Run or Die

by Kilian, Jornet

  To cries of encouragement from my pacers and support team, I take my first steps northward at 5 a.m. There are 20 or so of us participating in this adventure, each with a specific role to play. However individual a sport may be, however many hours I run without seeing anyone, and however many miles I need to cover, sport and life are always about teamwork, in which each person contributes their grain of sand to help the adventure reach a successful outcome. I’ve given my legs the desire to fight with all the strength I can muster. Sònia is a doctor and has brought her knowledge and expertise to cure any injury and, above all, to give me moral support at the most grueling moments. Olivier and Benjamin have studied the route, which each now knows like the back of his hand, and will be at different points to give me food and drink. Gino and Jean Yves are the representatives of the brand that’s sponsoring me and have come to help wherever necessary: in the kitchen, on the mountain, transporting my pacers. The pacers are Adam, Josh, Ross, Sean, Kevin, Jean-mi, and Bryon, who by turn will accompany me over the whole course. The film crew comprises Marlène, Raf, O. J., Mimo, and Lolo. Finally, Lotta is responsible for the overall organization, although everyone in fact does a bit of everything—cooks, gives out food, lends mutual encouragement, gets my clothes ready, and gives me support. And no one sleeps.

  Bryon and I start running. I feel fresh and light. My feet feel nimble, finding the quickest path and powering me into the woods of California. I can hear Bryon start to pant behind me, and that motivates me as the first light of day begins to shine through the trees. A spectacle of nature unfolds before us.

  The sun shines brightly between the tall pines north of the lake on the high plain of California. The light has a strength, is intense, solid, with a body of its own. It is no mere spectator illuminating nature, but is transformed into a living element, like the mountains, lake, or the sky itself. The show of colors offered by the combination of water and light relegates to second place the baroque architecture traced by the old pine woods between the small lakes and undulating terrain. The sinuous shapes seem designed by the best modernist architects, their impossible knots like gargoyles on Renaissance cathedrals and their thick, striated bark giving the forest the massive presence of a Romanesque monastery. Green phosphorescent lichens bring light to spaces not bathed by the sunbeams that are painting the tree bark and sand red.

  In this dance of colors we are also like dancers striding forward, possessed by their energy, and we tease the broad path that glides between gentle undulations and then amuses itself by changing rhythm with each bend, each descent, and each sunbeam that passes us by. I spur my legs on and feel my muscles tensing before I drive them harder and then relax completely as my legs glide through the air. My watch records a pace of about 10 miles an hour. I feel really good, and it’s as if my feet prefer not to make contact with the ground. We swerve through the trees at top speed, flying on silent strides, breathing in the fresh air, alert to everything around us.

  I feel as if I have been transported back in time, like a young Indian brave silently pursuing an elk that is running away, hiding among the huge trees. I must move swiftly forward, follow the majestic animal’s elegant strides, but I must also advance silently, almost without touching the ground, so that I don’t trample on a branch and give away my position. As I peer between the branches of the huge, lichen-covered pines, I feel the strength of the warriors who ran along these slopes a few centuries ago. I smell their scent in the moss, I see their shadows running by my side between the rocks we are crossing, and I see their faces reflected in the rivers where I stop and drink the water they once drank. I hear their words on the wind that caresses our faces as we leave the woods. And I turn myself into one more member of their tribe as I run along the same tracks where they ran, lit by the same light they saw come to life and die.

  Today we are left with what was strongest, with what men were unable to destroy. We are left with rocks, rivers, sand, and trees. Tremendous efforts have been made to conserve these natural spaces and, unlike many areas on the planet that have suffered wholesale destruction, these parks preserve nature almost as wild as the nature experienced by the indigenous tribes. Away from the few paths that cross the park, animals live peacefully, far from the dangers represented by modern man, where nature can breathe and reproduce without being choked by clouds of smog from big cities. Hundreds of acres enjoy a cycle of existence imposed by the passage of time and confront only the aggression of snow in winter, rain in spring, and heat in summer. However, just 60 miles to the west, trees have disappeared and animals die trying to cross the labyrinths of asphalt where a world circulates that is alien to the forces of nature, where rock has ceased to be what is hardest, where water no longer flows along the bottom of valleys, and where food isn’t under the ground, doesn’t hang from a tree, or doesn’t lie hidden in a den, but is wrapped in plastic and displayed on supermarket shelves.

