World’s best long-distance runner Kilian Jornet shares his top training and recovery tips

Kilian Jornet is one of the most awarded athletes I’ve ever spoken with. He’s also among the most laid back, shrugging and smiling when I ask him about his record-breaking feats. Though one assumes you’d have to be able to keep a clear head if you’re the kind of person who takes on ultramarathons and speedy mountain ascents for fun – these challenges are not for the average runner or mountaineer.

Jornet holds the fastest known time speed record for the ascent and descent of major mountains including Mont Blanc and Matterhorn, as well as the 24-hour uphill skiing record – 23,864-meters. He’s also won plenty of the world’s most challenging ultramarathons.

Having started climbing at the age of three, he now does things that most would consider unfathomable displays of endurance, running for days at a time across wild trails and mountains. He explains to me that mindset and mental fortitude are vital components in a long-distance race, regardless of the length or the terrain.

“The passion, the happiness and the activity provide me with a high every day. I think that's the key to being consistent over the weeks and the months of training. Last year I did a long project in the Alps that lasted for almost 20 days, and it was a lot of days without any sleep. For some days we were running and climbing for like 40 hours without stopping, and then just sleeping for one hour and continuing,” says Jornet.

“So I could feel tired, I could feel destroyed but then I’d think, ‘anyway, I'm up here. It's something that I choose to do and it’s just beautiful. Look at the sunrise, the sunset.’ As professional athletes, it's our job, but if we want things to work and we want to be consistent week after week, day after day, we need to really remind ourselves why we do it, and it’s because we love it.”

To do what Jornet does, you’d have to love it but the way he so fondly describes mountain trails entreats you to love them, too. His optimism and laid-back demeanour almost make me believe I could run an ultramarathon, until he refers to his gym as “the pain cave” and then I’m right back in the realm of the mortals fearing for my life and legs.

He explains that due to the varied nature of his races, his training varies, too. No two training periods are exactly the same. However, the cross trainer, exercise bike, treadmill and Strava remain staple pieces of kit. The outdoor training is where sessions can really vary from race to race.

“One thing I like to do is a range of activities in the mountains. So some races are 20 or 30 kilometres, so like two hours. Some can last for 19 or 20 days, with 20 hours of activity per day, so those are very different. The preparation needs to meet the demands of each activity,” he explains.

“In training I raise the aerobic capacity, so basically do a lot of volume, and then focus a bit more on all the technical aspects of the sport. We have different systems to train. So let's say, metabolism – I’m looking at the oxygen, the temperature, the substrate, all the food I have. Or neuromuscular, so all the muscles and technique, and then, the cognitive, so all the mental aspects. So when I’m doing a session, it's for one of these systems.”

Jornet adds: “If I'm training metabolism, it doesn't matter if I do it on the bike or running or because the mitochondria knows if we are running or we are skiing or we are doing other activities. It’s the intensity of volume that I’m changing.

“Then, of course, if I want to train my muscles to be able to sustain the running or to climb, that's much more specific. I do try to plan the training in a way that simulates what I will be doing. It's a lot to consider, but it can be as complicated as you want or as simple as you want.”

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Training for a 20-day race can destroy your body as much as the race itself can, so getting familiar with your limits and prioritising recovery is just as important as pushing yourself. There’s a fine balance with any extreme sport and Jornet seems to have mastered the balancing act.

“Recovery? It's very simple, which means that it's very difficult to do.” he says. “The key is to have a low stress life, because that means that you are not adding more stress to your stress and creating more inflammation.”

Jornet adds: “Most of that stress comes from your job, comes from your family. You can buy your machine to massage every muscle, but it's more difficult to change your job or family. So you need to find the balance between your job and your training and do what feels good. Sometimes I do very little training at the weekends because I want to be with my kids.

“And then sleep is key for tissue recovery and a healthy diet and eating very well to recover all the nutrients that you lose after training and races – that’s the focus. It's stress management, sleep and food. It's very simple, but very hard because you can’t buy that balance.”

Striking and maintaining this balance is an issue that we can all struggle with and any endurance athlete will tell you that sports like ultra running take an additional toll on you mentally and emotionally. Jornet describes gruelling periods of training and competitive events which leave him in a state that he likens to “a sort of depression”, which it takes time to bounce back from.

“For a period of time I was eating 8,300 calories every day. I didn't see many people and my mind was so concentrated every day on ‘do not die’. It's hard to go back to normal life after that. The muscles are what we feel the most – sure, my legs are hurting but in two or three days they won’t. Mentally, you have to find new goals and get back to routine,” he explains.

This drive to set goals and chase the next hit of endorphins is perhaps what separates an ultra runner from a hobbyist. The desire to run across vast distances and challenging landscapes doesn’t come naturally to all of us, but Jornet believes the experience of running a trail can profoundly benefit everyone.

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“When you explore and see new things, those things can be both outside and inside ourselves.” says Jornet. “I love to see new landscapes and when you are running, you are travelling with your feet, and that's beautiful somehow. The long distance – it brings you into a place where you need to face yourself somehow, like you are facing a mirror. It's not a place where you can hide, but you need to to look into your fears and into yourself. I think it's a beautiful way to unmask yourself and explore who you are at the same time as exploring the outdoors.”

Jornet believes that anyone can access the sense of balance and gratitude that he experiences when running outdoors, but we all have to start from somewhere. His best advice is to be patient and to learn to adapt, in life and on the trail.

“Things won’t happen tomorrow. It's a long way, and it's a way that’s not straight, it's always up and downs. So don't lose the motivation, because your year is not going well. We are usually doing something because we like it, so see it as a game,” he says.

“Then I would say it's good to be ambitious as well as being humble – they go together. Ambition, it's about showing up, it's about trying things. It's about saying, ‘why not’, but having the humility of knowing our limits and our capacities. It's knowing when to take care, especially when you are doing sports in the outdoors, where sometimes risk can be high. And if you don't have the knowledge, to be humble enough to to ask people to mentor you, to give you advice.”

Jornet concludes by stressing the importance of failure and learning to adapt as often necessary parts of the process. “Some days we are better, and some other days we fail,” he says. “I think it's important to understand that if seasons ago something worked, maybe today our body is different because we are older, or because our life situation has changed, and we need to adapt. Mentally, I love what I do. I don’t make it a constraint. I remind myself, ‘okay, I'm just going out doing something that I love to do’, and that's not an obligation. It's a chance and I'm lucky to do it.”

Read more: A trek to Everest Base Camp: Joy, pain and an uncomfortable truth at the heart of every climber’s story