just trying to have a little bit of fun?

• 1:12:46Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, and then like, okay, it was like, okay, I'm so stupid. So I put the the shoulder back and then. It was okay during like maybe two, three miles because it was still warm. But then it started to be cooler, so it started to be really painful. But then I figured out a way with the backpack like to to lock the the shoulder and so on, like, yeah, it was. I think when you are in a race, like you can really put yourself through pain, like you just go on and like you don't think too much about it and.

• 1:13:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, I would think that if the race was shorter because the adrenaline rush can carry you through something like that. But when you're dealing with, you know, the number of hours that a hundred miler entails, I would imagine that wears off at some point.

• 1:13:33Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah, I would not say it's pleasure, it's not pleasant, but uh. But uh, like. Yeah, it's. It's only pain, like it's it's if it's not something dangerous like if it was like if you break a leg and you say, okay, if I continue like it will be much worse, then it's stupid to continue. But if it's only pain like I was thinking anyway, like what if I stop now, I will go to the hotel and I will have pain anyway because because it will not go away. And and I will just be sad because I have pain and sad because I I I am sitting here. I have been doing a long travel and and I'm just sitting in a hotel. So I will be sad because I have pain, but I can run. So

• 1:14:19Rich Roll?

  I'll be less sad if I just keep running.

• 1:14:21Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

• 1:14:22Rich Roll?

  It's like, that's bizarrely logical, I suppose, in some strange universe.

• 1:14:31Rich Roll?

  Of all the things that you've done, what what has been the most challenging for you?

• 1:14:41Kílian Jornet?

  Like, it's always easy when you have done something like because you have been able to do it, then it looks like easy, like you can put a lot of effort on doing something. But if you not fail, then it's like, okay, it was not that hard. So I think the the hardest things is always when you fail, because like it means that you need to like it was not enough.

• 1:15:05Rich Roll?

  That's the teachable, the teachable moments.

• 1:15:08Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I think so. And for I think like one of the hardest races I I have been feeling, it was a Western stage 2010. Like, I was completely unprepared. I I were running a lot, a lot of things like long distance runs as the weeks before in in Europe. I came here and I didn't think about like heat. I was thinking, okay, it will be hot, but I like hot for me is like being like more than 20 degrees Celsius. That's I don't know how that's in in Fahrenheit, but it's like, like how we are now here in in in Los Angeles

• 1:15:53Kílian Jornet?

  is way much hotter than for me it's hot. So then Western stage, it's it's like around 90 some degrees and

• 1:16:04Kílian Jornet?

  I didn't expect that at all. And I was thinking, okay, I just run like with, without water. And I will drink in the stations. So then I started to get dehydrated and I started to to have cramps all the body. And that was, yeah, for sure, like a big fight to the finish.

• 1:16:21Rich Roll?

  Right. Is there any allure for you to tackle any of the road ultras like bad water? Or does it have to be in the mountains for you?

• 1:16:32Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I'm not a fan of road. Like, I normally only run in road when I cross from trade to trail.

• 1:16:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:16:40Kílian Jornet?

  Uh, but

• 1:16:40Rich Roll?

  Avoid roads. There's no New York Marathon coming up for you.

• 1:16:44Kílian Jornet?

  No, no, like, on a way, like, it's, it's somehow like, like, I have always these boys here saying, I should try one marathon one time, or to try to do like, I don't know, a 10K or a half or a marathon, because it's interesting in terms of training, like, I would like to train like, flat during a period to be able to run faster.

• 1:17:07Kílian Jornet?

  But in the other ways, like, I want to do that and that and that and that and that. So I don't find the time for doing that. So I would not say that I will never do a road marathon, because maybe one day I do. But yeah, for the moment, I don't think is what I'm focused on.

• 1:17:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What is, uh, what's driving all of this? Like, where does the motivation come from? Like, where is the muse? Like, what's, what's behind the curtain here that's propelling you?

• 1:17:36Rich Roll?

  Is it a sense of wanting to be the best version of who you are? Is it a search for excellence or perfection? Is it just connecting with nature? Like, what is the driving impulse for you?

• 1:17:48Kílian Jornet?

