No watch on my wrist, or using any apps on my phone, wearing flipflops for trail running shoes… It took me a long time to stop feeling not legitimate as a trail running guide because unlike most of my colleagues every time I was on a race, it was only to support and share a moment with friends or family; performing and outdoing myself was never the aim.
Running is simple, primal, it is nothing else but a method of movement. From children, there are many times when we are told to not run, “sit and be quiet”, “don’t run, you’ll hurt yourself if you fall”. As adults, when we run without the proper gear, we might feel guilty, but what about the sensations? What about the delightful feeling of our body fulfilling its potential? In the wild, animals run for their life but also just because they like it.
I grew up in the Chamonix valley, my parents were not super sporty but all my free time I spent outdoors, looking for slow worms and bugs or all the plants we could use to make home remedies. Holidays we spent fishing, collecting stones during hikes hoping to discover quartz and giving a hand in a friend’s falconry. More than a love of the mountains, from the very beginning, nature was part of my life. But studies took me away to a school in Lyon. Feeling the pressure, I flew to Thailand, to discover meaning. First in a Buddhist temple, then on an island where I fished shrimps and shells from the forest of stilts houses and helped locals with their business. Barefoot, and in tune with nature, I found myself reconnecting with the “primal aspect” that city life divided me from. Coming back to France, this lesson learnt, I found out the way to apply it in everyday life.
I started working as a mountain guide in 2019, working in an environment that has deep meaning to me: sharing, discovering, taking care and linking things and people. In trail running, I like to share these privileged moments, which help us to discover ourselves and our impact on the planet. The more consciously we know how we and the world work, the more efficient our care will be and better will be the time spent on Earth. Let’s be children again, let’s play tag with blueberries or let’s play the floor is lava while we run. Learning how our body works and how to improve potential through running we can rediscover happiness!
