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Book review: Kilian Jornet’s Run or Die

Kilian Jornet Matterhorn summitKilian Jornet, at just 25, has been called the greatest endurance  athlete of his generation. He has won the Sky Runner  World Series three times, the Western States 100-miler, and the  166-kilometre Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, considered the most  difficult foot race in Europe. He has also set numerous fastest  known times for ascents and descents of Mont Blanc, the  Matterhorn and Kilimanjaro.

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But we learn too few of these facts from the young Spaniard’s  autobiography of his life so far, Run or Die, translated from  Catalan and published in English by VeloPress. Rather, he  unspools a dream-like narrative of his thoughts on running in  present-tense storytelling that brings the reader along on such  romps as an eight-day crossing of the Pyrenees; a 165-kilometre  passage of the Tahoe Rim Trail; and a couple of record-breaking  mountain climbs.

Jornet provides plenty of diary-like description of the ultra  runner’s constant confrontation with exhaustion. To overcome  monotony, he imagines himself a Native American delivering a  message to a nearby tribe, a fugitive on the run, a knight in the  Middle Ages.

But there is a frustrating lack of essential facts. What were the  previous records he bested? Who set those records and by how  much did Jornet break them? Why did he go after a particular  record? And perhaps more pertinently, what were the logistics  of setting up those massive journeys? Who supported his  ventures, both on the ground and financially, and why? And  what about that film crew that keeps popping up in the middle  of mountain ranges?

In one of his more personal chapters, Jornet recounts an argument  he had with the love of his life, Alba, before she left him.  She points out that he has replaced all his old running idols with  pictures of his own finish-line triumphs. This leads him to the  realization that by surpassing his heroes, he has lost the magic  in running and must look for new inspiration. He determines to  find that in other people – by learning what makes them strong  and gives them happiness. But his claim of self-awareness only  makes him seem more self-involved. He shares virtually nothing  in this memoir of what he may have learned from all those  friends, coaches and fellow runners who have supported his  career and logged countless kilometres pacing him to victories.

Jornet can’t be faulted entirely for his hubris – he is, after all,  only 25 and has spent many more hours developing one of the  highest VO2s ever recorded than he has his storytelling skills.  But Jornet’s self-absorption is less bothersome than being left to  flounder at the ends of chapters, wondering about many of the  details of his epic feats.

Regardless, readers hungering to find meaning in their own  running experiences will find poetry to savour here. Surprisingly  sage ref lections such as, “there is no perfect way for every runner,  but everybody has his perfect way of running,” make Jornet’s  youthful memoir worth reading.

– Margaret Webb

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