  I think the, the driving impulse is, it's happiness. Simply, it's like to, to be happy. And, uh, and that's, uh, that's an easy answer, but it's a, it's a deep answer too, because where, where I find happiness is, is on, on knowing myself, challenging myself, and, and seeing who, who I am, where I can go, and, and experiencing different things. I think it's a lot about experience and, and And experiencing places, nature, views, like I've run in places that they are beautiful.

• 1:18:28Kílian Jornet?

  And that's what it motivates me to go to one place or another is to, why to go there? It's to, to see the view from that point and see the, the beauty of the nature is, is one big motivation. And if I can combine that with a, with an inner challenge, that it can be, be able, like to put the question, I'm able to progress and like I think achievement on the sense of like doing things that you think that, that they are not possible for you before. Like all the effort you put to be able to change this status from impossible to possible is something that gives you a lot of, yeah.

• 1:19:09Rich Roll?

  So is there a sense when you're looking at a challenge where you're like, oh man, that, that scares me or that, I don't think I could do that. And then that's what gets you interested or what does that calculus look like when you're trying to think about what the next adventure is going to be for you?

• 1:19:24Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I think it need to be in the, in the edge of that. Like it need to be, if it's something like, it's many races that you go there and you know that you will win. And then it can happen many things, but, but you think, okay, with the people there or like with the preparation, it's, it will not be a surprise if I win. And then like you finish, you win, but it's not any more than because like it's not.

• 1:19:52Rich Roll?

  Like I already won this race 10 times before.

• 1:19:54Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, or, or, or not, not that, but just like because you know that it's nothing that it's surprising or that it's nothing that it's putting you on challenge. And I think the challenge is just where you, you think, okay, that, that's maybe possible or maybe not possible for me. And I think it's this line where, because if you think, okay, want to do, like I want to run a one marathon in, in two hours, I know that that's impossible, like completely impossible for me. So that's, that's not a, that's not a goal, that's just a dream. And, and, and attempting that, it will not make sense, uh, uh, because it's, uh, yeah,

• 1:20:38Kílian Jornet?

  it has not any possibility. So I think you need to, or like I find the challenge where it really like thinking, for example, I know that. If everything goes perfect, and I feel that, and with this preparation and with all these things, it's a possibility to doing it. There is the exciting point.

• 1:20:58Rich Roll?

  So then what are you thinking about right now? Like where, what are you looking at at the moment that gives you that feeling?

• 1:21:06Kílian Jornet?

  Well, I like polyvalence, like a fun season for me, and it's not about the pure performance on one thing, but it's also like on, like being able to run like a hundred miles in a short distance and do some nice climb, like to combine all these and be able to be on, yeah, performing well in both. It's kind of very exciting, because it means like how to prepare, how to prepare the different things at the same time, and the recovery and the different skills, that's very exciting in a point.

• 1:21:47Kílian Jornet?

  And then in, like I think in running itself, like it's maybe like a few races that I would like to perform a bit better, but yeah, like probably in trail running now is not where I get the more like excitement. But yeah, in mountain running, like last year Everest, like it was very interesting for me, not because what I did, that it was like, not that big deal in a way, like, but it was mostly about...

• 1:22:21Rich Roll?

  It was a little bit of a big deal.

• 1:22:22Kílian Jornet?

  No, but like...

• 1:22:23Rich Roll?

  But go ahead.

• 1:22:24Kílian Jornet?

  No, but like climbing Everest without oxygen, it has been climbed many times, and the only interesting thing was the recovery and the acclimatization. So that's what I learned, like how to acclimatize and how to... I was able to spend so many hours in high altitude. And even if I wasn't feeling good, I was able to move. So that give me ideas of like, why not to do some link ups? Or like combine like long distance in high altitude. And I think that that can be interesting for.

• 1:22:56Rich Roll?

  Right, that realization, that combination, your ability to handle the acclimatization and the recovery. Like, how can you then apply it to a new challenge that would be interesting?

• 1:23:06Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:07Rich Roll?

  In a way that's looking forward too. Because like people have said, well, do you want to go back to Everest and see if you can do it faster? And you're somebody who's always looking forward. Like that, that's not as interesting to you as finding something new.

