The Interview - Kílian Jornet on What We Can Learn From Pushing Our Bodies to Extremes [Re-Run]

Episode Date: August 1, 2026

This week we're sharing one of our favorites from earlier this year. This episode originally published on January 17, 2026. The ultrarunner and mountaineer talks about finding peace through doing unimaginably hard things.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, it's Lulu. We don't have a new episode this weekend. Instead, we're sharing an interview I loved from earlier this year. My fascinating conversation with ultra runner and mountaineer, Killian Jornet. Perhaps it will inspire you to get out on the trail this summer or push yourself to take a longer, more difficult hike. Or you can, like me, just relax while listening to this episode if you missed it the first time. Either way, enjoy. And we'll be back next weekend when David talks with Bluegrass Phenom, Billy Strings. From The New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Imagine yourself on an isolated mountain pass. The wind is whipping, the air is thin, there's nothing around you except the sky, and the sound of your feet hitting the craggy ground.

Many of us have experienced the wonder and exertion that comes with being in the world's wild spaces. But for Killian Jornette, it is much more than that. Jornette is a professional ultra-marathoner whose life's work is to literally run up mountains. But even in that world of elite athletes, he is exceptional. He holds the fastest known time for scaling Montblanc and the Matterhorn to name just a few. He's gone up Everest twice in the space of a week, and he did it with no supplementary oxygen and without support. His physical stamina has been studied by researchers. and he's pushed the limits of what is considered physically possible.

And then, just last fall, he completed his most radical adventure, which he called states of elevation. He climbed 72 of the highest peaks in the western United States over the course of just a month. And for good measure, he also cycled between all of them, a ride totaling over 2,400 miles. I mean, I'm exhausted just imagining it. But as I discovered in our conversation, he also is a deep thinker who has important lessons to impart about what our bodies and minds are capable of when we push them to extremes.

And the joy and danger that effort can bring. Here's my interview with Spanish ultramarathoner, Killian Jornet. Kielion, you know, I am not a athlete, certainly not an elite athlete, and I find what you do so incredibly unusual. When you tell people what you do, how do you describe it? I always said that I just love to be in the mountains and like it's where I feel home and it's where I feel like connected with the landscape and the environment. And what I do is just like to explore them. And I think like running or climbing or like biking or it just tools

to explore those mountains. And as humans, like we are made to walk and to run and to do that for hours. That's what we did like for thousands of years, like just hunting. And now we don't need to do it. So we find the sport like as the excuse to continue moving our body, but really for me, just like to be out as long as I can in the mountains. You've written in your book that what made me fall in love with traversing mountains at high

speed is the feeling it gives me of being naked and inconsequential, unrestrained. It brings me freedom and connection. What are you connecting with? I think in the most, in the first essence, it's to connect with oneself. We live in a society that we are over connected with so many things. And like we are every day getting like every second like we are getting information like in social media on the news on everything, on things that they are very far away. And we don't find often the time to connect with ourselves, with our body, with our mind and with our, with our. Yeah, the people that we love.

So often when I go to running the mountains, is to find this connection, and it's through this connection with the landscape that we find ourselves. You've been connected to the mountains since you were a child. You grew up in a mountain lodge in the Pyrenees. Your father was a mountain guide.

Your mother was a teacher. What did your parents teach you about how to be in nature? What's funny is that both my parents, they were really far away from competition. like they had the background of classical mountaineering, and it was never about like competing and winning, but it was always about exploring.

