Kilian Jornet's Advice to Race Faster, For Non-Elites | Extramilest Show #51

normally you stick to the plan because the plan is like the dream not like you you think okay that's what it will make me good from plan to reality it's it's very different we need to to be able to adapt the plan uh if you look to the higher variability and then you see like how is your mood how is your your feeling like your tiredness on the muscles or in the body uh the the quality of sleep if you think about this all these things together then you can understand how ready you are for a session and that's that's very important for the day to day many times like okay no i cannot miss that session and it's like adaptations they never come from one session like the body like will tend always to go to to balance to to us moses so that means that if you do only one session it will happen nothing yeah the thing is like if you do one car session and then like after a few days after you do the same session and after a few days the same session then the body will say okay my stability will be in another level 30 40 50 sessions hard during the year that's what makes adaptations it's not one hard session hello hello welcome to another episode of the extra miles show my name is flores german and on this podcast i interview different endurance athletes different coaches and health experts about ways to become a stronger healthier and happier athlete and today we have a very special episode with none other than killian journette he's the greatest mountain and ultrarunner of all time i've been following him for many years he's a huge inspiration to me and to many other athletes around the world we had an opportunity to record this conversation at his airbnb in silverton colorado and this was on the evening right before he was running the hard rock 100 mile endurance run and he basically ended up not only winning the race but also crushing the course record over there and so yeah we ended up finishing the recording i think at 6 30 7 o'clock at night then the next morning at 6 a.m he started the race ran for 21 hours and 36 minutes and he ended up finishing there he has been running since he was three years old currently he's 34 years old so he has a tremendous amount of training and racing experience and that's what i want to dive into i wanted to hear his thoughts in particular on ways to improve for runners of all levels so not just the elite athletes but also the beginner and intermediate athlete and a lot of the insights that he's sharing in these conversations apply not only to trill and ultra mountain running but also to road running as well i would love to hear from you in the comments what was one key takeaway from you from all of the different lessons that he described in this conversation please let me know i'm very curious to read and it actually becomes this nice compilation of comments with different takeaways from different people without further ado i hope you enjoy my conversation with killian giornette let's do this yeah let's go welcome killian to the extra miles show very excited to have you here on the podcast thank you very much it's a pleasure absolutely we're here at hard rock about to start in 12 14 hours for me how are you feeling how are you yeah how's the last few weeks been over here after zakama it's been good like i'm excited to be here first it's a race that i i love for the the community that it has and and like the san juans here in colorado they are beautiful and training has been good like uh after the game i took a easy week after and then like i had a a very good blog with uh like four weeks of very good training with volume and then like also quality and then last week before here actually it was like tapering so only like kind of 100k and one of my daughters she got sick in bernard like in kindergarten so i got sick after and that was a good reason to the tapering too but now it feels like everything is gone so like looking exciting yeah yeah that's the thing right now you have two daughters and that's always a bit of a tricky one when some of these outside elements are are getting in the mix as well with daycares and the viruses or anything like that yeah it's it's part of yeah it's part of the game and then like it makes you stronger absolutely and i saw when you like you had posted a few things on strava besides like a lot of like vertical gain like which were used from you i saw the training volume still like 210k 213k like you were putting in some serious training volume over there yeah the the so after the gamma the thing this season is it's a bit uh special and strange because like i was doing the camera that it's a short race or a marathon distance and then like hard rock is a hundred miles a long one but then in four weeks is like serious now that is a 30k and then eight days after she denies uh within me that is a long one so i what was super motivating about this year it was like how to train for like a hundred miles on a on a short race like in in the same kind of in two weeks time so the theory was like or my theory here was like okay i want to put the volume to be able to raise the hundred mile races but i want to keep the quality for the show race so it was to do big bowling wings like 200k weeks with like around ten thousand meters of elevation but not having long days but just having like a lot of sessions like mostly like uh 20 to 40k sessions to keep the quality for the short races but still the volume for like hard rock and i'm still seeing doubles as well right so you do a morning workout and like a pretty hard workout in the afternoon as well have you still been doing that yeah and mostly i i'm doubling most of the time then like when are the sessions that depends more about like how we organize with emily like who is training in the morning who is training at the afternoon so we are like uh like sharing the day like one is taking uh care of the kids in the morning and then the other is training and and we switch midday so mostly i do my longer session kind of either the morning or the afternoon then when the girls are asleep i do my my second session like either on the treadmill because uh norway it's very cold in the winter to go running or that and then like it's not to go out uh far away in the evening or like now in the summer to just do a it's midnight sound so it's it's nice to go to the mountains in the evening yeah yeah i can imagine i'm i'm excited to talk with you about training intensity um like low heart rate high intensity there's a lot