Take me, Killian, into what is it actually like to summit Mount Everest?

Um, well, I mean, the experience can be very different, um, depending the route that you are climbing, the season that you are climbing.

I, I've been lucky to have experience, uh, to be in the mountain in, um, like being in the Malayas, both like on all the seasons, like spring, autumn, winter, and summer.

And in... different phases of Everest, like north, northeast, the west and the south phase.

And the experience is very different, like, depending the kind of climb that you are doing.

Like, if you are doing in the season, like in spring season, in one of the normal routes, I would say technically it's not difficult.

Like, it's it's not a walk in the park but I mean it's probably if you have done the things right that you have experienced mountaineering to get there and climb a few mountains I don't know in the Alps in Alaska to get there like technically it would not be demanding on the normal routes on spring I would say but the big difficulties above yeah it's like up to 8 000 meters um with good acclimatization it's uh i would say it's always kind of fine more or less but above 8 000 8 200 and especially about 8 500 um without oxygen the the challenge is being like you are doing one step and and uh like waiting a few seconds like to to recover there to do another step um and that's the big difficulty is that uh yeah and if you yeah if you are going without oxygen and without support then it's more about like making the good decision of like what's the last point that you should turn around uh before it gets too dangerous so it's this mental challenge of like knowing that you are not pushing it too far because you have a Otherwise, I think with good preparation and then depending on your capacities, you choose the route and the period of the year.

when you think towards the difference of confidence and pride at what point does confidence drip into pride and how do you make sure you're being confident without being prideful

I've really got to up my game?

Um...

No, I got very inspired about his race and Ben executed a perfect race.

It was so fun to follow.

But I got motivated.

I was more like, oh, I wish I was there.

I wanted to fight that and to be on that battle.

Do you think there needs to be a look at that? Yeah, it needs

Alors, si tu devais cibler peut-être trois adaptations que tu as créées, en fait, trois parties prix que tu as eues dès le départ et que tu penses qui ont été game changer dans ta carrière, tu peux m'en citer trois ?

Et déjà, c'est très important aussi de dire que c'est très individuel.

Parce qu'on voit qu'il y a des personnes qui s'adaptent plus au volume, par exemple, et des personnes qui s'adaptent plus à l'intensité.

Et ça, c'est une chose que j'ai vue quand j'avais 16-17 ans.

Jusqu'à ce moment-là, j'ai travaillé avec des entraîneurs en tant que jeune.

Et quand j'ai passé à cette époque-là à l'équipe nationale d'Espagne, j'ai eu un entraîneur... qui venait du monde de l'athlétisme.

C'est un entraînement très classique de dire, on me fait deux fois par semaine ces intensités assez élevées.

Tu n'es pas resté qu'en montagne à faire des randos et un peu de course.

How did writing a book about this sort of undertaking change the experience for you? How did it allow you to reflect on it more?

Yeah, I have a big, like I'm someone that I really struggle with social media and the speed of things today.

because we, first as a consumer or someone that is looking to social media, like it's so much impressions that they come up so quick to us and that it's too many information to be able to process and to have a meaningful relation with this information.

And as someone that is publishing to social media, it's just like, It's impossible to give context, and context is everything.

As I mentioned before, to climb a summit, just to say, I have been in the summit, it's useless.

What's important is the journey that led you there and how you have changed as a person.

through the journey.

How do you continue to assess the risk versus reward part of what you do and how Has it ever been a problem? Has it ever been something that's been in your head more as you've got older, as you've become a father? Because there's always going to be a risk, I guess.

... too much."

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, no, it has, uh, uh, it has happened, um, not many times but, um, a couple of times where I came down from, from an activity and succeed on that activity, and I was like very disappointed about myself to have pushed that much, um, because the, the risk that I accepted, it was very unreasonable.

And then it was okay, yeah, I, I succeed that and I needed to deploy all my capacities, knowledge, technique, physical capacities, everything, but it was just that they're like too late probably n- to, to get down.

And, um, and yeah, I think it's, um, yeah, it's that moment that, yeah, you feel, yeah, it's...

I- it's, it's always a fine line, no, with the limit? Like, you, you want to get close to that limit where you are really learning about your body, your capacities and that.

But, uh, if you go beyond that, like, uh, like basically beyond the limit, it's death, no? If, if we push like our systems to a point where is the limit, behind that it's death, no? If we push our metabolic system to its limit, uh, it, it stops functioning.

... you know, apart from maybe, I don't know, a heart rate monitor.

How is that integrated in you?

Well, like, it's...

Like, yeah, it never gets easier, I would say, in our activity.