I remember when we were kids, often like before going to bed, we were going out to the forest with my mother, and we were going out for a few minutes, and then we were closing our lights, our headlamps, and then we were like getting back to the lodge. At the beginning, were very scared, like me and my sister, like, okay, we don't have any light, how we will find

our lodge. And my mother was there like saying, no, just like, listen to, see the nature, like through other senses, like with the wind, with the sounds, and we get more comfortable there. So what they probably teach us was to accept the environment, to accept to be there. Like, it's often we see nature like something that is external and we go there to visit and take pictures and say, wow, that's wonderful, and then we go back to our safe place, that it's like cities and urbanizations. And probably what they teach us, it was just to feel calm there, to feel comfortable, because at the end, it's just like other creators like us that are living there. Even though your parents didn't instill that competitive drive in you, you seem to have

had it innately. You've said that as a teenager, you discovered you had masochistic tendencies. Yeah, like I was very competitive since a child. Like I, I love to suffer. Like I was really like loving, like just to get out and push my body. And it's not many kids that like to do that, especially like as teenagers. I love to go out and cycle for six, seven hours. And my dream was like an uphill that never ended. I just wanted to be climbing on my bike or running in an uphill forever. And so I was going with grownups, like all my friends doing that were like in their 30s or 40s because it's what not many kids like it to go and do that. And I remember many days I was going to school running and it was like 16 miles one way. And I just loved that feeling of pushing the body.

Yeah, I read a story that when you were in school to test your body, you stopped eating for an entire. week, only drinking water, and then five days into the experiment you passed out mid-run. Where does that impulse come from? I think it's our, like, nature to explore. We explore, like, landscapes. Like, it's also, like, about exploring ourselves and, like, probably my curiosity when there, like, on trying to explore my body to understand it better, like, to understand how this physiology works and that I did it at university. I remember, well, like, I was just

telling a friend, like, okay, you take all my food from my dorm. And if I don't pass out, don't give me anything, even if I really beg you. And yeah, for four, four, five days, I was just training normally. And after that, I passed out. And it was like... Did your roommate tell you you were insane? Well, like, he knows me well. So he was like, okay, whatever, just like, yeah, do your things. But yeah, I think that curiosity has been always there. Let's talk about your body, because that is the thing that makes all of this possible. I just want to give a few statistics. Every year you put in over a thousand hours of training. You climb over a million vertical feet. But you're also starting with some real physical advantages.

like, you know, your body, it's small, it's very light. You have this incredibly high VO2 Max, which is a key indicator of aerobic endurance. And in fact, yours is one of the highest ever recorded. How do you know how far you can push yourself? I mean, how calibrated are you to what your limits are? I think physically with experience, you get to know your body, pretty well. That's very connected with the mind too. And there is where it gets tricky. Like I was two years ago in expedition in Everest in Himalaya. I was climbing not the normal route, a different route. I was alone and at 8,200 meters, I got hit by an avalanche and I broke like some ribs. I had a long way down. I had like more than 15 hours to get down from that

point. It was not good weather. I had not been eating for, I don't know, 15 hours. And I was completely alone. And like, if you look to the physiologist, like, okay, like, normally, like, you need carbohydrates to be able to sprint or to get the energy at that level. But somehow, like, you find resources in different ways. That's like how, like, a pattern can, like, live so much heavier way than he or she would thought, like if their child is in danger, how, like, in life-threatening situations, we are able to develop, like, strength or, like, endurance in a way that we are not thinking of being capable. And the limit is something we don't want to reach, because it's probably death after that. And it's a very fine line.

Killeen, can I just note that you have told me a terrifying story. were you scared? I wasn't scared. I was alert, I would say, and I think it's important to be afraid many times. Then I say, okay, it's the conditions they don't look right or I don't feel ready for that

and I turn around. I think it's very important to listen to the fear. But when these situations come, like I try to be as calm and just like accepting it. Of course, like it's a lot of adrenaline and it's a lot of tension going on. But to leave all the all the panic because that's only like making me take bad decisions. And the same comes from euphoria. Another time I was going up to a summit and I was climbing and I was feeling like super strong and super good, and I was like doing things that technically were at my limit, and I was surpassing

all the dangers. And I came to the summit, and I felt like superhuman. I felt like, wow, that I feel incredible. I feel that I can't do anything. And the euphoria was there. And the euphoria is as dangerous as the fear, I would say, because then you are kind of blind, and it's important to, like, it's very anticlimatic, I think, like mountaineering, because you are doing something that it's very extreme on the emotional side, because you are like, sometimes, like, sometimes, like, like very close to death. You climb a summit and you just want to be there like super excited and your reason is saying just breathe and be calm and not think that you are strong, just like be reasonable. So it's, yeah, probably it's kind of one of the most exciting sports that

exists because you are able to live and to view so many exciting things. At the same time, it's very anticlimatic because you are not able to enjoy it at that point. you enjoy back home when it's already passed. That's fascinating. Are you religious, if you don't mind my asking? Yeah, no, I'm not religious. Because it sounds very Buddhist in a way. Yeah.

