Running in self-sufficiency
«These types of races are called ran self-sufficiencywhere you carry everything you need in your backpack for the entire duration of the race – he explains Marchesani -, except generally the water provided at the checkpoints and the tent to sleep at night. It is not only hard work on a physical level, but requires a good dose of physical adaptation outside running and good organization in the preparation phase.”
In recent years, for example, he has run the Marathon des Sables, a legendary race of around 250 km in the Moroccan desert, where he ranked 300th, out of a total of 1,060 participants from around forty countries around the world. But, in his personal “carnet”, he also boasts participation in the marathon in Siberia in Omsk, in 2015, then in the one in the Oman desert, from the Bidya Oasis to the Arabian Sea in 2017, and the Fire& Ice Ultra Marathonin Iceland among geysers, glaciers and lava fields and very different temperatures.
«A French runner ran 36 times there Marathon des Sables and he wrote a book called “From Passion to Obsession”. I share this vision because I realize that running is a sort of disease. And then it is also the cure for that disease. Every time you reach the finish line, after two minutes you are already there planning the next challenges”, he says.
It generally takes about a year to recover from this type of competition. So, most athletes race every two years. You train first by running up to 80% of the kilometers of the race, then you slowly slow down to conserve your strength. The Namib Race is made up of 5 daytime stages, starting in the morning, and a night stage, which you can decide whether to run in two stages or in just one.
«Running in the middle of the desert at night, you touch areas of sensitivity that are impossible to reach in everyday life»
«I generally prefer to run there night stop of yarn – he says -, because that is where you have greater contact with the surrounding and internal nature. Everything is thought of. Also because these races are never done with someone, it is impossible to find someone with your pace. Therefore you are in total solitude and think about everything. You think about all the personal things in life, in the world.”
An unforgettable moment for Alberto Marchesani is when at Marathon des Sablesright in front of him he saw the rise Milky Way. «In this type of racing one goes just to gain the experience, almost no one cares about the result. I don’t even know if it will be published,” he explains.
«Running for hundreds of kilometers in the middle of the desert – he says Marchesani – allows you to touch things that usually, in peace, in your comfort zone, you cannot understand. They never touch each other. Personal zones. In those moments I feel a kind of greater sensitivity, a primordial feeling.”
Read also: Adolfo De Stefani Cosentino, the ‘pilgrim’
Tags: Alberto Marchesani Ravenna Namibia run kilometers desert