of different ways that you can measure training intensity and what sort of way do you go about that like do you look at heart rate more like breathing pattern at like if i've heard you talking about nasal breathing at certain points like how do how do you look at training intensity yeah when like when we look at the training density like it's uh looking to what's what's the metabolic work we you are doing and it's a lot of ways to to measure that like you can go with heart rate you can go with a lactate you can go with like uh uh the the oxygen like the the rational oxygen co2 all these but uh some are much harder to measure like oxygen c2 like you cannot do that on a daily basis lactate it's easy maybe if you run on a track it's almost impossible if you're running in the mountains heart rate it's uh it's possible to measure all the time so i mostly use the heart rate as um yes the major for for my daily basis but when i i determine my zones i don't determine them by heart rate but most like i try to to link the what i'm looking for in the session like which kind of metabolic activation i want or what it is that i'm looking for to do an adaptation and that then like some of those will rate more with um heart rate some they will relate more with uh breathing uh some they will relate more with uh feeling so i try to like i normally use like a five zone um intensities and the first one for example uh there is not i'm not looking to the hair rate because that can also be very alterate especially in this lower rate but i'm mostly looking to a pace where i feel that i'm recovering and that's like a very easy thing that you are not working harder it's like i'm able to breathe but i'm not forcing breathing with the nose but like it naturally i don't need to breathe by the mouth to do this workout that's my zone one for example and uh and so trying to understand yeah what's the goal of the session in terms of adaptations and then try to put that and probably with the years you read that with some feelings and that it but yeah sometimes that can be more related to lactate or to to the heart rate you can measure like in some specific days doing tests but in the daily basis it's impossible yeah well for like a recovery or like a low heart rate run like you said you have done so many years of this running that feeling wise you kind of have a pretty good understanding of where you're at intensity-wise right sometimes it's just more once you start pushing it in the higher heart rate zones or once you start altitude gets involved or heat or like after a few hours cardiac drifts start kidding in and kicking in like then there's some of these other factors that make it a little bit more challenging to get a good understanding of where you're at intensity-wise but yeah yeah and especially you mentioned the distance that's very interesting because normally we we say like zone 2 is like the stable like uh it's is the aerobic stable and and that's that's not real because it's stable for a couple of hours but if you run like 100 miles like tomorrow like i will be running mostly in zone 2 and after like uh 10 15 20 hours my body will not be stable so so when we talk about thresholds and stability uh we we need to understand that it's it's changing all the time like distance and like it's it's some uh it can be hormonal change it can be like a mass changes in the muscles that they make that this zone of training is not stable so like a zone to to do a is not the same workout if you are doing uh for two hours then for seven hours then for 20 hours it will make very different adaptations and and that's why like it's not only to devise the kind of trainings but zones uh and that is exponential with uh with intensity if you do like a workout on uh zone four that uh will be like um in my case like i consider like a zone one uh recoveries on two it's uh this uh easy moderate uh running um zone three is what i call tempo that it's a bit lower than racing pace zone four is like the the threshold uh that that's around racing pace on like a short distance and then zone five it will be like what i i call like speed and that i almost never train i never use this zone when when training but that would be more um um so above the the threshold uh and when you are training for example threshold like if you do like repetitions of like uh three four minutes uh you will have a very different impact that if you are doing that for like uh 20 minutes and it's exponential it's not that it's adding so that we need to to really understand and even doing these like is is really not the same if you are like uh how you are fueling this session or if you are training with uh sleep deprivation or if you are training with uh uh so these have an impact and and and we don't take into consideration much when we are yeah when we are planning uh like a season or a session but it's it makes a big difference yeah for sure and obviously there's different stages of your training cycle as well right at the beginning of season like your training is going to be much different than it is as you are progressing throughout a training training season so what do you think are like if we're looking at the recreational run on the everyday runner and whether that is like the trail runner or the ultra endurance runner or like even the road road runners what do you think are some of the main common mistakes that you're seeing intensity wise is there anything that stands out to you i think it's generous that people go too fast what we call like regenerative easy running that would be like the classical zhong one people almost never go there like uh people is going on zone 2 or even zone 3 during like what's supposed to be a easy run and that that means that they are not able to recover from the hard sessions or when you are going to do a hard session you will not be able to go hard because uh so then it makes that all the trainer will be most in the same area because you you are too tired to go uh to to push that hard so i think in general it's like easy means easy like it doesn't matter if you run at like six seven kilometers an hour it doesn't matter like it's uh it's not about going fast it's it's about uh making your body uh move and like have some adaptations have some uh regeneration to be able to to do very well to push hard when you when you have the car sessions that's one one very common mistake and i would say the other is to not take into account uh all the different stresses of the body so because we think about okay like this is a world