I mean, it's sort of like meditation, where you're taught to watch your emotions, watch the pain in your body, but look at it at a distance and not let it overtake you. Yeah, exactly. And I think, like, I'm not a religious person, but I would say the climbing mountains, it's a sort of meditation on that aspect that you are often very present on the moment, like on thinking, okay, you cannot think. It's really like you are focusing on the present, and it's moments where, like, the past and the future don't exist because you need to focus so much on the movement

that you are executing that nothing else exists. and that sort of meditation. And yeah, I always joke that I'm not a smart person. I cannot do meditation like normally. I need to climb mountains and expose myself to find the same piece that you can do probably just sitting and meditating. Have you been to Tibet ever? Yeah, I have been to Tibet.

Because I spent a long time in Tibet and, you know, that their religious practice is actually movement. You know, they do circumambulations of holy sites, Monkailash, others. And it is that exact practice of movement and focus to actually reach a state of enlightenment, if you will. Yeah, exactly. Like sport, in terms of sport, it's kind of the same.

And, I mean, it's some things that you can't explain, like, rationally. And I remember, like, when I was cross-examination. in the Pyrenees and in the Alps in the last years, I had a lot of episodes of Dejaboos and Dejaboos that they lasted for a very long time. And I remember like one time climbing in Himalayas, also like I was completely without any nutrition. I had not been drinking or eating anything for more than 30 hours and I was at 8,200 meters. I was in the middle of a storm. I was hallucinating. I had a vision of a second person

that it was following me and I couldn't see what was this person. I knew that it was an elucination, but I somehow needed to save this person. I felt very responsible of this person. I'm happy that I had this hallucination because somehow having the responsibility to save this person, I didn't give up

and I survived that day that if not, I would be dead in the mountain. So, like, sometimes it fears that it's our unconsciousness, that it's finding tools to keep us, like, moving, to keep us alive. Some people would say it was a miracle. Yeah, you could say it's a miracle. You could say that it's just that when your rational is not working anymore,

that your unconsciousness is taking over and acting for you. So you can call it, like, whatever. but then is some ways that we have to keep going and that normally in our daily life we are not able to activate. What are you thinking about when you're putting one foot in front of the other and you're in these wild spaces? What is on your mind? I mean, if it's a very demanding or very technical route,

then it's really like you are just thinking. about the next movement and it's just like if I go this direction or this direction if I do this move that way if I and watch the danger in the next two steps so it's not really any deep thoughts but then it's like I would say most of the time it's just like enjoying it and I was doing like the past September a long project here in the in the US like from Colorado to to Washington States of elevation. Yeah, exactly. Like I was biking and running and mostly on all these national parks.

Like, it's so wild in nature. And it wasn't technically demanding. So I could like really enjoy the landscapes and just like arriving to a summit and seeing a nice sunrise and the shape of the mountains and having an encounter with an elk or any wildlife like goats in the in the summits. And it's just like having those encounters and being amazed. I mean, every day, like, I go up and I look around and he's like, that's beautiful. It's funny that you said it's not technically demanding. Let me just describe what you just did. This fall, in just over a month, you ran up 72 of the tallest peaks in the lower 48.

