Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Running with Kilian Journet


Kilian Journet is now considered the best trail & sky runner, with impressive wins in the Western States 100m, UTMB, and with his final win in Mount Kinabalu Climbathon this year (last circuit of the sky running series).

World of Sports was gracious to host Kilian and Gregory. Both of them gave talks & shown videos on the design, and manufacturing process of their products. Makes you want to splurge on their stuff.

Then, the highlight of the day, was having a short trail run in Kiara, which was something I was waiting for.

We started cruising slowly. After awhile I ended up running behind him. I was trying to observe his running gait. I noticed lots of forefoot landing, and he's always like leaning forward during the run. He wasn't running fast, but I bet that he's just taking it easy.

We came out of the trails section to take a breather. Then it was back in for the last 2k or so. Suddenly I found myself chasing the Malaysian elites, who were chasing Gregory. We were going like 3.5min/km pace up and down the slopes. The final section has us jumping 7 feet downhill. I woudn't have done that if I were alone.

He was wearing the Salomon S-Lab Fellcross, one of the shoe that is in my list, but not out yet here.

http://www.salomonrunning.com/my/product/s-labfellcross.html

Kilian was wearing the Salomon prototype, which he wore for UTMB as well. Between the two, I would have got Kilian's.
It's so much lower profile, and lighter.

Met with Jimmy Tee, who I mistaken was a Singaporean. Apparently, I wasn't far off. He studied most of his life there, hence his accent. He was going to do the TMBT (The Most Beautiful Thing) 50 as well. Judging from his 50k time in TNF SG, he's a pretty fast runner.

We ended the session with more photo sessions. It had been a great experience running with the God of trails. If only I could run as fast as him up mountains.

1 comment:

Jimmy Tee said...

Hmm.. Didn't know I still have the singapore accent. :( Anyway don't forget about our trail-running video. I have a plan. Will call you after my exams this sunday.