  Nature has been trapped in islands surrounded by a sea of fakery and artifice, where people can contemplate its wonders and take photos with its inhabitants, be they animals, plants, trees, rocks, rivers, or mountains, as if they were strange exhibits in a museum, never understanding that in times past, those rocks, valleys, and rivers were not a heritage that had to be protected, but were our homes, our supermarkets, our schools.

  Immersed in this spectacle of nature, we have run more than 37 miles almost without noticing and have left the northern side of the lake behind us. The sight of the highest peaks and the best possible views over the lake have been a real tonic as they enabled me to see the entire route for the first time—and it doesn’t seem that long. I’ve already run a fifth of the way, and the prospect of repeating four more times what I have already done doesn’t strike me as so difficult.

  Six hours in, the sun has taken possession of the sky and I’m beginning to feel hungry. The moment I reach Tahoe Meadows, I down a small plate of macaroni dressed with oil and salt before starting on the second part of the route through the mountains on the east side of the lake.

  The track continues its monotonous alternation of gentle dips and ascents, never steep enough to force me to walk or so stony that I must consider the best way to place my feet to clear the hurdles. The passage of time has brought with it fatigue and an end to the feeling of light legs that never touch the ground and eager eyes that catch every small movement around me. I still feel well and strong, but the first signs that this strength will end sooner rather than later are starting to show. Big driving strides have given way to steps close to the ground to avoid wasting energy. My gaze is only focused on the stretch of path in front of me, distancing me from the surrounding landscapes and my roaming thoughts of the past. I start to wonder why I was so stupid to have wasted so much precious energy at the start. My average speed was very high, and my running, along with my instincts and heart, is beginning to suffer the consequences. I still have a long way to go, and even though I’m not losing pace, I anticipate that I will soon. I try to ignore these thoughts and conceal them from my pacers and from myself by engaging in animated debate with Adam and Kevin and playing games with the wind that has picked up as the day has progressed.

  Yet again my feet sink into the sand on the path, but I force myself to keep running and puffing. When I look up from the ground, I see we are running between two lakes. To our right, a half mile downhill, is the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, and to the left, a large lake spreads out and follows the path for hundreds of yards. I smile when I see this beautiful spectacle, but I don’t want to expend energy talking about how pleased I am to be running in such scenery. So we follow the route in silence, with Kevin behind me. We are running along a broad ridge into a strong headwind that makes each step more difficult, as if the 120 pounds I weigh have suddenly become 150. I try lowering my head and holding my hands close to the sides of my body to give myself more aerodynamic lines. I manage a few hundred yards like that, but lack of air forces me to look up and take in deeper breaths. When I do that, I realize tha
t the path is imperturbably following its familiar pattern. Blasted paths, I think. Couldn’t they have made more direct tracks rather than ones going twenty times round the mountain to get to the top?

  The sun is starting to shine gently on the mountains to the west, and so far there hasn’t been a single ascent that has forced me to walk. I want to find a steep ascent I have to walk up or climb. I want to encounter a tricky descent, a slope that makes me watch where I put my feet so that I don’t fall, when running becomes a dance over rocky hurdles and not a simple succession of skimming steps that take me forward. As I think these thoughts, I see Olivier’s silhouette at the top of this ascent. It doesn’t seem too far off and I need a stop, not to eat but to break out of the dragging rhythm I have gotten into. I look down and accelerate to reach the stop quickly. I count to 100 and, panting, look up again, hoping to see Olivier in front of me. However, he is still a long way off; I would even say he is farther away. I don’t seem to be making any progress, and every step seems to defy my expectations. Finally, however, we reach the hill where Olivier is waiting and I sit on the ground. I take a gel and briefly gaze at the two lakes we have left behind. Losing no time at all, I start running again. I have to reach Kingsbury South before nightfall, and the sun is rapidly beginning to go down behind the mountains on the other side of the lake.

