Henri Aymonod, from Valle d’Aosta, is among the best Italian mountain runners of all time. Nicknamed the vertical man for his predilection for extremely uphill runs, he experiences the mountains in every season, alternating between running and ski mountaineering with extreme naturalness.
Henri Aymonod: running in the mountains you feel part of nature
We met him at the Cortina Outdoor Summer Camp organized by The North Face, of which he belongs part of the team of athletes. And this was the occasion for a chat from the first runs as a child to the next dreams to be realized as an athlete.
How did you get into running? That is, what was your sporting career as a child?
I have to start by saying that having been born and living in Valle d’Aosta, the environment has had a lot of influence. Then we are 3 twin brothers, and since we were little we have always gone to the mountains, to the family summer house, and so it was natural to go out and explore the world around us. And so one day we’d get to a point, and the next day we wanted to go a little further, but we always had to come back by lunchtime otherwise we’d hear mum all over the valley, and so the most natural thing to do was go up and run down.
In truth, my parents always wanted me to try different sports, so I started swimming when I was little, and I did it for 8 years, 2 of which were competitive, then I switched to cross-country skiing, which I did for a ten good years…
But in all of this I’ve always run, because running has always been my greatest love, even without competing, which I only started doing as a junior, and very instinctively.
What made you say “Wow, this is my sport”?
I think it was precisely the consequence of having tried many other things, and the fact that in any case my parents never put pressure on me at a competitive level. But it was really our instinct as children to go around running in the mountains challenging each other. Of course the results also helped, because winning races when you’re young certainly helps. But in hindsight I think that the thing that made me fall in love with this sport the most is my family’s intrinsic passion for the mountains, and therefore it was all a natural evolution.
In trail you do all the disciplines, but you are known above all as the man of verticals: how did you end up specializing in such a particular discipline?
I think this too is an adaptation of the past, due to the challenges I had with my brothers as a child, cutting the paths instead of making the hairpin bends. The idea was to get to the top first, and therefore I always cut straight and from there probably the adaptations from an early age led me to be more performing and more competitive on steep trails.
And then it is a discipline in which in my opinion there are few filters, in the sense that one’s athletic and sporting value emerges, that is, there are not many variables at play, either you are strong or you are not strong or you are fit or you are not fit .
I’ve always been a very competitive person, and vertical is a discipline in which there are no big variables, there’s no strategy, there’s no tactics. In the half hour of the race anyway, it’s not like you have much time to think about what to do, you have to be in shape at that moment, concentrate all your energies in that half hour and go at your best.
You are described as a versatile athlete, not only in trail running but also for other sports such as ski mountaineering. What do you carry from one sport to another?
I’ve always been a very instinctive type, so when it starts to snow I get bored of running and when it gets hot and the snow gets rotten I start running. I’ve always followed seasonality a lot and I’ve tried to follow the rhythms a lot, without forcing myself to say I’m doing this because I have to do it, I have to keep it this way because that’s what you have to do to go fast.
I’ve always done things in a very natural, spontaneous way, so the sports I do now are the ones that are closest to me and complete me.
And then in the end it’s all about having fun. If one doesn’t enjoy what he does he will never be strong. So the fact that I use the bike a lot in my preparation, the fact that I do ski mountaineering in the winter, I go to the mountains even just to walk at high altitudes is yes a way to train, but it is also a way to be myself and do things in a very spontaneous and free way.
Trail is a relatively new discipline, without the history of the marathon behind it from the point of view of training methodology. How do you build your workouts? Do you try to steal something from other sports or try to experiment with new things?
In the meantime, I must state that I have a degree in physical education and are very passionate about training theory. Then yes, for Trail Running the bibliographic and scientific research is less than for the classical disciplines of athletics, and therefore together with my coach there is often this dialogue and this comparison on the methodology.
Also because I am convinced that at a certain point it is also the athlete who trains his coach. I mean, at some point it’s you athlete who has to give feedback on what’s working and what you’re missing. Of course there are tables, but they are not valid for everyone and the important thing is to find a good balance with your coach. But returning to the question, there is certainly still a lot to discover, a lot to do.
And I realize that the Trail is now in a bit of a phase where you can get there in two different ways. There are those who come from traditional athletics, so they are athletes who in general manage to run very fast even on the plains, and those who instead get there with a more mountaineering approach.
So what do you think the evolution of the Trail will be: will it experience a boom like that of running or do you think it will remain a relative niche discipline?
I think it is a discipline destined to explode anyway. There is also this hypothesis of including it among the Olympic disciplines because it can undoubtedly give a lot even in terms of television entertainment.
And so I am convinced that the numbers will still increase a lot and we will see a lot of people running on the trails in the future.
But I also believe that as in athletics, over time there will increasingly be a distinction between top level athletes and amateur athletes. Now you know, we do many races and amateurs can run with us, but over time I think grids will be defined, like in marathons, and then a specific championship will certainly come, reserved only for athletes.
In your opinion, what is the deepest essence, the profound meaning of mountain running?
In my opinion, it is precisely the fact of feeling completely part of nature. When I run in the mountains, and I already thought so as a child, I always see the human being as a slightly polluting living being, a little external to all other living beings on our planet. And so running in the mountains, in my opinion, brings you a little closer to that type of environment, wild and animalistic if you like, that exists in the mountains.
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