and that that makes this training session it puts a stress to my body of um whatever it is like two and then we think about that number two to plan the next heart session for example but we don't take into account like if uh you had like a lot of stress at work if you had like uh some like uh with the family or like all these other stress that it might be bigger so instead of thinking like this was a stress of two from the workout it's maybe like a eight because all the rest so we really need to take into account all these things to to plan our uh yeah all the week i think in the short cycles yeah yeah and i think a good point that kind of goes hand in hand with that is that sometimes you see a lot of athletes they are glued to a training schedule versus like adopting like kind of changing it from the day to day on based on some of those challenges that come up that yeah sometimes unexpected things happen whether it's at work or in personal life or indeed adjusting maybe you had a hard session plan to maybe you have to scale back the intensity a bit or the duration or any of these kind of things so yeah yeah and that's uh yeah it's a very good point and people normally you stick to the plan because the plan is like the dream no like you you think okay that's what it will make me good but reality is that from plan to reality it's it's very different because all these things and we need to to be able to adapt the plan um and that's like some tools like it can be how you feel the charge and it's very hard to to see how much this other stress it has affect you i think nowadays we have tools like the the heart rate variability you can have the the sensations of like how to hear area but i think uh if you look to the higher variability and then you see like how is your mood how is your you're feeling like your tiredness on the muscles or in the body uh the the quality of sleep but if you think about this all these things together then you can understand how ready you are for a session and that's that's very important for the day today and also like think like when you are many times like okay no i cannot miss that session and it's like adaptations they never come from one session like the body like will tend always to go to to to balance to us moses so that means that if you do one one stress to the body like one very hard session the body will like be stressed and then we'll go back to his normal and if you do only one session it will happen nothing the thing is like if you do one her session and then like after a few days after you do the same session and after a few days the same session then the body will say okay that's my new normality so i need to to my my my stability will be in another level um is not about one session that is about like doing this repetition of uh of uh half sessions uh all over the years so it's not if you do like 30 40 50 sessions hard during the year that's what makes adaptations it's not one hard session yeah it's very well said the heart rate variability i think is an interesting one to look at further and i saw your your wife actually looks at it as well i saw on their instagram she's posted about it a few times um how do you track like as far as for in your training and in your in your running like how do you track like the the the different paces you're running the different intensities the different how do you go about that well what i mostly look is um volume so how is the volume of the of the period the session or the uh or the week and that comes to to to the the mileage and the elevation also like i i look to the technicality of the terrain i'm moving so like if it's on the road if it's in a trail if it's in the mountains because that so relate uh to put these three things into account and together that's volume on a place and then the other is intensity and that like i have set these five zones of training on my watch and uh i'm using colors which is good that you can really adapt these uh eurozones into like if you want to look uh on power or if you want to look on on on the heart rate uh and using different values for different kind of intensities some sometimes maybe i will be using power and sometimes i will be using the heart rate uh so that's when it comes to intensity and then like uh for the charge like i'm using the higher variability on this kind of uh more um uh feedbacks when it comes to like a mood and sleep tracking and and that so i put these things together to to adapt the the daily plan which which chorus model are you running with which watch so i'm using the apex pro i i love it especially because all these things that we were talking they are there so this kind of you can adapt the different intensities on different values and then like uh also like all these um uh recovery tools they are very very good to use there i think it's it's important to yeah understand what you are looking uh also one thing that it has for example that it's very interesting is the the oxygen saturation uh that's something that some sessions i my goal is is it's to to go lower on oxygen saturation and then it doesn't matter if you go zone ones on fives on zone two it's just like okay my goal in this session is to be at uh 85 of auxin saturation so then i will be looking at that and that will be like doing like altitude training or abners and that i can be doing that on zone one very easy like maybe going in the bike and i'm going at uh 80 watts that's nothing like i would say that's that's not giving you anything but if you are doing that like at 80 of saturation 70 of saturation that's uh it's giving you some kind of stress to the body and some adaptations and that's something that also like uh yeah it's good that yeah i can measure that with the wedge the blood oxygen one is an interesting one to look at so i had a conversation with patrick mccowan on the podcast a while back and he was talking about nasal breathing quite a bit and also about different experiments you can do with it and even with the nasal breathing it took me several weeks to somewhat more get used to it but then after a while i started doing even some speed work sessions with like nasal breathing only and like kind of pushing it to a higher heart rate 160 165 and trying to be able to hold like six minute mile on flat just trying to nasal breathe and whatnot and it was fascinating to look what happened with the blood oxygen levels because all of a sudden you started seeing that dropping as well and after like something like the snot bombs out of the nose start getting used