If that wasn't enough, you bike between them. Basically, as one newspaper described it, you ran a marathon and rode a stage. of the Tour de France every single day for a month. That wasn't demanding? Yeah, it was very physically demanding. Like, I mean, like, it was very demanding for the body, but technically, like, it was not dangerous and it was not technical climbing with the skills

that I believe I have. But physically, it was very challenging, mostly because it was so big. And sometimes in this journey, I was for more than almost 60 hours, without passing any village, so then you need to carry a lot of things. And that's very physical demanding. Like the first week, I was feeling horrible. Like it was the altitude plus the dry air plus the physical effort that I was doing for

more than 20 hours every day. Like I just, I was on my edge. And then suddenly I really felt that my body stopped to fight those things and started to adapt. And I don't know how to describe it, but I really had this feeling of like body opening up and accepting what I was putting on it. And at the end of the trip, like, I could like continue for another month. Like my body was like feeling that's the new normality of this guy. So it finds the ways like to change the physiology to adapt to this effort.

How are you sleeping? Well, like I have three kids. They are very young. So actually we're joking with my wife like you are taking a vacation there. I think I average like sleeping four to five hours per night, which is the same I do home now with the kids. Probably that's something that I'm lucky that I don't need much sleep to recover. Like normally, my average over the year is around six hours of a sleep per night, six, six-twenty. So I'm not a great sleeper.

We often think that we need to treat the body well, but sometimes like if we try to protect our body at every cost, If we are never thirsty, if we are never hungry, if we are never tired, if we are never stress about something, the body will not develop the capabilities to fight those things. And I think it's because I had been exposed very often to these things since I was a kid that I have been developing the capacities to adapt. Before I go on, I want to note that I read that you drink olive oil while you're in the mountains so you don't lose weight burning so many calories. I mean, that sounds pretty gross. I'm not going to lie.

I immersed it with water. It was not like pure olive oil, like drinking that. It was just a bit of olive oil on the water. Do you think of it as a sacrifice when you have to ingest that kind of stuff just to keep your physical self going? Well, like, I don't know if it was a sacrifice. Like, you're very hungry also. Like, I mean like a after 20 hours running, like you can eat everything. Like, it's, it doesn't matter. I mean, like, at some point, like, your body feel that it needs calories. And I was, like, using around like 9,000 calories per day. So that's a lot of calories that I need to eat, like, to not lose capabilities, like,

day after day. So, of course, like, you want a very nice meal. But at some point, like, you don't care at all. Like, it's just like, okay, I just want to eat. One of the things that happened during the States of Elevation is that different athletes joined you along the way. And one of them described you as, quote, full of peace. And we sort of talked about the meditative parts of what you do.

What is it like doing that alongside other people? I think especially in this project, it was incredible to share with people that they are from these places. I have like a thing on the project like half of the summits I did alone and half with people and they are very different experiences but doing it with people from there, you get a much deeper connection with those places and those landscapes. And the funny thing, it was like I was doing the first summit long speck in Colorado with Kyle. He's from Boulder. He has the fastest known time to climb. Longspeak, he's been spending like years and years on that mountain.

And climbing with him, like, he was like just telling me everything about the mountain, everything about the possibilities saying, this is the most beautiful mountain on Earth, like because you can do that and that and that and see the rock. Everybody had this deep connection with those landscapes. And if you ask me, like, the most beautiful mountains of Earth are the ones I see from my house because I develop a relation with them. And I feel connected with them because I can play much more on them because I have a more, a deeper knowledge. So to be able to share those mountains with people that have the same connection, you really feel the love.

They carry it inside of themselves, that knowledge of place. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Another endurance athlete who has been in the mountains with you wrote that it's frankly not a great idea to rely on his, meaning your judgment, if you want to have a safe and fun time in the mountains. And I think he was talking about risk tolerance. How do you think about the risks you're willing to take in the context of knowing your limits, understanding your body, understanding your own mental strength and training, and the risks that you're not willing to take? Yeah, I think it's, that's one that I'm still trying to figure out, because I know that my risk tolerance is high.