And it's kind of a difficult relation we have with loss because it's somehow that, somehow we normalize it, which is very, it's not normal to normalize like uh that part of that like of of like people that it's healthy young and and and we like it don't get easier but we normalize it that uh is like you don't get it it comes to a point that you don't get your price when like uh When a friend dies, like, you get very sad, but you don't get surprised.

And it's...

Yeah, I think that makes somehow also, like, difficult to develop relations.

That's what I think, like, I'm...

Yeah.

Moi, je vais aller sur le trail.

On doit faire un, un

Qu'est-ce qui t'a convaincu, Kilian, de t'engager dans le projet ?

?En fait, c'est ce que Vani vient de dire, c'est, c'est que la philosophie, c'est, c'est vraiment cette adaptabilité qu'prend la personne aux circonstances qui, qui arrivent.

Et, et baser, euh, la, la décision sur, euh, sur des principes qui, qui sont très simples, qui respectent, euh, des, des principes qu'on connaît de la physiologie depuis, depuis longtemps, mais qui, qui s'adaptent à, à chaque instant en fonction de, de, des circons-, des, des circonstances.

Et, et ça, c'est, c'est vraiment le travail de, de, de l'entraîneur.

C'est pas savoir à quelle séance, euh, on, on doit faire à trois, quatre semaines, mais c'est savoir comment l'athlète, il, il se sent aujourd'hui et comment on doit s'adapter.

Finalement, euh, par rapport aux data, c'est, c'est exactement ça.

Can you recount what happened there?

We were, um, in, uh, Mont Blanc, uh, area in the Alps, and Stefan was first an, an idol.

Like, uh, when I started, uh, ski mountaineering, he was winning all the races.

It was something that I look up to.

And then, um, he became a friend, like we were living nearby, so we started to do some projects together, and we had this project of, uh, crossing the Mont Blanc range, like, uh, in one push in the skis.

And, um, it...

We were, like, in the before last summit, so we were almost finishing, and it was like we were happy.

Um, we've talked about controlling fear, but I do wonder after that experience, are you afraid to die?

Uh, can you guys just talk about NNormal as a brand broadly and the idea behind NNormal? And then we can also get into some of the products you guys have developed and used as well.

Yeah.

Actually, uh, NNormal, uh, started four years ago.

Um, it was a collaboration, an association between, uh, a camper, which is 150 year old, uh, manufacturer of, uh, of footwear, casual footwear.

Uh, and myself, we wanted to, to do some, uh, gear for, uh, outdoor sports.

Uh, and we started this adventure.

Um, and it's, uh, uh...

Mm-hmm

If you had to guess, do you think most athletes at Western States of your caliber are overfueling, underfueling, or intaking right around that physiological optimum?

Um, I think it's in parts.

Like, for sure, like, many are overfueling, uh, at some moments of the race because you see, like, a lot of people, like, stopping to vomit or to, to, to have diarrhea, and that's not normal.

Uh, it means that those, you are not absorbing, uh, what you are putting in.

Um, so maybe if you go with less, uh, or with a different strategy, um, they will not have these problems.

And the problem is that if, if that happens, then it's harder to recover the absorption capacity further on, on the race.

So I would say it's, um, [sighs] I, I don't think in top athletes today it's underfueling.

Do you think more people like yourself will have longer careers in the sport as a function of this?

So cutting to the chase, what is the state of your health right now? Or what's the confidence level in your knee? You have mentioned also that it's the flatter, faster stuff that aggravates it more.

Yeah, no, and that's, that's kind of a bit of, um, um, deploying because it's more when I run fast, like a race, like, uh, at Zegama, for example.

I could see that in the uphills, it was okay.

But then when, when you are running in the flats and the downhills, then it's, uh, it started to be painful.

But then, like, the speed there, it's, it's quick.

Like, you go, like, at, uh, three flat or, or, or something like that in the, in the, in the flats and downhills.

Um, Western States, like, it's a fast race, but you are not, like, going fast as comparing a short race.

If there's any way that you can communicate w- how you feel in your heart and soul heading into what you are... is sure to be a very hard day and a very special day.

Can you recount what happened there?

We were, um, in, uh, Mont Blanc, uh, area in the Alps, and Stefan was first an, an idol.

Like, uh, when I started, uh, ski mountaineering, he was winning all the races.

It was something that I look up to.

And then, um, he became a friend, like, we were living nearby, so we started to do some projects together, and we had this project of, uh, crossing the Mont Blanc range, like, uh, in one push in the skis.

And, um, it... 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 flying around, and we were just, like...

Um, we've talked about controlling fear, but I do wonder, after that experience, are you afraid to die?

That wasn't demanding?

It was very physically demanding.

I mean, it was very demanding for the body, but technically 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 physically 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.

Can you recount what happened there?