  My steps echo monotonously along the track. I finally reach the mountain ski station of Kingsbury along with the last embers of daylight, and I stop for 40 minutes to eat, rest—physically and mentally—and gather strength for the second part of the course. I have run some 75 miles, but have yet to reach halfway. The dry, earthy terrain has covered my body in dust, and I have dirt in my shoes and socks, which has given me huge blisters that have begun to hurt now that I have stopped. As I eat a large plateful of gnocchi, Lotta washes my feet in cold water and Sònia prepares a syringe of Betadine to clear the liquid from the blisters.

  “It will just sting slightly,” she says when she sees the fear in my eyes as she brings the syringe close to my feet.

  “All right,” I reply halfheartedly. I know it’s the only solution if I am to continue for another 90 miles without being forced to wear bigger shoes.

  She sticks a needle into the blister and takes the liquid out before injecting Betadine.

  “Ahhh!” I moan. It feels like my foot has just been stuck inside a pan of boiling water. I quickly take my foot away from Sònia and blow hard on the blister.

  “I told you it would only hurt a little bit, because I didn’t want to frighten you. Come on, that’s one less,” Sònia says persuasively. She gradually burns the skin off the blisters until my feet don’t hurt anymore; whether it is because the blisters have been eliminated or because the burning process has left me totally numb to pain, I do not know.

  The cold returns with a vengeance as soon as the sun disappears, and I wrap up for the night: long-sleeve T-shirt, windbreaker, gloves, and hat. Ross, a strong runner who lives and runs here, will accompany me on the first part of the night, as the paths are not clear and apparently it is very easy to take a wrong turn. It is a weight off my mind to run next to someone who knows the area so well. We are ready to go: clothes on, last gnocchi eaten. I make sure my headlamp has batteries, do stretches to loosen up legs that have started to feel the miles, and once again we run off in the dark to shouts of encouragement from the team, though this time at quite a different pace. We gradually climb the track that zigzags across the Kingsbury ski slopes. Our gentle pace warms my legs, and my joints relax and expand as we make headway. My strength returns, and I feel better and better as we run up between fields and woods. It is a cold night that reminds me of my winter training long ago, when we would return from high school and go for runs in the dark over Montellà. The wind biting my face activates my senses and gives me energy to run strongly once we leave the wooded areas around the ski slopes and move into a wild territory of lakes and craggy peaks. A hard climb up a sandy track takes us up to East Peak, where an extraordinary nighttime vista of the southern part of Lake Tahoe extends before us.

  In order to maintain the pace and at the same time disconnect and think of things other than running, the route, and what I should eat, I let my mind imagine instead the adventures we might have. I imagine we are escapees from prison, in flight and hiding in these woods. Or that we are Indian braves in pursuit of a herd of deer or carrying an urgent message to a neighboring tribe.

  Running has turned into a chore, like breathing, eating, or going to the bathroom (which here means going behind a pine tree, a rock, or, when your strength fails you and you can’t wander far from the path, under a rock only a few inches away). I decide to think about what I need to do next week: I have to buy a present for Maria because it’s her birthday on Wednesday, I have to phone the mechanic and arrange for the car to have its 50,000-mile checkup, and I need to go to the supermarket when I get home because the freezer is empty.

  Sometimes I stop thinking altogether and simply let myself be carried along by the rhythm of a song, singing loudly. This is one of the best ways I have found to distract myself and forget about time so that the hours pass more quickly. The only problem, on this occasion, is that I have left my iPod at home and I don’t know if it is exhaustion or if what they say about running destroying neurons is true, but songs start to stick, become etched in my mind, and, however much I want to press the button and go on to the next song, I can find no way to stop myself from repeating the same song, time and again. During a 3- or 4-hour race or, stretching it, a 6- or 7-hour competition, this is tolerable, but it is a problem if the song gets stuck a few hours after the start and you’ve been at it for almost 20. Imagine the state my nerves are in after repeating thousands of times, “Oooh life … is bigger … is bigger and … na na na na na … Losing my religion!” Without the help of the iPod, I can remember only this refrain, and I have been trying to remember how the hell the rest goes for the last 20 hours. Although I’m at my wit’s end, 2 or 3 hours go by almost without my noticing while I hunt for those lyrics, and in that time I forget my tired legs, the cold, and the fact that there are still so many miles to go.

