Author: Timoty Kalton
10 minutes of reading and inspiration
At the age of 13, he was diagnosed with a rare disease: Multiple Familial Polyposis, a hereditary genetic disorder that causes the development of precancerous polyps in the digestive tract.,
To avoid cancer, since he was 19, he has undergone three high-risk surgical procedures, in which target organs for potential carcinomas were removed. The first, the colon and rectum, were removed between high school and university. Later, at the age of 27, he returned to the operating room where his stomach and gallbladder were preventatively removed unexpectedly due to a post-surgical complication.
Complex surgeries that have brought him face to face with death on three occasions.
Since then, the life of Juan Dual, Juan ‘Empty’, as he is affectionately called, has been a permanent challenge and a demonstration of love for life. He devours each day as if it were his last. For fourteen years, he has participated in countless extreme ultra-endurance, ultra-distance, and self-sufficiency events, both in mountain trails and in major bike marathons and bikepacking, which are his modus vivendi, his leit motiv in life. A kind of elixir of eternal youth that feeds and drives his passion for living every moment to the fullest.
A popular influencer with a strong presence on social media, a communicator, a speaker in institutes, universities, and a coach for companies and at sports events… at 40 years old, Juan continues to expand his personal profile and enrich his life experience as a motivating and inspiring agent. For example, there's the admirable initiative he took during the fateful days of the DANA storm that devastated the Valencian Community in October 2024. In that chaos, he managed to involve and mobilize hundreds, then thousands of bike riders in an urgent call to provide aid and essential products to the residents of the ground zero area in Paiporta, whose access was blocked by impassable barriers of piled-up vehicles, mud, debris, and remains of the catastrophic flood. His call to action spread like wildfire and help reached its destination by bicycle. He also managed to get sports brands to donate boots, shovels, and other products for the cause he initiated.
An example of charisma, passion, and vitality that is contagious.
Living without fundamental organs
After the removal of my stomach, everything in your daily life, the act of eating something as normal as macaroni or simple white rice becomes torture. When they removed my stomach, they made an artificial one for me with a piece of small intestine, and since that reservoir isn't ready yet, it's horrible. Until that part of the body adapts, you experience pain, discomfort, nausea, vomiting. I remember saying: "Help, someone kill me!"
I've normalized the disease since an early age because I grew up with very vivid examples around me. Both my father and my older cousin had had their colon and rectum removed. My father had always worked, he had me and my siblings, and lived a normal working life. And with my cousin, I worked in a truck loading and unloading warehouse in Paterna. I told myself: if my father and cousin can work, why can't I? They're going to have to remove my colon and rectum too... it's going to be a pain, but it's not that serious.
The problem comes when, by chance, during check-ups, they warn you that you have polyps in your stomach. You know it can happen, that there's a high probability, but not as high as with the colon and rectum, but you don't expect it. And suddenly, damn it, it's going to happen to you! It all happened so fast because there was danger, you don't have time to think if you can or can't... 'We're going to operate now!' Well, thank you.
Losing 50% of your weight...
In that sense, no limitations, because I hadn't been operated on yet, and I had check-ups every year. And sports, yes, at that time in school I had sports clubs, I played basketball, which I loved and still do.
After high school, from 19 until I had my stomach operated on at 27, I started gaining weight. I became quite sedentary, I'm tall, 1.86m, but before the surgery, I weighed about 106 kg. I didn't play sports, I went to the mountains but to eat a barbecue with friends.
When they removed my stomach and gallbladder, having neither a colon nor a rectum, I went from weighing 106 kg to 57 kg in three or four months. That's when the real pain began, because I lost 50 percent of my weight in a single quarter. I could barely walk. Simply going down to throw out the trash or buy bread was something I couldn't do. I had to stop and sit on a bench, completely drained. I remember saying: "Help, someone kill me!" I got up the next day and had slept very well, with no noise in my head. I tried it again the next day. The bug in my head was still completely silent. I started to make it my routine, after three or four weeks I started walking and running, and after another three or four weeks I was doing about 50 kilometers a week jogging with no other goals. I had been on the verge of death two or three times, I was alive, the bug that lived in my head was silent, and on top of that, with the movement, my body was asking me to eat more. I was gaining weight and muscle mass. So little by little, I went from being that human waste of 57 kilos, to being a fully functioning person. I went from weighing 106 kg to 57 kg in three or four months. That's when the real pain began, because I lost 50 percent of my weight in a single quarter. I could barely walk. Simply going down to throw out the trash or buy bread was something I couldn't do. I had to stop and sit on a bench, completely drained.