to it but yeah seeing what happens in the body even with the blood oxygen levels or when i'm doing some wim hof breathing exercises and you do a breath hold and you actually look at what's happening at that point to the blood oxygen levels and you start seeing it go down and then you start breathing again it starts going up it's it's a fascinating topic like the whole breathing pattern yeah and i think when we talk training we focus a lot on on intensity when it comes to to metabolism but we don't think that much or now i think it's it's much more talk about like um uh the energy systems uh i also like to to train with uh uh big loads of uh carbohydrate or like uh to do fasting that that makes different adaptations uh or like as you like when we are never thinking about like a uh breathing or like the oxygen saturation when we are training but uh we know that these things are as important as uh as metabolism as a speed so it's um it's important to yeah to put the goal of your sessions not only on on on metabolism but also all these and at the end of the day like a training session is not a race and it feels that a lot of people is racing the training session so if you are like having the goal of the session is like to to break a pb and and it's not like i mean like i prefer to do like a session where i'm running at like uh six minutes per mile uh after like i don't know like fasting so i haven't eaten for the night before and uh like after a uh 15 mile run at uh zone three than to be able to run uh one mile at five minutes uh being fresh and having like good recoveries and eating because the adaptations will be very different and probably for what i'm doing that it's uh trout running and races it will be much more effective and it will be a slower training at the end but it will give me better adaptations you're very technical in your approach and i've noticed that too with you write down a lot of things you're journaling a lot like you're you're tracking many different things in your training are there any things that you're bringing to the table with like for example corals in like some of that product developments are there any things that excite you about some of the upcoming things that are going to be happening over here in the develop because i think we're still in the early stages of some of these things and they're developing rapidly yeah and that's that's an amazing time i think because uh i think the the the wearables technology is is there like uh we we can have like a lot of measurements like we were talking about a highlight variability we can talk about uh or talking about like the the blood saturation uh then like also like the substrate like uh what substrate are we using when we are running at different uh speeds like it exists like now some devices that you can like uh blow and then like it will say like if you are like carbohydrate or like uh fat and it's the the blood saturation on on the armata also like on the muscles or like uh these all these uh feelings are to to for the recovery uh it's it's so many things that they kind of exist but on a lot of different devices to have uh kind of all them together on on a wedge that it's very simple and then like to make it easy because it's uh you don't want to do a session like to be looking to the lactate and then looking to the the saturation then looking to the heart rate and all these it's it's very complicated so you maybe use that one every few months or like one every year but if you know what's important to look for you at that session and you can do the all these with with uh with the watch with uh so that's something that uh it's very exciting to talk with the people at college because they are very uh open on on these kind of discussions and they are very reactive on like bringing up that on on the software and that's uh that's something it's it's amazing because i think the better we understand our body and our function and because we are individuals like what it works for me it will probably not work for you because we have a different metabolism because we have a different like uh threshold not only on on page but also like on on the how we adapt to to the the the breathing or to the saturation or to to the the following and all these if we are able to track it and to understand how is our body and and then like to be able to train better and that's that's something that uh it's it's very impressive with chorus to to work because they are pushing on on on making that possible on when it comes to yeah very scientific but very usually friendly and that's uh that's where we should go yeah so about six months ago i had an interview with elliot kipchoge and one of the similarities when studying what elliot kipchoge is doing and what you're doing in training it is journaling every workout and writing down many different details and your journals go back many many years just like elite kitchoge as well so can you tell me a little bit more about how do you approach journaling like what has worked well for you like why are you journaling and how do you go about it and then a follow-up question will be how do you feel other people can improve through journaling as well because i know a lot of athletes are maybe not tracking that much yeah it's um i think it's important to to understand what's happening and where you have adaptations and especially because if we want to trust our memory it always will remember the good moments so you always think oh last season i was feeling better and my sessions were way better so in general that's not real because normally you only remember the the good moments um so i think it's important to journal and my journal has evolved a lot over the years i started i think and i have recorded since uh like 2006 like kind of every day and and it's uh as i mean as i said before i i have the volume so that means like i didn't measure distance before because i i was riding in the mountain so for me distance was not an important point now i now it is but i was like measuring some volume so elevation and time but then also like the the terrain where i'm running because it's very different and uh and the intensity and then like all these subjective things like how i was feeling uh and then if it was something specific like then i love to to know where i was going so that's more like on what place i was and then to understand if it was also traveling i was sick uh these things that make when you look after you can understand some patterns of why why at the time i was stronger why i