WM: Andrei can you please give us a quick introduction to yourself?

AR: I am an economist and have worked in nancial services for 15 years. Now I am an entrepreneur and I am focusing my e orts towards public speaking, conferences and sport programs. I am an amateur athlete and without having any previous experience I started running when I was 33. My lifestyle was all about spending a lot of time on the couch and in the o ce and I was eating mostly junk food. I wanted to become a role model for my son and daughter, so I started to run. My rst objective was to run a marathon at the North Pole, I thought it might encourage me to stick to a training plan and it worked. I became the rst Romanian and the youngest person to reach the North Pole. That was the beginning. 
 

WM: What sport competitions have you taken part in?
 

AR: I participated in the Antarctic Ice Marathon & 100km Ultra Race in December 2010. Then I started running on each continent and in March 2012 I nished The Circuit: 7 Marathons and 7 Ultras on 7 Continents. I participated in races across Europe, in Antarctica, the North Pole, Australia, the Himalayas, the Sahara Desert, Chile, New Zealand, and Brazil to name a few. I am the rst person to have ever achieved this according to Guinness World Records In 2012 I started taking serious swimming and cycling lessons. My objective was to nish a Double Ironman. In March 2013 I achieved it, in Florida. I nished my rst Double Ironman: 7.6 km swimming, 360 km cycling, 84.4 km running – in 35 hours. In November 2013 I nished the Mexican Triple Ultra Triathlon: 11.4 km swimming, 540 km cycling, 126 km running – in 48 hours. In 2014 I nished the Virginia Quintuple Ultra: 19 km swimming, 900 km cycling, 210 km running – in 126 hours.

Then I found out about the hardest Ultra Triathlon in the world called Arch 2 Arc which starts at London's Marble Arch and ends at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. This includes swimming across the English Channel which is considered the Everest of this sport, so I said, why not? So I also completed this 140 km run, 50 km swim and 300 km cycle challenge. 
 

Probably my best known achievement in the public eye is the Polar Ultramarathon (6633Ultra), which I completed this spring. Me and my running partner, Vlad Tanase, have become the rst duo in the event's history to run together from start to finish.

WM: What is your greatest achievement? 

AR: Looking back, my greatest achievement was to get o the couch. I needed 33 years for that. The rest are the results of a training plan; it really is not that complicated.
 

The competition itself is not that difficult either, the training is the hardest. You need years for it, while the competition lasts only a few days. 
 

WM: What is your goal in pursing sports with such rigor?
 

AR: Sports became a habit for me and I cannot live without them.
 

My mind is clear, I feel energetic and I completely changed my identity. Sports help me build a better version of myself. My whole family follows me, everyone is running. My son Alex, who is 8, was the youngest person in Europe to nish a Half Marathon last year. We don't push him, he pushes us! 

WM: How do you sustain this level of performance both physically and mentally?

AR: I don't have to motivate myself. It is a habit for me, like taking a shower or brushing my teeth, it is very simple now. I always have a strategy when I attend a competition. During training I simulate the hardest parts of the event, sleep depravation or running during any kind of weather. I never complain, I know why I am there, and I focus on how I can nish the race. Never abandon or slack o from your training.

WM: How do sports help improve a person?

AR: First of all, you need to look at sports not from the performance point of view but use them as a personal development tool. If you have sport objectives, like running a marathon, you have to follow a plan of how to get from point A to point B. This translates easily from sports to any area. In competitions you always have a hard time and you need to get over obstacles. That builds up strength and endurance, and you can export this learning and these skills to all areas of your life. Sports help you manage daily stress and have better communication with others.
 

WM: How should we include sports in the education of students so that it becomes a lifestyle?

AR: Wake up early and start your day with 20 minutes of physical activity, it does not matter if you are a student or someone older. You will have the energy to start your day with the hardest projects and you will have the drive to do things. When you are a student, you do not have a clear direction for your life but if you do a lot of things, you change your context and you are better off.

WM: Please tell us about programs you have started to help people improve themselves.

AR: I have held two TED talks until now and in 2014 I wrote down everything I knew about running and created a program for beginners called Coaching in Action (Coaching in Alergare C.I.A. - http://www. coachinginalergare.ro/). We approach running from a holistic perspective.

It is not only about running, but how to incorporate running in people's lives, nutrition, and how to connect your body with the surrounding environment. For a month you work with 10 people and the results are spectacular. It is always sold out. The community is now an association.

WM: What are your goals for the future and what competition will you tackle next?

AR: My main goal is to remain a role model for my two children, the people around me and my community and to support as many charities as I can. Being a role model is not a one-week job. You cannot tell your children, ‘let me show you this week how to do things’ and run and eat properly, and then go back to your routine the week after. Children act according to what they see around them every day. Next, I will have to become a sailor and a very good rower by December 2017 as my next goal is to cross the Atlantic rowing. It takes 50 or 60 days. I am used to more solitary sports and this is a team e ort. It is the longest, and hardest, challenge yet. 


Read the entire WORLD Magazine Fall 2016 edition here.