“When they removed my stomach and gallbladder, at 27 years old, with neither my colon nor rectum anymore, I went from weighing 106 kg to 57 kg in one quarter”
Dodging death and losing your job
You enter a dynamic of 'fucking hell!' Because I studied nursing, I was working in the hospital. It's not that I was fired, it's that I couldn't work. They told me: we don't know how long you're going to be on sick leave, we'll pay you the compensation, we'll take care of all the unemployment issues and so on, but of course, we don't know how long this is going to last. So I lost financial independence due to not having a job, I couldn't pay my apartment rent in Barcelona, so I had to go back to my parents' house... So you enter a kind of downward spiral: 'what a shitty situation!' You're 27, almost 28, and you ask yourself: what am I going to do with my daily life? Am I going to be a wreck for the rest of my life?
I am a very stubborn person and at that time Netflix and such didn't exist and I told myself: I'm not going to stay still here on my couch for the rest of my life. And that was just when the running boom was starting. I'm from Valencia and my close friends started changing going out to party for going out running.
The enemy lives upstairs
When I got together with my friends, there was, on the one hand, a group of people who played sports and drained their mental problems, work problems, family problems. When we got together, we talked about a thousand stories but not about problems. On the other hand, with the group of people who didn't play sports, when we met, we did talk about problems. I analyzed a lot what was happening... and putting the pieces together, I understood that the people who were active - without me thinking about running, of course - had a much calmer mind. Because in the end, when you can hardly move and you have a very, very active mind like mine, you say to yourself: the enemy lives up here (pointing to his head), it's not your father-in-law or your mother-in-law, nor your boss, nor your partner, nor your parents. The enemy lives up here. And I told myself: I have to start moving. So I started walking without a watch, GPS or anything, with the simple goal of not stopping and getting home. The first day I was exhausted after doing two kilometers in two hours and I went to dinner and slept. Exhausted. I woke up the next day and had slept very well, with no noise in my head. I tried it again the next day. The bug in my head was still completely silent. I started to make it my routine, after three or four weeks I started walking-running and after three or four weeks I was doing about 50 kilometers a week jogging with no other goals. I had been on the verge of death two or three times, I was alive, the bug that lived in my head was silent, and on top of that, with the movement, my body was asking me to eat more. I was gaining weight and muscle mass. So little by little I went from being that human waste of 57 kilos
Later we laughed, but at that time if I told my friends I wanted to go to a museum or an amusement park or whatever, they would say yes to everything because they knew I was dying. I was wasting away.
Family and friends, a key factor in this transition
At first, my family didn't understand me, but they soon realized that it was doing me a lot of good. My family didn't play sports; they started doing it after seeing the positive effect on me. There are seven of us siblings, and five of us have had surgery. Keeping in mind that the oldest brother plays sports and it does him good, by rebound, they have also started playing sports. All my sisters cycle to work, my brothers do too. In short, everyone in my house, except my parents, moves. They have caught that inertia.
My colleagues, always on fire and at full throttle
So when I started communicating and sharing it on social media, I became a reference, which confirmed that what I was doing was good.
My colleagues, on the other hand, have always been there to support me. There are five of them that I've known since we were 16, even before my first surgery. We've been through medical tests together, all the surgeries where I almost died three times, they've seen me at my absolute worst, until now that I'm at my 'prime' (as young people would say), they've been on fire and at full throttle. It's wonderful because they encourage me to continue in sports: 'do this, go for it'. With Belén, my girlfriend, I'm very lucky because she also trains, we go on bike trips together, we go to bikeparks. That is to say, you build an ecosystem that favors it, but if the people around you are not very active, it's more difficult.
My colleagues are crazy
They're still the same 'bastards' they've always been. Their jokes go beyond all scales; our level of dark humor is insane. But it's true that when the conversation gets serious, the respect shown is absolute. They'll tell you: "We've seen you in the absolute depths of misery, we've had to clean your ass sometimes, and now you're stronger than all of us put together, you bastard." And it's very, very beautiful.
The 'luck' of encountering cancer
I haven't dared to put my name into ChatGPT to see what it says about me.
