Earlier this month 37-year-old Spanish athlete Kilian Jornet completed an extraordinary endurance challenge he dubbed States of Elevation. In a single 31-day push he climbed all 72 peaks in the Lower 48 over 14,000 feet tall (56 in Colorado, 15 in California, one in Washington), traveling between them by bicycle. His journey started Sept. 3 on Longs Peak (14,259 feet) and finished after descending from the summit of Washington’s Mount Rainier (14,411 feet) on Oct. 4.

Rather than dive into more detail about Jornet’s epic undertaking, I’d like to highlight five takeaways for the rest of us. After all, what matters most about this feat is not what appears in the record books, nor even what it means to Jornet himself. What matters most about this — or any — seemingly superhuman achievement is

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