• 1:23:18Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, especially like, I think it's, it's always possible to go faster. Like, and when you do one time, you see the mistakes you have done. So like, but going back and doing faster, like, it's, it's, uh, like, it's a big travel. So it's better to do something different than, than the same time, just like a few, few minutes or hours faster. So, but like, I think in high altitude, like, uh, link ups are very interesting.

• 1:23:44Rich Roll?

  Meaning like going from one mountain to the next?

• 1:23:46Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, from one mountain to the other, or like very long ridges, like, uh, ridges between mountains. Uh, because there you need to, to be fast to, to, to do it. Because the speed, it's, it's one, uh, the only possibility to spend, like, uh, to do these distances in, in high altitude.

• 1:24:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:05Kílian Jornet?

  And the other is like, uh, yeah, you, it's a bit more challenging on, on, on technical skill. So these things are, yeah, are, are interesting now.

• 1:24:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the ability to be creative, like you're sort of inventing this thing as you go. It's not purely running, it's not purely skiing, it's not purely mountaineering. It's this hybrid of all of these skills that you've been doing for a very long time. And it's your ability to like, take a paintbrush and like, paint this canvas with what you're able to do in your own unique way.

• 1:24:35Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, it's interesting, like, I think, looking to the past, like, a lot of people have been doing a lot of things. So it's not that we are inventing anything, but it's interesting to, to do.

• 1:24:48Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, to be able to look in a map or to be able to look in a mountain in a picture and to imagine something to do because you like to do it, not because it's something that is like famous or something that is on the history or everything. I just like to be there and say, okay, that looks like amazing to do, like it looks fun to run from this ridge to the other or to look up and say like, wow, that looks really fun to follow this line.

• 1:25:19Rich Roll?

  Right. Well, now that you're so well-known, I mean, you're this, you know, kind of global figure. When you make a decision about what your challenge is going to be, there's a lot of people who are like paying attention to that and have an opinion about it, you know. Are you able to like block all of that out and have the clarity to just do what your heart is telling you to do? Or do you find yourself being influenced by all these externalities that really weren't part of the equation when you began all of this?

• 1:25:48Kílian Jornet?

  Like, we are always influenced and like, influence can be good and can be bad. And I think it's me or it's ourselves and we need to decide which influences are cool or not. And I think it's many that they are really great, like, especially today, like, for example, social media, I think that it has a lot of good things and a lot of bad things. And the good thing is that now we can see like what other people is doing. And I don't know, like, for example, you were saying like Alex Honn or like what he's doing, it's very different of what I'm doing, but it gives me a lot of inspiration for

• 1:26:27Kílian Jornet?

  doing some things or what Colin Halli is doing or what other other runners. And that can give me ideas of what to do. So that's like good influences. And then it's also like the, what they say, bad influences, that is people saying, ah, you should do that or like you should do that in this way or like it can be like the pressure like you could feel from, I don't know, like a press or like our fans or sponsors or that. But I think I'm...

• 1:27:00Kílian Jornet?

  I'm in a moment where I don't really care about this much and I know like, okay, I run and I do racing and that's on a way like my way of living. But what I want to do in the mountains is more like for pleasure and for like this kind of testing and seeing if things is possible. So I really want to do this on my way and the projects I really motivate. Especially because like it's not a race that you can say, okay, even if I'm not motivated, I can go through. Like if you are doing a project in the mountains and if you are not hundred percent in there, like if it's a problem, it's not that you lose the race, it's that you die.

• 1:27:44Rich Roll?

  Right, the consequences are could not be, you know, could not be higher. But I think along the lines of the similarities between you and Alex, you know, Alex is somebody who has been very conscious and diligent about creating a lifestyle that's conducive to allowing him to do the thing that he loves the most, right? Like removing all of those external pressures and keeping his life very simple so that he has the most amount of time to do the things that not only he's best at, but that move him. Like and he's able to do what he's able to do because he's fully integrated. Like he takes this talent and this passion and what moves him and his heart and his

• 1:28:28Rich Roll?

  passions and he puts it all together and it gets expressed when he climbs up El Capitan. And I see you as someone very similar. Like you made this conscious decision to leave Chamonix, to live in Norway where, you know, life is a little bit simpler and everything that you love is right outside your door and you can just go be the person that you're meant to be. And the races that you've won and the FKTs and Everest and all of that is just an expression of this passion. And you're this integrated human being who can take this, whatever God gifted talent you have, combine it with what gets you excited and out of bed every morning and put it all together to express yourself in this way. That's almost, you know, it's as artistic as it is athletic.