I like to define myself as a 'happy madman' who has been lucky enough to encounter cancer in his life so he could shoot forward and tell people how important it is to know that you are going to die. And being aware of that is not a bad thing, but a real advantage because when you are fully aware that you are going to die, because that's what's going to happen, then you embrace life, and you focus on trying to ensure that – obviously many things will happen that are beyond our control because someone decides to go to Venezuela to kidnap a president, or COVID appears, or some other shit, like an injury – but regardless of all these contingencies of the global map, within the minimum personal control you can have and modify in your daily life, many things can be made wonderful.
“I like to define myself as a 'happy madman' who was lucky enough to encounter cancer in his life so he could shoot forward and tell people the importance of knowing that they are going to die”
The importance of communicating
This is driven by the ecosystem you create around you, not of positivity but of realism. I'm going to ask for help if I need it, I'm going to try to make sure the people around me are in the best possible conditions. And then also communicate it. For me, that's very important: the window of social media, giving talks in institutes, universities, companies, sports events... "Hey, you are capable of doing amazing great things. If this crazy person, this invalid who is empty inside, is capable of cycling a thousand kilometers in six days, what are you not capable of?
Life ends and you don't know when. The game ends, so the sooner you are aware of this, the sooner you will try to make these small inputs that can modify your life be the most wonderful and positive thing in your daily life.“Hey, you are capable of doing amazing great things. If this 'madman', this invalid who is empty inside, is capable of cycling a thousand kilometers in six days, what are you not capable of?
‘If you want, you can’, a perverse message that generates frustration
It's also very important to stay away from the Mister Wonderful type of 'if I can, you can'. I find it super toxic and very dangerous. Pepe, a friend who wrote the prologue to my book, 'Vacío', has the principle that if you do things, things happen. You can't stay still. You have to shake the tree because otherwise, nothing will ever fall. If you don't move, you can't complain.
The message of 'if you want, you can' is very naive and truly limiting. Since I am a white, heterosexual man in the first world, I have everything going for me. But, let's say I am a black, lesbian woman in Ghana, for example. Tell her 'if you want, you can'. The message is very easy when your position is privileged.
Objectively, this motivational message is not true, and there is nothing sadder than generating frustration in people with what you are doing.
Feet on the ground
I'm lucky that I'm only known a lot in the sports aspect. It is true that my story attracts companies, we are working hard to go to 'La Resistencia', because I am a big fan of Broncano. In terms of communication, transmitting messages and growing in how to reach more people, 'La Resistencia' is a brutal platform. Little by little, more and more people are getting to know me in the sports world. At races, people greet me and I think it's very important that it feels strange to me my whole life because, if it is, it's because I have my feet on the ground.
Social media, a super powerful instrument
I am a super relaxed person who likes to be at home building my Legos, with my girlfriend or alone, in silence. I like my own spaces. But I also think it's very nice that people approach me through social media. On Instagram, for example, I receive messages every day, thanking me or asking for recommendations, and it's truly wonderful.
At first, I lived with the idea that social media is a complete mess, but if you are able to raise awareness and mobilize and go from thinking that social media is a trap to thinking that it is a tool, a means to reach people's hearts, then it becomes a super powerful instrument to reach tens of thousands of people.
If I didn't wake up tomorrow, with the people I know who have changed their approach to life through my experience, my life would have been worth it. With what I have done, I am happy and excited because it has been worth it.Influencer
My job is to be an influencer, creating content for brands and so on, which I love because they are top brands: Aurum, Merrell, Coros, Q 365, Amax sponsor me, in short, the most cutting-edge sports companies. They invite me to sporting events and it's crazy. I love it, but I keep my feet on the ground, always with a strong class consciousness, reminding myself that I'm a 'worker', that I live in a poor neighborhood, a working-class neighborhood... Yes, I have a wonderful house with lots of light but I'm still a worker.
One part that I really like on social media is reminding people that not everything is perfect in an influencer's life, that you can have a messy house... buddy, not everyone has a 400,000 euro house with a pool. The vast majority of us don't live like that.Relationship with brands
I haven't had a godfather or godmother to introduce me and open doors, even though I have a story behind me. In the world of social media, if you're not a Laura Escanes, if you don't have hundreds of thousands of followers, it's very difficult even if you have a very powerful life story. That's why at first I had to work very hard, but now brands come looking for you or you talk to them and the relationship is established. For example, when I signed with Aurum last summer, it was a matter of two weeks. I told them "look, you're going to give me the bike... what do you think if instead of me assembling it, you assemble it for me? I'm going to train in Pinto (Madrid, where Aurum's company is located), and I'll ride the bike back to Valencia and show it off." They liked the idea and I debuted the road bike by doing 400 km on the first day.
