Pau Capell, winning the race, losing the couple: "The athlete is very selfish"

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"When I started running, I hated myself. I was doing what caused our relationship to end. I've thought about that all the time. I've mentally whipped myself, I've punished myself for everything that's happened and I haven't found consolation. I've always considered running to be a therapeutic sport... now I hate it. I hate myself. I hate that I like running. I've achieved everything by running, I've always been running everywhere, and now the most important thing around me It needs to stop, forever."

Another biography of a sportsman, it is supposed.

, one of the best mountain runners of the moment, has just published a book about his life, "Fight for your dreams and love what you have" (Lectio, 2023) and, at 31 years old, after winning the prestigious Ultra Trail del Mont Blanc (UTMB) in 2019 and other very long distance races such as the Transgrancanaria, should narrate celebrations, tell anecdotes, if anything offer advice.

But not.

The text is surprising for its transparency, for how it tells of the bitterness behind the successes.

Like when his lifelong partner left him a few days after winning the UTMB, that is, at the top of his game.

Jordi Saragossa

"The athlete is very selfish, I suppose he must be. The hours of training can be equated to the hours of any job, but then there is food, rest... all that goes before going to the movies with your partner or going out with friends. And mentally it's not easy to keep your head on everything. Before a race like UTMB, which is 170 kilometers, you obsess a lot about planning, the route, every detail...", Capell points out in conversation with EL WORLD after opening in his book.

In 2019, full of hangover from his great victory, between calls to interview him, heartbreak caused him to fall into a depression that kept him away from his training plan for a few months, from his nutrition plan, in short from his sports life.

"Now I try to keep my balance"

"At the end of everything you learn. Now, with my current partner, I try to keep the balance. That's why the book is called 'Fight for your dreams and love what you have'; you have to take both parts into account. I suppose that for to do things right, you have to make mistakes first, you have to learn", explains the runner who stresses that in his sport, perhaps more than in others, emotional stability is fundamental.

It makes sense: this Saturday, if he wants to win the Transgrancanaria again, he will have to run for more than 15 hours.

Physical preparation is important, of course, but mental preparation is much more so.

"When you go beyond 10 hours of competition, you start to pull from what you have inside. From what you feel, from what you think. I think that in my victories the relationship with my family has been very important, I have always been very close to them ", Capell emphasizes that he has a kind of ritual prior to his tests: in the days before, he exaggerates his usual calm, he tries not to argue with anyone because he knows that later, in the middle of the race, a bad word can cause a negative loop.

Jordi Saragossa

"It's happened to me once and I try to avoid it. Suddenly, in the middle of the race, when I've been there for six or seven hours, something I told my sister, or my partner, or a friend comes to mind, some bad answer, something badly said, and I start to think about it. Then you realize that it was not important, but you have a bad time, "acknowledges the runner.

Son of doctors, from Sant Boi de Llobregat, trained at the same school as the

, a knee injury cut short his football career and took him to the mountains, to ultra-distance.

Always sponsored by The North Face, he soon discovered that he did not need a childhood in the heights to win, that talent, desire... and heart were enough.

"In the long distance it is more important than the legs. If you want to win first you have to want it very much."

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• Articles Javier Sanchez