• 1:29:14Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, and it's, I think it's hard to do that nowadays because we get so much with inertia. It takes a lot of people today, I think. Like, we tend to do what is the simple thing, the simple thing, and to try to do what's easy and what it's supposed to be. And we don't take time to find what we want to do and not what we are supposed to do. And, but then, like, when you find that that's what you want to do and to find that the balance on that is much, like,

• 1:29:57Kílian Jornet?

  it's just the life is much better, like, everything around is much better. But, yeah, I suppose it's just like, it needs to, it needs some courage or it needs some, like, seeing sometime, okay, I don't want to that and to be able to say, no, I don't want to that and I want to cut on things. And maybe that means less media exposition or less money or less, I don't know, things that they are supposed to drive you through success. But then, like, how you count success is very different, yeah.

• 1:30:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So what has living outside the comfort zone taught you? Like, this ability to be comfortable with being uncomfortable? Like, how is that a teacher for you and what can be learned from that?

• 1:30:51Kílian Jornet?

  Well, I think it teaches you, it's mostly decision-taking, like, how to take decisions, how you take the decisions in the zone, like, to be always exposed, like, to not be sure about what's going on and to be able to be really rational on seeing very fast what are the different consequences on each decision you are taking at that period. I think that you can apply on life and you can apply on everything else. And, yeah, it's, I think...

• 1:31:33Kílian Jornet?

  It's to be really cold blood, but to be cold blood to follow your emotions. And that's that's kind of contradictory. But then like is you want, you need to to listen to your emotion or to listen to your to yourself to see where you want to go, what's the lifestyle you want to have, what's the things you want to achieve. And that that need to be your emotion that decides this. But then the decision taking through there, it need to be really like a rational.

• 1:32:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah. What what scares you the most?

• 1:32:12Kílian Jornet?

  Um, well, many things I would say like, of course, like when going out, like dying or like having like a big accident, things like that. But I think what scares me i- in more general is like where where are we going? Like the the world, like now we see like all the environmental problems and especially when you are in in in these areas, like with a lot of glaciers, like you can see day by day almost how it's changing.

• 1:32:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:49Kílian Jornet?

  Um, so on this way, like where are we going as as the planet? And that's something that it's it's scurrying. Uh, yeah. And I think that and where where a society like all the the problems between humans that we have, all the the with, yeah, it's a lot of, yeah, conflicts, human conflicts too. And I think that's that's more scary than than like dying.

• 1:33:19Rich Roll?

  The future of humanity.

• 1:33:22Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, future of of, yeah, humanity, but humanity like at the, yeah, we are one is peace, more of the planet, so also the planet, yeah.

• 1:33:30Rich Roll?

  The planet too. Well, the planet would be fine without us.

• 1:33:32Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:33Rich Roll?

  It would be much better off, actually.

• 1:33:34Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, that's for sure.

• 1:33:35Rich Roll?

  Question about that. As somebody who's seen much more of it than than I, you can attest to that, I would imagine. What do you think people misunderstand about you?

• 1:33:49Kílian Jornet?

  I don't know, I don't care, I think.

• 1:33:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:55Kílian Jornet?

  But, uh, no.

• 1:33:56Rich Roll?

  That's healthy.

• 1:33:56Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, no, I think, yeah, it's like, probably like, uh, the first years, like, when you get attention, you are, you get attention and you want to, to, to take care of this audience, I would say. But, uh, then, like, you need to be yourself and you need to do things that you do. And you know that some people will like you, some people will not like you, some people will understand, some not. But if you put your life only to, to, to make a solution on that, like to, then, like, you will not live your life, so, yeah.

• 1:34:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Um, but it must be weird, it must have been weird when suddenly you started getting a lot of press and there's like New York Times and all these people are like writing about you and you're just like, literally this kid who just likes to run long distances in the mountains.

• 1:34:45Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, sure, that it's something that, uh, is not that, uh, I was looking for and, and it's something that, of course, like, everybody likes attention and everybody likes, like, people liking, uh, them. But, uh, it also takes a lot of energy. Like, I, I'm not very social, or I'm not social at all, like, uh, I, I, in general, like to be kind of alone, like, two persons, it's okay, three, it's, it's too much.

