Andreu Simón (Sant Vicenç dels Horts, 1991) is an elite mountain runner who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of sixteen.
Andreu Simón, who just became a father just a few weeks ago and enjoys fatherhood, continues with his passion for trail running. A sports practice that is conditioned by his diabetic condition. In this interview he tells us how he manages it, his most immediate objectives and his current vision of mountain races.
First of all, congratulations on your recent fatherhood. How are you in these first weeks as a father?
Very good, enjoying this change of life. It is a totally new experience, and no matter how much they tell you how to be a father, it is an adventure that is discovered day by day and that is what we are doing with my partner, adapting to the new normality.
Have you adapted your schedules and training plans to your current daily routine?
Before paternity, I combined sports with work and had a full day, and now with paternity leave I am able to adapt my schedule much better, in the sense that before going to work I had to go to train and after work I would train again. Now with the schedules I have more flexibility and we adapt to the needs of the house. There are nights that are shorter and others that are longer. Regarding my performance, I am seeing that until we have a routine it will be somewhat more difficult to adjust, but I have not stopped training at any time and we continue working to be in the best possible shape at the end of August.
Do you plan to run the Ultra Trail du Mont-Blanc?
Yes, UTMB is the most important race at the media level of all mountain races and all athletes want to be there and the brands that sponsor us also ask, as much as possible, that you arrive in the best conditions. At a sporting level, it is the race that all athletes prepare for in the best way and since I like this type of challenge, I want to get to this event as well as possible. Although I don’t have a schedule routine, I am able to train every day and that is what gives me confidence. There is still a month and a half to go and we are not starting from scratch and it is about fine-tuning as much as possible. I’m going with confidence and I think that a good race can come out if we manage to continue training.
Lovers of this sport already know who you are and that you have type I diabetes, but for those who don’t know you, explain how your life as an athlete conditions you…
Diabetes is a chronic disease with which there is no solution, and the way to manage it is by injecting insulin and controlling carbohydrate intake. That in a high performance and endurance sport like trail running It has certain complications, because you can’t afford to stop in the middle of the race and take an insulin injection. During the race and training the intakes have to be controlled and adjusted to the glucose values that are at each of the moments and, even so, and wanting to do the best possible, it is not a controllable disease and there are many variables that can condition your values. You also have to adapt to this disease as in life and to date the results and performance have gone quite well. Diabetes control is a personal challenge and the difficulty that this implies motivates me to try to give my best in the races.
In your book that you recently published’The sucre marathon. Diabetis, a course without goal‘ You explain in one of the episodes a case of some misunderstanding among other athletes. Has it happened to you often?
Now that my story is better known there are not so many surprises. The only more surreal episode that I came across was in the Seville marathon, where a runner, I suppose due to ignorance, did not know what he was injecting me with during the race. I was taking insulin to be able to assimilate the gels and it was thought that I was injecting something else, but boy, I feel supported and supported by the comments that come to me, because the vast majority are of admiration for what I do and I am very satisfied that people know more about the disease and know the difficulties there are to run and be diabetic.
You do a lot of pedagogy on social networks about how you prepare and manage your career with diabetes…
I run for myself and do nothing for others. If my experience can help other diabetics to break barriers, both physical and mental, that we have put up with this disease, then I am delighted. It would have been very good for me when I started with this disease to have someone who is an athlete explain their episodes, both positive and negative, and that is what I try to communicate on social networks. Although many times you see the photos of the podiums and the victories, I have bad days and it is more difficult to control the disease, but that is why I am not going to shut up to bring this reality closer in case my experience can help.
The world of trail running has grown in recent years, but there are still few athletes who make a living from this sport. Is it your situation and how do you see the current situation of the trail?
Right now with the resources provided by the brands that sponsor me (ASICS and BUFF) I could dedicate myself to trail running professionally, it is something that we are evaluating at home and now with the arrival of the baby combining a stable job and being a professional athlete at the same time I see it as impossible and the sport does require exclusive dedication if you want to be ahead. Having the possibility with the brands and the resources that they give me is something that we are assessing and now when we finish paternity leave we will assess the situation at home how we face the coming months and years at a sporting level, because it is true that now they are resources that give me to eat and live, but I also go further and think about the future because it is a sport with a very short life and more so in the trail where there is great physical wear and tear and you cannot expect to spend ten or fifteen years running because the body cannot take it, so I also think that it will be mine in five or six years and that is why you have to think carefully about how to do things.
Is the live broadcast of mountain races an important step to professionalize this sport or is it still left?
Totally, because they give a lot of visibility to this sport. Without going any further, my grandmother when she told her that she was going to run down the mountain she did not know what she meant. Now when I’m at a race that’s on TV she’s hooked on the TV and she notices what I’m doing and she’s glad to see me there. This happens in many families and also with younger people who start and can get hooked on this sport. I think that this can go further and logically if there is more visibility, there are more resources and more possibilities of being able to live off the trail running.