have this injury maybe you i start feel a bit of some some small pain at that point and then you see how it's growing how is disappearing uh how he's coming back so to journal it means that you are able to to look back uh on uh yeah realistically like you can see exactly why things are happening and and how are happening and yeah not really trusting the memory because many times memory it's uh yeah it's not that good i've noticed that after races sometimes too within 24 hours you really clearly remember it yeah and then it was all like the good memories and the bad ones like just kind of disappeared that's interesting um and then basically transitioning back to the recreational runner like do you have any thoughts or insights or advice for people looking to get into journaling like even if they're not tracking much currently how do they can go about this not at the beginning but even maintaining with this a little bit longer yeah i think that's that's the biggest problem that you can start like taking a lot of notes and then like you will endure that for like one week one month and then like give out so like it's the same as training like you need to find the the the load that it feeds like you can you cannot pretend that you you are able to do more than what realistic so it's the same like if you can uh journal like uh take only like the feeling how you felt it's much better if you can do that every day than if you measure like one day like the higher variability and the tiredness and the the feeling and the mood and and it's better to be consistent than to measure a lot for one day so i would say like what it matters is to to do what it feels good for you to do every day and of course the more you add the more data the better it is but what's important is to be consistent that's what where you will be able to extract results and to to make patterns and that it's on having a continuity and and nowadays with the tools like it's super easy like uh the the applications on the watch like the watch is recording everything for you like the distance the elevation the the intensity so that you you can forget about you can have your your app and and that goes directly there but and then i would say like yeah uh feeling or like sensations like uh i think that's something that not only it's good but it's also beautiful to read like after a time like i was at that time at that mountain and it was like i had that feeling or who i was with i think just more like a written journalism like i was i did this loop in this trail and i was with that person and it was raining and or whatever and i think that's something that uh it's very easy and it uh it gives us an emotional feedback that uh it can make i i think it's as important as the data at the end of the day i want to talk for a bit about mental training and training the mind because i find that quite a fascinating topic there's mostly athletes all have to train well in actual their their athletic abilities but then the mind is such a big one as well and being able to endure like discomfort to some extent being able to push yourself like tomorrow you're running hard work 100 miles how do you go about training with discomfort like to what extent do you go about this i'm very curious here yeah it's uh i think mental like when you train uh it's it has an impact on the uh mentally and hard sessions are hard not only physically but just like to to visualize these sessions it's hard like you can be stressed because it's coming a a big session and and then like if you are doing a very long session or or if you are doing some kind of terrain that is technical that it's it has some exposure uh it's it's mentally stressful so uh you need to also find a good balance on that first like as i mentioned before you need to have a good balance on what you are able to do and that's very important like to to see okay i i find that i can train this many hours a week to to be able to recover from it uh if i do more like uh i at the point like it just explodes and and you need to find your balance and when it comes to mentally it's the same like okay uh har sessions how if you want to it cannot be a hard day every day mentally it's it's too much to so you need to also like uh put a ratio on that like how this day it will be intense so the next intense day it will be in next day so i recover from that and of course you need to go to places where it's not comfortable to to to improve and that goes also on on the mental state and especially if you are training for like long distance events and or mountaineering or where the mental part is very important to to fight when you have pain or when when uh you you your stomach is yes or your mind saying just stop like i want to go home or like or it's it's some kind of exposure and danger and how how to feel like comfortable with it it takes uh it takes training and you need to to get used to this kind of discomfort and that goes with the time i think like to to start with small loads of it like going to uh harder sessions that they became normal after all like going to to do some rules that they are a bit more technical and a bit more technical then you get more used to to deal with these situations like to deal with this this pressure and um yeah i think it's uh is that to just be realistic about what first to be realistic what your capacities are like not to overestimate you but to to really try to to yeah push a bit every time and go into discomfort to accept this discomfort to be okay now i'm i'm here and these problems are happening but i i want to solve it that way and and and to not be stressed at that point it takes time to to train well and you raise quite a bit as well right like i've i've read somewhere that you have done like 30 to 50 races a year sometimes like in the last i think 15 years you've done 450 races or something so obviously through the more you train the more you race the more you gain that experience as well so so on a day like tomorrow at some point you're going to get into that pain cave are there any mental games you play with yourself at that point yeah um like in a long range when you start to feel okay now it's legs starts to hurt and all this it's like you try to trick your mind on it can be very small things like you say okay i go to the next station then i i i stop and then you when you get there it's like okay no it's like you lie to yourself like say okay now it's it's uh it's finished soon like you need to devise the race in in small portions because if you think oh now it's like 