• 1:35:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:16Kílian Jornet?

  Um.

• 1:35:16Rich Roll?

  Well, you're gonna have three in your house soon.

• 1:35:18Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, yeah. I hope that's okay.

• 1:35:23Kílian Jornet?

  But, uh, yeah, it's this kind of thing, so. But, uh, yeah, so then it, it needs to find a good balance with, like, this energy and these moments to, to recharge energy, yeah.

• 1:35:35Rich Roll?

  And what's, uh, what, if you could do anything in a typical day, like, what does that look like? Just you going out your front door and getting lost in the mountains?

• 1:35:43Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, like a typical day, like, it's just like waking up, like, not very early, like, six thirty, seven. I don't eat much breakfast normally, like, if I'm home, like, just a glass of water and maybe, yeah, like, one cookie or like Emily she bakes cinnamon buns, that they are delicious. So maybe one of those in the morning. Um, and then I go for a run in summer, ski in the winter. And depending, like, weather, conditions, and, and, and if I feel good, like, that can be between two.

• 1:36:15Kílian Jornet?

  To to five hours.

• 1:36:20Kílian Jornet?

  Or some days like I do longer, like eight, ten, fifteen hours. But normally more like two to five hours. Then come back home, a bit of work, like mails and and and logistics, like preparing things. Uh, and then in the afternoon, normally I go for like one hour run or like one short training. Uh, some, I can go to the climbing gym or or do some small exercises home. And then I like reading, so in the afternoon, like I like to just take take a book and and read.

• 1:36:52Rich Roll?

  What what kind of stuff do you like to read?

• 1:36:54Kílian Jornet?

  Um, uh, novels and essays and things like like that, uh, so. Uh, yeah, like now, for example, now in this travel around, like I have been reading, um. Some Foster Wallace books and like some, uh, Spanish books, uh, like Catalan Catalan authors or, uh. Uh, Milan Cundera, some books of Milan Cundera or Alessandro Borrico, I really like them, yeah.

• 1:37:21Rich Roll?

  Do you have mentors in your life, like people that you seek advice from?

• 1:37:26Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, I have, um, some people like, uh, uh. Jordi Torres and Jordi Corominas, it's two, two, two Catalan climbers that they. They they were the first ones to took me to the Himalayas and actually the first expedition we did. It was only the three of us. We had like, uh, uh, small backpacks, like, uh. Thirty, forty liters backpack and we were going like from very far away to climb high mountains, very minimalistic. We were eating like one portion of leo food for the three of us per day, so.

• 1:38:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:04Kílian Jornet?

  It was kind of this style and I always consult with them, uh, when things on that and. Probably, uh, my first coach, Jordi Canals. He he was the one that, uh, start to coach me when I started the ski mountain running. And we talk almost every week about like, uh. Training live and he's also very geek like when when I have doubts about like some algorithm that I'm looking for like for training or for like performance things or or things like that yeah he's the one to consult say yeah maybe we need to find a way there yeah.

• 1:38:40Rich Roll?

  And Uli Steck was kind of a mentor as well, right? Like you learned a lot about mountaineering from him.

• 1:38:45Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, Uli was someone that first I admired a lot when when he was starting to or when I was starting to to to race and to to be in the mountains like he was doing all these things incredible feats and and it was like wow what's that's that's incredible. And then actually we meet a few times we were starting we we climbed some things together.

• 1:39:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:39:09Kílian Jornet?

  And only like going to a climb day with him it was just like learning so much every every second.

• 1:39:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and then he passed away. You guys were both in Nepal but on different mountains when that occurred, right?

• 1:39:22Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, actually he was in Everest in the south side and I I was in the north side and when when it happened I was with Emily in in Shoyu. And I just get the news and it's yeah it's a thing moments that like that are heartened away because first you you lose a friend but then like also because the the value system you have like everybody has like a way to look to to live or the activities we do and and and Uli had a way that as I were really inspired on and we

• 1:40:02Kílian Jornet?

  shared a lot of things. So when he had an accident or or people that follow this way have an accident is like all this system of values is like falling down and then it's like all the questions like the risk we are taking are worth it or like it's it's stupid what I'm doing. I was there with Emily and it's like okay like I I was thinking of like Uli's wife and saying okay it's it's it's worth it or not and I think at the end like. It's what we need to live, like if we want to preserve life, like we will be in a coach every day, like just not going out because everything can happen.

