Kilian Jornet never stops. A few months ago he surprised everyone with his journey linking the highest peaks in the United StatesNow, the Catalan athlete has raised the alarm about the dangers threatening a sport he loves: mountain running. The more reflective and outspoken Jornet has decided to sound the alarm after witnessing how this amateur sport, where the connection with nature was key, is evolving into scenarios where he doesn't feel entirely comfortable. He has done so through a written statement and by participating in an initiative that aims to offer solutions to save the essence of the races, ensuring, first and foremost, that they respect nature—a crucial element.

"Well, it all started with a conversation with Chat Anguera during a meeting," explains Jordi Godayol, one of the people in charge of Olla de Núria, one of the most beloved mountain races in Catalonia. Great ideas often emerge this way, during an informal conversation. Antoni Chat Aguilera knew the Núria Valley like few others. A lifelong member of the Vic Hiking Union, an organization he would later preside over, Aguilera greatly loved the landscapes surrounding the Núria Sanctuary, which he had photographed from every angle. In 2006, Chat He told other members of the Unión Excursionista, such as Jordi and Pep Bisquert, that it would be a good area for a mountain race. And the idea took root.

Anna Comet (Girona, 1983) greets some mothers from her eldest son's school while we take her photographs for this interview in the center of Vic. She lives very close by, in Guixa. She has been a resident of Osona for years. Trained as a skier, she has been shining as a cross-country athlete for years. trail running with success in races on Everest and the Sahara. He has also earned two degrees, written books, and writes articles like those published in the ARAA few weeks ago, she received a call informing her that the Union of Sports Federations of Catalonia (UFEC) had awarded her for her personal and professional goals. It proves that you can compete at the highest level while being a mother. In fact, she became a mother for the second time just a few weeks ago.

Joyce Muthoni Njeru's destiny was written at birth, even if she didn't know it. Born at more than two thousand meters above sea level in the Kenyan interior, she used to run to school on those cold mornings surrounded by fog. The first daughter of five siblings, she followed the achievements of Kenyan athletes in marathons and Olympic Games on television, although she was destined to shine in a discipline that few people knew about in Kenya at the time: mountain running.

"Nothing in my life can be harder than the sadness I felt, and that comforts me in the midst of chaos," Mark Bruce, a Scotsman who has been working as a music teacher at a Glasgow secondary school for 34 years, tells ARA. "I was a very overweight person. I weighed up to 105 kilos, I was unhappy with an addiction problem," he recalls. "In September 2022 I thought I would lose my life to alcohol and depression. But at that moment I made the decision to fight for myself."