80 miles to finish that's too big like if you think okay in two miles i have this uh pass and then it's downhill or in in five miles this is a navy station and uh you need to really like cut the goal into small goals into the race and that makes it much easier because it's very it's you think okay it's too much i can do it if you think it's 80 miles i can do it that's much more difficult uh that's uh that's a trick and then it's just like at the end of the day why you are there like okay it's hurting it's it's not a cool situation uh but you are here because you wanted to be here like it's we we have the the the chance like it's it's it's a choice that we choose to to raise or we choose to to to go climbing or whatever and it's uh yeah it's because we love it at the end of the day so to remember that like when you are racing when you are hurting is like it was my decision to be here and it's part of my experience to to to pass through these moments and yeah i think it's it's mostly that i notice that you you have a lot of gratitude you have a lot of positive aura around you and i think that sometimes helps as well in a way of like you're not running from an angry place but it seems that that being appreciative of like you running in the mountains as hard as it is when you go through some of those painful moments but yeah i think that's that's a good approach yeah it's um i think you need to find out so your approach like for me like i think if you go from from the beauty of it and like it's because you love it and and and this gratitude of like i'm doing something that is like really giving me back a lot that's where i feel good and i i have been talking with uh some uh like uh very famous like coach from football in europe and he was saying i love when i'm in a stadium uh of the opponent and people is insulting me and they are like just and he said there is the moment where i feel my best where is like a fight and when people is like really uh like you know football like it's not it can be very harsh like they are just saying insulting and he say that's where i feel like good and empowered for like performing the best and i think that's very different from person to person like for me i i is being unpaceful and being like happy about there is where i feel like that i can deliver the most maybe some people need to fight maybe some people need to to be in war to be able to perform and and i think that's also you need to know what brings your best performance and then to to try to create this environment to be able to deliver yeah very very well said the one part we talked briefly about earlier but i want to talk a little bit more about is training adaptations and so there are many different ways like yeah we can increase training volume we can increase training intensity but also the adaptations to things like altitude or heat or cold in particular altitude i'm fascinated about because you spend so much time in the mountains yet you live in norway at a very low low level like up to three days ago you were in norway here you are like going to do a mountain range up to like really high up so how do you go about adapting to high altitude well like it was funny that when i moved to chamonix that uh to france i was super afraid about being that low because i i i was born at like 2000 meters i had to live all my life like above 2000 meters and then i was going to leave a chamonix that was at 1 000 meter i was like wow i will lose my my fitness because like living low and now i live at sea level so it's uh but i think it's uh of course you need to then re-acclimatize in a way like you need to read that but like science we haven't been able to to see how like he is not shown that it's uh um yeah adaptations from the past that we can use in the future uh on on long periods of time but uh we all know that in practice that happens uh that when you have been at uh i don't know like a thousand meters the first time it takes a lot of time to acclimatize and then uh the body knows how to acclimatize so it goes faster and that uh we we need to study study more why that happens what are the adaptations or what are the shortcuts that the body is taking for doing that and that goes to to heat probably to call to to but also the training like uh if you had been there the body knows how to go back there on a quicker way so i think it's uh that's uh that's important to understand and then uh to see what how long uh how long time it takes you to acclimatize uh for a certain like environment uh because that's also very individual like some people will take a lot of time to to get in very good shape some people get very quick on on this good shape and some people are climatized much faster than others so to know how it works for you and to try to trigger this uh um just before you want to but like in norway do you sleep inside a tent like do you have one of those altitude tens in your room do you train in like obviously like you're going into the mountains to some extent too i have yeah i have a tent and i use mostly going to expeditions like normally if i go to 4 000 meters um i normally never need to acclimatize like i i can go from home norway to like montblanc summit like the day after and i don't feel bad but if going higher in expeditions then yeah i pre-climatize especially if i want to have a not a lot of time in in the country because like i don't have that that amount of time that it takes like one month or two months to to pre-acclimatize so uh yeah i use that but then it's the same it's a big stress to the body like if you train a lot and you sleep in altitude or your training altitude you need to count that in on that so now for example that i'm training a lot because uh all these races that is happening and the short ones then i knew that i couldn't be retraining an attitude so i did like the last week that i was like tempering then i did some some nights at altitude but before i was thinking it would be worse to be sleeping in attitude because the amount of training yeah do you do much heat training at all i started doing it because i'm very very bad at hit like i i like i don't like it it's uh i love cold i love winters um but uh so yeah then i do like some uh training like when i'm in the in the bike in the home trainer for example in the room like i just put a bit the warming or i i ran out with uh with warm clothes some of that yeah i did especially the early season like uh before the gamma for example uh the weeks before i was doing a bit because it was very cold in norway and