• 1:40:43Kílian Jornet?

  But then, like, if we, if it's a possibility of dying, it means that we are living too.

• 1:40:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it puts you into, in touch, in connection with something that we're all gonna have to suffer at some point. I mean, that's another thing I talked to Alex about at LINK. Like, I think he's able to live his life much more present and aware because it's so connected to death at every moment. And it, I think it infuses his life with a little bit more vitality and, and perspective. Like, we, in America, we all sort of tend to believe it's not gonna happen and we try to, you know, prevent any aspect of death from being in our, you know, line of sight. But when it's so close to you, and it's hap-

• 1:41:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course it's gonna, yeah, of course it's gonna happen. And, and there's something about, like, there's something healthy, I think, about, you know, connecting with it in that way. And, you know, certainly, this is what you were born to do. Like, it's not like you're gonna not do it. And in some ways, it's honoring Uli for you to continue, you know, what he would have wanted you to do.

• 1:41:54Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, no, I think it's like this connection with, with the risk and with like seeing the death close. Like, it's, it's very visual, like, when, yeah, when you are like slowing or when you are like steep skiing or like putting yourself in, in some risky places, like, it's really visual, like you say, okay, if I do that, I'm dead. But that's, that's also in every day. It's only that we don't see, like, I was saying, like, when you are driving a highway, like, if you do a stupid thing, you will die, but you will not do it. But I think probably when you do these activities, like in, in mountain riding or, or in climbing, like, the, the feeling of like having the control of that,

• 1:42:39Kílian Jornet?

  like saying, okay, I, I am controlling now, like, on how I put my feet, on how I put my hands, on how I do this, on how I traverse this place. I have the control of, like, living or dying. It gives you- A sense of more responsibility thing about your life. And it's like with the playing. It gives you also, yeah, this perspective on like. I, yeah, like on only doing the things that you want to do and that they are important for you. Because you realize like it can go really fast.

• 1:43:20Kílian Jornet?

  So why to spend time doing things that they don't mean anything at the end.

• 1:43:25Rich Roll?

  And with that in mind, then what is, what is the legacy that you would like to leave? When it's all said and done.

• 1:43:32Kílian Jornet?

  Uh, not one, I think, like just like that we need to, to live our life as like that it's. That nothing we do is that I think.

• 1:43:45Kílian Jornet?

  We are so much about we want to leave a legacy or we want to, to be remembered or we want to do something important. And at the end, nothing we do is important, like. It's, yeah, it's, it's nothing. And, and I think when you realize that we are not important and what we do is not important. Then you realize how wonderful it is.

• 1:44:08Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, that's back to the humility.

• 1:44:11Kílian Jornet?

  Or it's back to life and I think it's back to, to being human and to being, yeah, just a, just a small thing.

• 1:44:17Rich Roll?

  That's beautifully put. Well, I need to, uh, release you to your life and let you, let you go, but I want to close this down. Um, by reading a passage at, at the end of your book that, that really, um. Struck me, uh, and I'm interested in, in you elaborating on it. And it goes like this. A great athlete is one who takes advantage of the ability that genetics have brought him in order to secure the great achievements. But an exceptional athlete is one who can swim in the waters of complexity and chaos, making what seems difficult easy, creating order from chaos.

• 1:44:54Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, as you say, yeah. It's a...

• 1:44:58Rich Roll?

  Order from chaos.

• 1:45:00Kílian Jornet?

  That's performance, I would say, because it's so many things that they are not supposed to happen like that, and you are able to put all together. And that's what's... When you see the path on a place that it's rough, that it's not logical, is when you can see clearer, I think.

• 1:45:23Rich Roll?

  Cool. Good talking to you, man.

• 1:45:26Kílian Jornet?

  Oh, thank you very much.

• 1:45:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, thanks for coming. It was a pleasure. I appreciate it very much. Super inspiring. I wish you well, especially with the impending new arrival.

• 1:45:37Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:45:38Rich Roll?