As a content creator, as an influencer, as an athlete, my story is real.
Juan 'Vacío'
I often use dark humor. It's very common and it's true: I'm empty inside, that's my reality. On top of that, my colleagues, many of whom are writers or poets, have been telling me for a long time that "you've emptied yourself inside to fill yourself with emotions and experiences." And that's how it is.
“My colleagues, many of them writers or poets, tell me “you have emptied yourself inside to fill yourself with emotions and experiences”. And it is so”
Endurance sports versus high intensity
High-intensity sports are very difficult to manage when you don't have a stomach and the rest of your intestines, because you're at your maximum heart rate, there are very strong impacts in a short time, so they are very difficult to manage at an energetic and nutritional level. In contrast, in endurance sports, the loads are much longer but the intensity level is lower. You work at much lower heart rates, you can eat, and it also allows you to spend many more hours with yourself. And I love that idea of sharing with more people or with myself that going up and down, getting to know yourself and enjoying, traveling to places, being in contact with people, being able to tell it... very beautiful.
Sports are always essential in daily life, but for any surgical recovery, exercise and movement are even more important. Doing this type of endurance sport after the surgeries I've had was the most recommendable thing. My colleagues told me 'go for it,' because they knew how I regulated myself. My family and the doctors, on the contrary, said 'what are you doing? Stop moving like that, stop being so wild.' But over time, they saw how strong I was and how I served as an example not only to people who hadn't had surgery but also to people who had had surgery and were starting to exercise and improve their abdominal wall. They went from saying 'stop doing it' to 'thanks to you doing it.' My doctors use me as an example at surgical conferences. I am very proud that Manises Hospital, near my home, has me as a collaborator on their management team because they offer sports and nutrition workshops, and so on. And they see me as a reference person. I teach all patients, young and old, the importance of sports and that it should be a very basic routine in daily life.Long-distance sports and overcoming difficulties
In long-distance sports, there are many hours of effort, and you encounter endless adversities... inclement weather, rain, sun, breakdowns, you don't know where to stop... And at the same time, you also pass through beautiful landscapes, you're having a blast, you feel strong... That's life itself. And when you go through so many adversities at a surgical, medical, and other levels, you see that it's exactly the same. In training, I have a great advantage over colleagues who do ultra-distance because I have so much work behind me after so many surgical procedures, recoveries, near-death experiences and so on, that I live with a constant advantage in the psychological part of long-distance races. Because where many people sink and find it hard to get out, I might sink, because we all sink, I'm the first, but I sink for five minutes. You tell yourself, running in the mountains or cycling, you're where you want to be, enjoying an incredible landscape, you're not counting the tiles in a hallway pushing an IV pole.
I've been doing endurance sports for fourteen years, and that's a very short time. I hope I can do the next fifty.“In ultra-distance races, where many people sink and find it hard to get out, I might sink, because we all sink, but I sink for five minutes. You tell yourself you're where you want to be, enjoying an incredible landscape, not counting the tiles in a hallway pushing an IV pole”
Nutrition management and guidelines
I can eat almost anything, in slightly smaller quantities and every forty-five minutes to an hour at most. Initially, I had to train my gut, but fourteen years have passed and I've actually written a recipe book titled 'Vacío' in which I recount my process from being diagnosed at thirteen years old until everyone was confined due to the pandemic.
Beyond pure sports nutrition like bars and gels – I'm delighted with both – the fact that a nutrition brand like OKRE, with incredible products, can be used in this type of ultra-distance event is something that appeals to me. I love that they contacted me because it's proof that if I can eat this range of natural, artisanal, homemade-style dishes, without preservatives, any other athlete can do it.
This morning, for example, I had Cuban rice for lunch and I'll have fish for dinner. I can have your stewed lentils and any of your freeze-dried products because I know they'll sit well with me. And the leap in quality I've seen from the composition and nutritional analyses of the products OKRE has developed is remarkable.“I can have OKRE's stewed lentils and any of their freeze-dried products because I know they'll sit well with me. The leap in quality I've seen from the composition and nutritional analyses of OKRE's products is remarkable.”
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