Posted on April 4th, 2016

Words: Filippo Canetta

Archive Photos (2008 - 2026)

It's nine in the evening, I've just left the office, I'm wearing beat-up All-Stars and a cotton t-shirt so heavy it feels like lead.

I keep staring at the treadmill screen of the guy in front of me, and it seems impossible that anyone could run ten kilometers in under an hour. He looks like he's flying, without any effort at all. The moment the fourth kilometer shows up on my odometer, I angrily slam the red button that brings the machine to an immediate stop.

My shirt doesn't have a single dry square inch left, my legs are burning, with every breath in I catch the smell of ammonia in my nose, and my heart rate shows no sign of slowing down, I keep sweating even after the shower.

I'd only find out later that all those sensations were caused by exercise intensity that was "too" high for my level of training. In practice, I was burning through more calories than my body was prepared to handle.

The excessive depletion of muscle glycogen, combined with a poor ability to use fat as fuel, was forcing my body to burn muscle protein for energy, producing lactic acid (muscle stiffness) and ammonia as byproducts, which got expelled through sweat.

I've been sleeping badly for years, I always feel tired, the weekend is just a brief pause to recharge batteries that are, by now, drained.

Gastrointestinal issues hit me at the worst possible moments, seasonal colds keep knocking me down every so often, and any physical effort feels so superhuman that it barely seems worth attempting. Despite all that, a few days later I put out my last cigarette and, with a pair of new shoes, started running in a city park.

That's how I started, a few years back, in 2008, after a big fit of anger. A few months later, I try running my first half marathon, which I finish throwing up on the finish line.

Then a friend tells me about Trail Running, and about a race the following Saturday. Wearing completely unsuitable gear, I start climbing the longest ascent of my life. Even now, I still remember the time it took to reach the top of that mountain as the most intense effort I've ever put in. But once I got to the top, I'll never forget the satisfaction of taking in that untouched landscape, made even more beautiful by the total absence of human settlements.

Just as I'll never forget the crisis that literally paralyzed me on the last climb, five kilometers from the finish. It had been years since I'd cried that hard, like when I crossed the finish line a few hours later. The reward after all that effort stirred up a whirlwind of conflicting emotions in me.

But that race marked me in another way too.

The route I'd struggled through to finish was the short version of the main race, which was twice as long. When the heroes of the long race crossed the finish line, running with smiles on their faces, I was moved by their incredible feat. In that moment it seemed impossible to me that anyone could pull off something like that, but unconsciously, the spark of the challenge had already lit up in my head.

"Trail Running"

I needed some points of reference to get started properly.

I start studying race types, times and distances. I buy every book I can find on running, I read, study and try to learn as much as possible. I start training to be better prepared for the next challenge.

As time went on, I felt that magnificent, almost magical sensation. It was my body changing, adapting to effort and fatigue. That feeling I get every time I manage to do something that once seemed impossible and out of reach.

The human body is a fantastic organism, and unlike mechanical structures, which are built to withstand specific loads, it's capable of handling incredible strain, as long as it's reached progressively and with adequate recovery time.

In the meantime I lose weight, my resting heart rate drops by half, I sleep better, I change my diet and my digestive problems disappear. I almost never get sick anymore, and above all, I've completely cut out any form of chemical medication, based on the principle that a healthy body knows how to respond to outside stress on its own.

Balancing it with work and family, I start organizing my training better, and little by little I discover one of sport's most fundamental values, perhaps its most democratic, and least current one.

The more effort and struggle I put in, the more results I get.

Running in nature, in particular, pays back in full for the effort put into it. On every outing there's always a moment when time stands still, and I find myself, as if by magic, in perfect harmony with the world around me.

Running in nature becomes, for me, the very experience of discovering a place, basing your movement purely on your own instincts. Adapting to the natural environment to explore it and uncover its wonders. Running driven only by your own inner impulses, nothing else out there except, perhaps, some distant, invisible satellite in space, tracking our movements and our heartbeats.

Trail Running means a lot to me, in fact, it may have even changed my life and made me a better person. From the moment I started running, I immediately discovered the magic of going off the beaten path.

Chamonix, 2010

Trail Running is setting off on a trail without even knowing where it leads, and then another one, and running until you can't anymore, then stopping, gasping for breath, looking up and finding yourself, spellbound, immersed in nature.

Trail Running is seeing the world from a different perspective, that of someone who reaches their own goals under their own power.

Trail Running is enduring the effort of the climb and savoring the thrill of the descent.

Trail Running is the salty sweat of summer, the scent of leaves and mud in autumn, the silence of snow in winter, and the spring breeze on your skin.

Trail Running is the people you meet, with whom a single smile is enough to understand each other.

Trail Running is contact with nature, in all its forms, even the wildest ones.

Trail Running is the freedom to run on any terrain, at any time, in any weather condition.

Trail Running is an adventure within ourselves.

It's when, on the first day above 30°, you drink over a liter an hour, but by the second day your body has already adapted and half is enough.

It's when the sun dries out your skin and sweat burns your eyes.

It's when you're so happy running that you don't even notice the brambles scratching you, and only realize it once you reach the village and everyone stares at the blood on your legs.

It's when you only realize you're climbing a via ferrata once your legs start shaking from the vertigo.

It's when, even alone in nature for hours, you never feel lonely.

It's when you miscalculate and run out of water, so you steal two unripe apples just to suck out their sweet juice.

It's when what you see is so beautiful you wish you could share it, so you stop just to take a few photos, even though they don't come close to capturing what you're feeling.

It's when you head out and look for the trail that leads you up there, to the top of the mountain.

What makes you smile is knowing you managed to make it back to the starting point under your own power, tracing out a beautiful route on a map.

Often, on the longer, more solitary outings, there comes a moment when fear takes hold of me.

Fear of not making it, maybe I've gone too far, I'm too tired, out of water, without the right clothing, the snow is too deep, it's getting dark, or the weather is turning. It's exactly in that instant that I feel in perfect union with the nature around me. I'm alone, but I could stay there for days, weeks, forever. But then, I come back, and I'm satisfied to have made it through this time too.

Races are a means to push yourself to the limit, but the best feelings are the ones I get once the race is over and it's time to come back down to earth. It isn't always that simple. The feelings are often conflicting.

The body, exhausted and worn out from the long effort, needs rest and recovery to regenerate. I want to go straight back to running, to find that feeling of lightness and speed that only running can give me. But I also know I need to let muscles and tendons rest, let my heart rate return to normal, and sleep regularly. So for two or three days, I don't run.

Then the images stored in my head during the run start to surface, and that's when a strange sense of emptiness creeps in. Nature calls with its ancestral pull, and I want to rush back into a forest.

I feel light and satisfied for having completed my challenge, but also very distant from the things of everyday life. Reality seems different than usual. Sometimes it almost feels like I'm an alien. It's hard to explain to the rest of the world what it feels like. On one hand, everything seems simpler, and problems seem smaller when compared to the difficulties of the race. On the other hand, I miss the freedom, the air, and the adrenaline of running.

Running isn't an end in itself, but the means through which, through effort, you enter into communion with your surroundings, a physical, mental and spiritual journey in which you have to be ready to let yourself be surprised by the magnificence of the landscape you discover along the way.