  And good luck surviving the big city.

• 1:45:41Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, that will be harder than all the expeditions, for sure.

• 1:45:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. If you want to connect with Kilian, he's easy to find on the internet. On Instagram's probably the best place, right? People want to see beautiful pictures and...

• 1:45:54Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, like, yeah, that's what I try to do, to put my eyes on beautiful places and put in Instagram.

• 1:46:01Rich Roll?

  And his book, Run or Die, I highly recommend it. It's a beautiful book. And the new documentary, which you're also promoting right now, about the Everest attempt. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

• 1:46:13Kílian Jornet?

  Yeah, we were working last year on putting the images of all... It's not only about the Everest experience. Seb was there, and Seb was filming in the mountain, but it's also like...

• 1:46:27Rich Roll?

  Summits of my life.

• 1:46:28Kílian Jornet?

  Yes, summits of my life, and coming back from why I ended up doing Everest on the way I did, like all the moments in my life that were important to drive to there.

• 1:46:39Rich Roll?

  And if people are listening who want to check it out, where do they go to view it? It'll be streaming online?

• 1:46:45Kílian Jornet?

  It will be streaming online, so like, they will be able to find it in my social media or in my website.

• 1:46:51Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. And I'll put a link up in the show notes to that, so people can find it.

• 1:46:55Kílian Jornet?

  Thank you.

• 1:46:57Rich Roll?

  How do you feel?

• 1:46:58Kílian Jornet?

  Ah, feel good, like, yeah, no, it's...

• 1:47:00Rich Roll?

  What time is it on your internal clock right now?

• 1:47:02Kílian Jornet?

  Like, the internal clock, like, now, it's not anymore here.

• 1:47:07Rich Roll?

  It doesn't exist, right? We're beyond space and time right now. All right, thanks so much, man. Appreciate it. Peace.

• 1:47:15Kílian Jornet?

  Thank you.

• 1:47:16Rich Roll?

  Let's run it.

• 1:47:19Rich Roll?

  Unbelievable, right? What a beautiful soul that guy is. I gotta tell you, going into this, I was nervous. I had a lot of trepidation in how I was going to navigate this interview. I was a little starstruck, a little intimidated, admittedly. Also, wasn't quite sure how developed his English language skills would be, but I just found him to be delightful. It exceeded my expectations on every level, and I really hope that you guys enjoyed him as much as I did. Please be sure to check out his new documentary, The Path to Everest. You can find that at summitsofmylife.com. Pick up his latest book, Summits of My Life, and his memoir, Run or Die, which I really love. And of course, links to all of these up in

• 1:48:04Rich Roll?

  the show notes on the episode page at richroll.com. Also, do me a favor and let Killian know how this one landed for you by sharing your thoughts with him directly. On Twitter, he's at Killian J, and on Instagram, he is at Killian Journay, which you should definitely follow him there. He posts the most beautiful, amazing photos from his daily training routines. Plus, don't forget to hit me and DK up with thoughts on his 2019 goals with the hashtag DKgoals on Twitter. If you're looking for additional nutritional guidance, check out our meal planner at meals.richroll.com. Thousands of plant-based recipes, all customized based on your personal preferences. We have unlimited grocery lists, grocery delivery in most metropolitan

• 1:48:47Rich Roll?

  areas. We have amazing customer support from trained health and diet coaches available to you seven days a week, all for just $1.90 a week when you sign up for a year. So to learn more, go to meals.richroll.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu on my website. If you would like to support the work that we do here on the podcast, it's easy. Tell your friends about your favorite episode. Hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on YouTube, wherever you enjoy this content. Share the show on social media. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. And you can support the show on Patreon at richroll.com/donate.

• 1:49:25Rich Roll?

  I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margot Lubin for videoing and editing. And Jessica Miranda for graphics. DK for advertiser relationships and additional production. And theme music, as always, by Analemma. Thanks for the love, you guys. See you back here in a couple few with another great episode of Guru Corner with, guess who? Guru Singh. That's right. It's going to be amazing. Until then, don't be afraid to fail. Don't be afraid to get lost in nature, to dream, to extend yourself outside of your comfort zone, and to be yourself. Do not be afraid to live.

• 1:50:10Rich Roll?

  Peace, plants, nature, the mountains.