Kilian's Quest

Every once in a while, a phenomenal individual crosses your path...

In February 2008, I was invited to Salomon's Advance Week in the South of France for an intense 5-day product testing session that united some of Salomon's top athletes and ambassadors - It was humbling experience...

Amongst the amazing personalities I met throughout the week, there was a quiet Spaniard by the name of Kilian Jornet. I would arguably call this... 'kid', the world's best mountain runner. He bounced up and down mountains like a real life goat. It was incredible to watch him move so easily over any type of technical terrain. Needless to say that I was working hard just to keep up...In broken french, he told me that he did very little running in the winter, and kept fit by racing on the Ski Mountaineering World Cup - After a bit of research on my end, I realized that he was a World Champion...and is a 'superstar' in Spain because of it. Funny how things vary from country to country.

Jonathan Wyatt (center) and Kilian Jornet (in green), laughing at my spanish...

Back to running...So how good is he? For all you runners out there that follow the world ultra racing scene, at 20 years of age he became the youngest winner of the 2008 UTMB (Ultra Tour du Mont Blanc), a 165km race around France's most renowned peak - and did it in a time of just over 20hrs!
Although I missed out on Advance Week this year due to a conflict with the Rock and Ice, I've kept in contact with Kilian, touching base once in a while to pick his brain. He told me he had a few projects on the go but didn't elaborate...I just found out that Salomon has decided to support Kilian in a few of his goals this year..., pretty cool stuff! Check it out:

Kilian's Quest - Teaser

Kilian's Quest - Episode 1