then like going to to to spain it was going to be hot so yeah i did i do a bit on i didn't do that before and now the last years i'm i'm getting better at do and especially that's what i was meaning like what's the goal of the session maybe that's an easy run but you can do that on on heat and then you are making adaptations or using that for for it yeah one one aha moment for me in my running journey was at some point like earlier you were talking about athletes running like kind of in that yellow zone quite a bit and for me once i found out that whole concept of low heart rate training that for me changed everything that was like ah all of a sudden i can run much lower intensity and slowly but surely become faster at the same heart rate and that changed quite a bit of my training approach has there been any aha moments for you in your training journey over the years um i would say it was when when our daughter was born because my training before it was like i just go out and train and spend a lot of hours on it and climb on that and then naturally it became that i was some days tired so i was training easier and then some days i was feeling stronger so i was going fast but it was mostly i had a big plan of the season like okay now this time of the year i need to paradise but on the day today i didn't have i had not done any intensity session for like 10 years like no i was doing races i was doing a lot of races like uh 40 uh 50 races a year so every weekend uh on skis but i didn't have any like intensity training maybe sometime i was going feeling good and then i was pushing but for 10 years it was really like that just like do a lot of hours out and then the intensity was coming naturally to to what i was feeling and racist to the intensity but nothing planned to that and then when um we got our uh daughter the first then uh okay i don't have that much time to try now so i need to to to think a bit more like i cannot be doing that much races so uh maybe it's important to do some intensity training and to try to periodize much so it was mostly that to say okay i need to optimize more my my time for training and then like to figure out that okay i'm training maybe a bit less hours but i'm i'm increasing my performance much more yeah much more much more specific yeah much more specific and the yeah i still do like my season in general is a big part of the year especially winter with a lot of zone two like big amounts of hours of zone 2 and then like at that point i know that i cannot do any big intensity uh so then it's mostly to create a big base and then on summer like to to really polarize so it's like doing really like big block of volume and then like polarizing uh polarizing the training yeah yeah let's talk about being a parent for a little bit because you have two daughters one and three year old yeah one and three there how is that how is that like i i'm just curious because you and your wife are both professional athletes now you have a one-year-old and a three-year-old you're now also part of the next chapter in your life of your startup with normal clothing and footwear companies so there's a lot of different changes going on in your world how are you balancing it out and what sort of way are you setting yourself up to still find ways to make this all work well i think it's uh i'm very happy that uh emily my wife she's uh very like swedish on that like it's it's organized so that's you need to have like that and and we we are i think we are good on on organizing that like it's time for spending time with uh our daughters it's time for training and it's time for working and to really separate that and to not be and you know it's not that if you try to do things at half it nothing will work so like okay now it's yeah to really separate and organize when is the time to do everything and then i use like uh when i do a easy run for example uh i can do a meeting like i can do like a i either i'm listening on a podcast or i have a a meeting or an interview or whatever so like it's optimizing the time but knowing that okay if i'm doing like a hard session i know that the hour before the hour after and during the her session it's only that happening and um and and then it's yeah i think it comes a lot with with having good organization and good uh talking a lot with uh yeah where what is important and and where you can reach like you know that maybe i cannot train that that amount of hours but how can i can i compensate that or compensate is not a good word how can i if i want to perform that way can i train differently to to reach this goal uh with less volume for example or it's possible and then like see if it's possible then i train that way if it's not possible then maybe i need to give up on something else or you want to hear one one secret from my end what yeah you you are more experienced on that yeah i have two daughters five and nine and we briefly were talking before this um but one thing that i've noticed that worked quite well for me and some of my early early training was like actually bringing the double stroller and it's one thing to do it all flat but once you start bringing actually trail but then again i've seen some of the ridges that you're running and i wouldn't want to bring my kids on that yeah i i've done like a few of uh skiing sessions with uh in the the kids in the in the backpack and that's uh it's it's hard work yeah i can i can only imagine but that's that's good are you bringing your daughters for the rest are you expo like because you grew up with two very outdoor parents bringing you to the trails from very young age are you exposing your children as well to the outdoor in similar ways yeah we we take walks and hikes and skiing like i think yeah since they were like born like we were going to ski or we were going to and just bring them and and they they like it they love it and and also like uh when uh mai or older she was like six months old we went we went to himalayas we wanted to have like uh some climbs and i was uh trying to do a thing in everest and emily wanted to do some things in an island pick and that so we were just like it was a family trip and they were part of it and and i think it's it's important to take them like at your life and our life is that to be others so just bring them on oh yeah yeah and you can just see the presentness in their eyes and them enjoying and yeah it's amazing to be able to share that as a parent very nice um i want to be very respectful of your time so i have like like a few lost things over