  However, inevitably, as the miles go by, the monotony sets in again. As we leave the ridges behind and run back into the thick woods, the wind disappears and takes with it my alert senses. My legs still feel light, and my heart wants to carry on the struggle, but my senses feel numbed as we make the descent from Thompson Peak. I abandoned the sense of touch hours ago so as not to feel the pain in my legs and the blisters on my feet. The next sense to disconnect is my hearing, which blots out the sounds of the forest and whatever Ross is saying. Sight soon follows: My eyes nearly shut, to the point that my lashes are so close I cannot make out the terrain and I begin nodding off. I burst into loud song and jump as I run in order to try to reactivate my senses. A few paces behind me, Ross probably thinks I’ve gone crazy, but it helps wake me up, warding off drowsiness. I run powerfully for a few minutes, but the many hours of running soon hit me, and my eyelids begin to feel heavy again as my rhythm becomes more monotonous. I struggle against this deadweight and start singing again, even more loudly this time, and I accelerate around bends, leap over stones, and grab hold of trees to gather speed and adrenaline and activate the hormones that should be keeping me awake.

  Despite all this, a few minutes later my eyes shut once again, this time with a vengeance, and I give up the struggle, letting the weight of my lids seal in sleep. A state of well-being spreads through my body, and my agitation disappears, as does exhaustion. Pain recedes and my thoughts evaporate. I forget my body, letting myself be carried away by a world where everything is easy. Suddenly, my thoughts jolt me back to the real world. Was I running? I don’t remember stopping…. Am I still running? I open my eyes in a panic. Where am I? I look to both sides of me. I have drifted a good 100 yards away from the path and am sitting on the ground between pine branches and huge anthills. Very few seconds can have passed, because Ross is still coming b
ehind me along the path. I walk back, thinking I cannot go on like this. I know I ought to stop for a while to sleep, at least long enough to get rid of this drowsiness so that I can finish the run. I remember hearing someone say that they napped for half an hour to shake off drowsiness and were then able to continue for a few more hours. Yes, I will try that. It is only 6 or 7 miles to Big Meadow, where my team is waiting and where I decide I will stop and sleep.

  After a hard hour’s running while trying to stop my eyes from shutting again, we finally reach the road to the south of the lake. I quickly stretch out on the hard surface of the car park with a sleeping bag over me. I fall asleep immediately. I don’t have time to think how cold and hard the ground is, whether I am on my back or my front. I simply fall into a deep sleep.

  “Kilian!” I hear an echo deep in my dreams. “It’s time. Kilian!” Each time it sounds louder and clearer. “Kilian!”

  I open my eyes and see a light above my head. I gradually wake up and recognize Sònia on the other side of the headlamp.

  “Is it late?” I ask as I rub my eyes. I still feel dead. My drowsiness has only slightly receded, and weariness seems to pin me to the ground. It can’t be, I tell myself. I’ve got more than 65 miles to cover. It can’t be. I sit up and knock myself on the head several times to wake myself up and prepare to get up and continue running. But my legs don’t respond. They fold under me, and I can’t tighten my muscles and pull myself up. I make a second attempt. It’s not simply that they don’t respond; when I try, I feel a stabbing pain in every muscle in my body. I think, My God! If I feel like this when I try to get up, what on earth am I going to feel on the last 65 miles of the run? With great difficulty, I pull myself up like a clumsy doll with wooden legs. That is when I realize that the temperature has dropped dramatically; I had been sleeping too soundly for it to register. I drink a hot cup of tea, and after an energetic stretch that makes my joints crack and pop, I start running south accompanied by Sean. It’s still five hours to sunup.