It's something that I'm aware. And it's something that I try to be very analytical when I'm in the mountain to try to analyze well the situation and to know not what I'm good at, but what I'm not good at to see if I'm capable of doing something or not and to turn around. But sometimes it has been happening that I have been just continuing in situations

where I knew that I would, was rationally not comfortable with it, but somehow I felt okay with it. And it's something that I, yeah, I don't want to experience much more because I know that in mountains like a big part of surviving is like, but you cannot be relying on that all the time. I can hear you grappling with this. And I mean, people have died doing what you do and people close to you have died doing it. In fact, your friend Stefan Brossa died right in front of you in 2012. Can you recount what happened there? We were in Montblanc area in the Alps.

And Stefan was first an idol. Like when I started ski mountaineering, he was winning all the races. It was something that I looked up to. And then he became a friend, like we were living nearby. So we started to do some projects together. And we had this project of crossing the Montblank range like in one push in skis. And we were like in the before last summit,

so we were almost finishing. And it was like, we were happy. We were like just in the summit, like enjoying. And like it was some birds that they were flaying around. And we were just like, I remember like we were like smiling and laughing about where we were and how fun it was. And we were walking on that ridge. And we didn't notice that we were walking on a cornice.

So it's this snow that with the wind, it forms in the ridges. And because the wind is strong, like the snow is compact, but it's not holding into the rock. So we were walking there and the snow break in between our feet. So he fell like 600 meters. And I was in the other side. and I stayed on the snow. And for me, it was kind of, yeah, the first time, like I grew up in a family of mountainous

so I knew about the risk, I knew about what death is. But not until that point that it really happened close to me. I really understand that, yeah, that's something that is real and that it's happening and it's happening here. And at that point, I was like 20 years old. He was 40 years old with a family, and I felt like it would be so much easier if I died instead of him because, like, yeah, my parents would be sad,

but I didn't have that many connections. I mean, like, so I, yeah, it took me a time to accept that and probably the years after I was taking too much risks in the mountain and just to try to see if it was a mistake that he was dying instead of me. What do you mean? Can we just stop here? Because it's interesting to me

that you didn't deal with that death by taking a step back. You actually pushed yourself harder. Why? I don't know. I think it's like probably for me it was more like to try to see if it was a mistake.

That I mean like if it was me that was mean to die in the mountain in that day and he was just in the wrong side of the reach. And somehow, like, mountains is the place where I fell connected, where he felt connected to, where... So it's not a place that I would abandon because it's dangerous. It's just... I think I was just dealing, like, the grief, and I was young.

And at the same period, like, I was racing, and after every race, I was going to the party of the race and drinking a lot of alcohol. And I don't like alcohol. I don't like the flavor. I have never a drink. And for like a couple of years, I was just getting drunk a few times a year after the race season.

It was just like ways to try to escape and to deal with the grieving. We've talked about controlling fear, but I do wonder after that experience, are you afraid to die? I think I'm more afraid to die. now with kids. If something happens, like I remember last year I was doing this crossing in the Alps and one day I was just, yeah, the mountain was like falling apart. Like it was with the melting of permafrost, the mountains are just collapsing a lot in the Alps. So it's big blocks of rocks,

like size of a car that they collapsed at some time and just because the ice is melting inside the rocks and I was doing this crossing and for many hours I was exposed to those things some roads were falling very close to me and and I ended up that day and I was feeling why I am so stupid like why I didn't turn around at the first point where I saw that that was going to happen and I was like feeling I really want to like it's not just to want to see my kids growing up, but I like see them and just like for them to to have a father. So I know that that the activity that I'm doing, the activity like my wife is also doing mountaineering.

So it's activities that we do that they have the risks. And yeah, I'm not afraid of the feeling of dying. But I'm most afraid of that of my kids losing a father. Yeah, I don't know if it makes sense, but it's more. It does. Like that, what I feel. Since you mentioned your children, and we talked about how you were raised, how are you raising your kids? Well, we are lucky.

We live in a nice place. They can go outdoors. They can play outside. They can do things. And that's something that we want them to appreciate. We do hikes every day, every holidays, every weekend. we are going to the forest or to climb a summit or to do long hike. So they can walk a lot.