here first of all i really enjoyed reading this one about the clouds and in particular how you were talking about some of the different races that stood out to you but also like how you were going about your efforts adventures and some of these enormous challenges that you undertook so that's one that i absolutely enjoyed there must have been a lot of work to write down yeah it's uh it's it's well but it's fun i love writing like i think it's a bit like journaling like it's it's just why we do that like why we go running why we we train why we do like it's it's because we want to find some kind of emotions and experiences and and at the end of the day it's not about winning it's it doesn't matter like it's for it's very important to to have goals for the motivation but at the end of the day like when it's done like uh like tomorrow hard work like i don't i want to win and tomorrow we fight for that but when i cross the line it doesn't matter if i'm first second or like uh the last one because the experience is what's what's better and i think like that's kind of journaling and that's like bringing into a book it's mostly about this yeah yeah well and then the other one training for the uphill athlete with two other co-authors what an enormous beast of a book that was and absolutely the amount of thought and detail that goes into the training it just comes to show that you've really put so much thought and effort into this so this was really another one i absolutely enjoyed no thanks here yeah it here is more kudos to like uh scott johnson like he did like all the hard work on it uh he's an amazing coach too and steve house is a it's an incredible climber one of the best of all the times and and it was very interesting to to put down what's our uh philosophy and methodology on training because like it's not good or bad methodologies it's just different ones and you need to find the one that it adapts to you so we try to put what yeah our philosophy on training on on the book and yeah it's it starts with like few concepts and then you need to develop them and it becomes like a lot of them you can go down the rabbit hole absolutely so i have one more important question but before we do where can people find more about you so nowadays like social media it's uh it's all there so yeah and instagram in strava in facebook twitter uh you can find me also the my website and if not just like uh probably if you go to the mountains uh sometimes we'll meet like it's a small world like if you go to the mountains it's probably the easiest way to find me absolutely absolutely and then last question there's a lot of regular everyday runners listening to this show do you have any closing thoughts on ways to improve for them to become a stronger healthier and happier athlete i think it's about it's about motivation at the end it's like being happy doing what you do like and we do that because we love it and it's not an obligation nobody is like uh putting like saying you need to train it's if you train is because you love it and and i think many times we lose that on the way that we feel that it's an obligation and it's not thing that it's giving us fun and and it shouldn't i can and especially for young athletes like it's not focus on the goals but focus on the process and and that's like of course you enjoy like racing you enjoy like when things go well but that's a very few days every year what you need to love is the training you need to love being out you need to to love to to to do the workouts and and then you need to find what is really motivating you sometimes this community is like you want to go training because you go with your friends so make that your training environment is that one sometimes it's because you want to go to the to the mountains to the landscape so maybe you're training that so really like to to think enjoy the process and feel that i loving the process it's way better than like yeah the results will come but uh you can if you focus on the results not i don't think anything would can can right there so well said in closing i just want to say at home i have a vision board with some of my running goals with some of my different goals i want to accomplish and i also have some images on there i'm pretty visual person and that includes some people that i really respect and admire as well so eliot kip yogi was on there i had him on the podcast was very happy about that and a photo of you is next to elliot kipchoge so that's really that's it it means a lot to me that you sat down here for an hour with me to share all of your insight so i just want to say thank you very much no thank you thank you for the time it was a very pleasant conversation and i hope that all the all our listeners have been enjoying that time absolutely have an incredible race tomorrow we'll see you in the mountains tomorrow thank you see you in the mountains awesome thank you so much for listening i hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as i did and i really i learned a lot myself and i would actually love to hear from you what was one key takeaway one lesson that actually applied to you over here i would love to hear that in the comments and sometimes when i listen to a conversation a second time or a third time i'm actually picking up different things again so sometimes actually seeing what other people what other people took away from a conversation can be quite eye-opening as well and that's what i sometimes do myself too i go through past interviews and actually look through the comments to see what were some of the key takeaways that people had from this conversation one more thing to share is once a week i write a newsletter the extra miles newsletter and i share different running strategies for training and for racing and for overall health either that i'm experiencing in my own life or that i'm connecting with different podcast guests and different other health and fitness experts out there i'm sharing all of those insights in a short newsletter typically goes out once a week on friday so if you're interested to sign up go to extramilist.com once again extra milestone.com and you'll receive that in your inbox thanks so much have fun out there on your runs and enjoy it see you on the next one bye now [Music]

Channel: Floris Gierman

Views: 271,266

Keywords: Kilian, Kilian Jornet, Hardrock 100, UTMB, UTMB2022, Extramilest, Extramilest Show, Floris Gierman, COROS, Nnormal

Id: OJZO-t6O5Bk

Length: 57min 48sec (3468 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 03 2022