Sébastien Sasseville has summited Mount Everest, completed the 250km Sahara Race (known as “The Ultimate Test of Human Endurance”), and, by the time you are reading this, will have run the entire 7500km breadth of Canada in an extraordinary nine-month long solo expedition equivalent to 180 back-to-back marathons. Sébastien Sasseville also has type 1 diabetes. But he’s not going to let that stop him.

“My one hope is that people will know that with the right diet, the right tools, and the right attitude, they can pursue their dreams, even with diabetes.”

Sébastien’s run across Canada, “Outrun Diabetes,” aims to raise awareness about diabetes in Canada, and also to inspire, educate, and empower those living with the condition. “My one hope,” says Sasseville, “is that people will know that with the right diet, the right tools, and the right attitude, they can pursue their dreams, even with diabetes.”

Sébastien’s run across Canada, “Outrun Diabetes,” aims to raise awareness about diabetes in Canada, and also to inspire, educate, and empower those living with the condition. “My one hope,” says Sasseville, “is that people will know that with the right diet, the right tools, and the right attitude, they can pursue their dreams, even with diabetes.”

Diabetes is a chronic disease with no known cure. It comes in two primary forms. Type 2 or “adult-onset” diabetes occurs when the body develops a resistance to insulin, often due to poor diet and lack of exercise. Much less common is type 1 diabetes, where the body becomes incapable of producing insulin in sufficient quantities. The cause of type 1 diabetes is unknown. Diet and exercise are important to managing both types of the disease, but those living with type 1 also need regular insulin injections in order to survive.

Transformation through adversity

When Sébastien was diagnosed with type 1 in 2002, he saw that he had two choices: he could let the disease impact his life negatively, or he could make it a positive on his own terms. Up until that point of his life, Sébastien acknowledges that he had never been an athlete or an overachiever.

“The obstacle made me stronger,” Sébastien says. “It made me question myself. It taught me humility. It made me more driven. It was definitely an enabler and a catalyst. But all that good stuff comes at a price, or we wouldn’t call it an obstacle. It was incredibly hard at the beginning.”

When Sébastien summited Everest in 2008, he was the first Canadian with diabetes to ever do so. It was thought to be impossible until Sébastien showed that it wasn’t. This is a driving motivation for both Sébastien and the growing community of prominent diabetic athletes.

The world’s only all-diabetes pro sports team

Phil Southerland is the CEO of Team Novo Nordisk, a global sports team made up entirely of athletes with type 1 diabetes. The Team Novo Nordisk professional cycling team competes on the International Cycling Union (UCI) Professional Continental Tour, regularly making podium appearances. By 2021, the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin by team of Canadian scientists, Team Novo Nordisk hopes to make it to the Tour de France, thus shattering yet another barrier for people living with diabetes.

“A lot of places in the world,” says Southerland, “people are still diagnosed with diabetes and then told what they can’t do. Our goal is to show that that is simply incorrect. You can still pursue anything.”

Sébastien, who is affiliated with Team Novo Nordisk through their “Elite” program, is making this abundantly clear. He set out from St. John’s, Newfoundland in the biting cold on February 2nd of this year and has run through sleet, snow, rain, and sun for the past nine months, stopping along the way to raise awareness at events in Halifax, Moncton, Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Windsor, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Edmonton, and Calgary. The finish line of this incredible run is in Vancouver, B.C. and Sébastien intends to cross it on November 14th, World Diabetes Day.

Moving mountains

The day I talked to Sébastien, he was working his way through the Rocky Mountains, the end finally in sight. “It’s amazing how far you can go when you do a little bit every day,” he says. “In the early stages, thinking about the finish line would have killed us, but if you just do today well each day, then good things are going to happen. A little bit every day and you can move mountains.”