They can do a lot of activity. But mostly it's just like this appreciation for nature. And like they are like six and four years old and the youngest is seven months. But the six years old and the four years old, they can name like all the berries. We can go to the forest and they pick the berries and say, no, this one, we can eat this one. We cannot. We can tell them, can you go and grab like. some mangled or some like a rocola or like some mushrooms out in the garden or in the forest.

And they can go out and identify the species and things. And so I think that's what we are trying to do, that they feel that connection with the landscape where we are living. Kiliang Jernay, thank you so much. We'll speak again. Thank you very much. After the break, Kiliad and I speak again. And we talk about his doubts about the purpose of what he does.

When you are helping others that I are in need, it's about giving and sport mostly it's about taking. Hi, Lulu. How are you doing? Good days. How's your? What's the weather? So actually, it's pretty nice weather. It's been snowing. Like we have a foot of snow in the backyard.

I just came back actually now from skiing. We can start skiing from our place, from our home. so I was doing two hour of a ski touring. And then this morning it was my wife that was skiing and I was with the baby. So, yeah, we were switching roles to go training and having the kids. And, yeah, I was enjoying a lot of the powder today. I'm glad you mentioned your home life. Your wife is also a professional ultra runner, right?

Yes, she is. How do you divide up the responsibilities at home with two sort of top-tier athletes having to go out and train and figure out your day? I'm lucky that we are in a part of the world where the culture is very equal on that, that I would say that we spend half of the time age with the kids and the babies and it's the norm here with how society's structure. So like we train most of the time from Monday to Friday when the kids are in school or kindergarten. And then the weekends, like we train much less.

We just go to the activities out with them. and then we do like one session each either early in the morning or in the evening when they are sleeping. I mean, it sounds very equitable. Well, yeah, I think it should be like that. And it's, like, for the last two years, like I have been like doing projects and racing. And my wife have not, mostly because it was first like the pregnancy and then just the month after giving birth that she couldn't compete. So, like, I would say now it's time for her to do the things that she wants on a sport, and I need to, like, prioritize less my goals in this next year.

I mean, I'm curious about this because we've talked a little bit about how dangerous your job is and how being a dad has made you think about that more. Is there anything now that you've decided not to do because it's too risky? Hmm, I Not really, like it's, I think I have always been kind of trying to analyze pretty well what I'm doing and I have been taking risk on my life many times and I would lie if I say that now I'm not taking them

but you are never on a risk zero situation. Yeah, I mean, because I used to be a war correspondent, But after I had my daughter, I started to think more about the dangers of that job, and I just didn't feel like my own head was in the right place to be able to do it anymore, you know? Yeah. No, and for me, I don't think it hasn't been when the kids came. I think it has been like with age too and like with experience. And I don't know. I think the arrival of the kids didn't affect that, but I think more the

they lose of friends like over time like it's something that I don't know how it's in them in the wars and that like somehow after the moment it felt that you get like kind of used to death and you get same yeah that it's yeah people dies and you you normalize it and you normalize it in a way that it's I wouldn't say it's sane like because it's just something that you really accept at some point that that it don't surprise you, I mean. It's just...

Right. It's just part of what you do. Yeah, exactly. And it's a point that you say, okay, I normalize that and it shouldn't be normalized. Maybe it's a time to take a break and stay like a few months or a year in activities that they have not this high risk because I think that your attention level, it goes down because you get more and more comfortable.

And then it's when you can make more mistakes too. Does it feel like culture shock when you can? come home, having to take care of the kids, having to spend your weekends, you know, changing diapers. Yeah. Yeah, maybe that's the least thing. Like, I think the time with the kids and these, like, routines is something that I really, really love.

But it's, I think it's coming down from, like, something that it's very simple life. You are, like, focusing on one activity and it's tiring and it's difficult. and it's stressful, whatever, but it's somehow simple. So you come from this kind of environment to something that it's much more complex on the things that's happening. But also the consequence is much lower. Like going to the supermarket is like, okay, should I choose like pasta or rice or I'm going to having a meeting.

And if I say that or that, it's not that you are going to die. So the consequence of the actions are much less. And I think probably this rush of adrenaline, you are missing them like this consequence of what you are doing. And I think that's the hardest to come down from. I mean, I think this is related. I am curious about how you think about the value of what you do. Because in the spring of 2015, you were in Nepal and two days away from starting an attempt of Everest when there was a devastating earthquake. You immediately abandoned your plans for the summit.

and you instead threw yourself into the relief efforts for weeks and weeks. And you said competition at that point felt dirty. Can you explain what you were feeling then and maybe how it's changed your view on things? Yeah, I think like racing, competing, it has a, like, it's the ego drive on activity. while like when you are helping others that I are in need it's most of the time it's because like it's it's natural human like you are you see someone in difficulties you try to help them so it's it's about giving and sport mostly it's about taking does it feel selfish to you yeah it is selfish and I think like it have a meaning to society and and I understand that like that the health and

mental health role of a sport, it's clear. But it's, I think for most of the athletes and for me too, it's something that it's secondary, that it comes with. It's not something that, mostly with that because it's selfish. It's because we want to perform, want to win, we want to progress. That doesn't mean that it's something that is harmful, but it's not something that it's directly helping others. Have you thought about What happens when you get too old to be an ultra-athlete? Well, like, yeah, it's... I think, like, I've seen, like, for example,

like my mother, she's always been very active. And she's never been competing, but she's very competitive with herself. And she had a struggle, like, when she started to get slower and saying, like, oh, now I'm taking, like, longer time to do that, or I'm not able to do that anymore until she accepted it.

and now she's enjoying a lot, like, when she goes out in the mountains. So I think it's a bit, it's probably hard at some time when you see that your body is not responding as it used before. But I mean, like, I really admire, like, I have these friends that they are 70, 80, 90 years old, and they still go out. And that's like, I mean, like, it's not about performing. It's about, like, just doing what you can, what would you have. and I hope that I can accept that.

Like, I think so. I think I will be able to just accept that I'm going slower and I enjoy the same. I know that the body don't respond like as good. Maybe now it brings me like 100 miles far and then it will bring me like 50 miles far and then like 20 miles far. But to be able to enjoy just to be able to move,

I think that's what we need to learn when we grow older. Killion, before we end, I have this question reading about your life and listening to you. And it made me wonder about indulgence. You know, for me, sort of part of the joy of life is also not doing hard things. But, you know, you've talked about how you've only managed to spend one day on a beach relaxing before having to be on the move again. You know, you've talked about never eating in restaurants when at home. You don't really socialize. I mean, what does indulgence look like for? for you. No, I think it also comes like with what I really like.

I mean, like, I don't go to restaurants, but I don't really enjoy it when I go to restaurants. Like, I'm, it's not what I want. I think there are some many things we do it because it's socially like accepted and it's socially like the norm. And I think that I, before I was trying to force more. things but now like I think I'm very like today like I was going to skin the powder and it's like that's pleasure now I'm I think in a point of my life that I

really do what I want to do and try to not fit onto what people expects me to do or like what if I have a gala and a dinner like now I can say no I I really don't want to do that because I I enjoy to go early to bed and and just wait up early and have a quiet morning and see the sunrise and so many times it's just like embracing this beauty. Thank you so much for talking to me. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. That's Killian Jornet.

This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orm. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon mixing by Sonia Herrero. Original music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker, and Marian Lazzano. Photography by Devin Yvon Yvon. Yalkin. The rest of the team is Priya Matthew, Seth Kelly, Paola Newdorf, and Brooke Minters. Our executive producer is Alison Benedict. Also, we have a YouTube channel where you can watch lots of our interviews. Subscribe at YouTube.com slash AtSyMble the interview podcast. Next week, David talks to filmmaker Chloe Zhao. I have been terrified of death my whole life. I still am so afraid. And because I've been so

I'm afraid. I haven't been able to live fully. I haven't been able to love with my heart open. I'm Lulu Garcia-Navarro, and this is the interview from The New York Times.