2024-11-10 - The Maratona di Ravenna cittą d'arte will be held in Ravenna. Originally the capital city of the Western Roman Empire, then of the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths, then again of the Roman Byzantine Empire, and finally of the Kingdom of the Lombards, Ravenna is the location of eight Unesco World Heritage sites. Marathon, half marathon, 30k, 10k, and 5k the courses offered. www.maratonadiravenna.com
2024-09-07 - The fun run La Marconiana will be held in Pontecchio Marconi, in the province of Bologna, a town named after Guglielmo Marconi, the Italian 1909 Nobel Prize winner engineer, credited as the inventor of the radio. This is a great occasion to run the 3k or the 6.5k course, and then stop and visit the museum dedicated to Marconi. www.csisassomarconi.it
2024-07-14 - The second Sunday of July in Busana, in the Reggio Emilia mountains, the Ecomaratona del Ventasso features four different distances (42k / 30k / 18k / 12k) on the trails surrounding Mount Ventasso, from the top of which the eye can embrace the whole Reggiano Appennine, the Parmesan Appennine, and the ridge that separates this area from Tuscany. The courses alternate between chesnut woods, beeches, and moorland passing by villages made of stone, small chapels hidden in the woods, fresh springs, and a lake filled with turquoise water. www.ecomaratonadelventasso.it
2024-04-25 - The route of the ultramarathon 50 Km di Romagna in Castel Bolognese, near Ravenna, runs on paved roads immersed in the green hills of the valley of the river Senio, uphill in the first half and downhill on the way back, passing by the XIV century Sforza castle and along the vineyards producing the renown Albana, Trebbiano and the Sangiovese grapes. www.50kmdiromagna.com
2022-06-02 - The Ecopanoramica dei due Santi is held in San Leo, a town near Rimini on the Adriatic sea. It is a point-to-point run on a 26k distance, also open to a 2-runner relay, virtually with no traffic. As the name of the event implies ("the ecological and panoramic run of the two saints"), the course goes from one saint to the other, the finish being in San Marino, the smallest Republic in Europe completely contained within the Italian territory. Entry fee is 5 euro. www.goldenclubrimini.it
2019-10-04 - The Fabbrica Italiana Contadina (Fico) is the world's largest food park, covering an area of 100,000 square meters in Bologna where hundreds of small and medium-sized Italian high-quality producers showcase their food and wines and how they make them. The park includes two hectares of open-air fields and stables housing hundreds of animals and thousands of cultivars, dozens of farming factories and restaurants. You can visit Fico any day, or each year, during the celebrations for the city's Saint, participate in the StraFico, a 5k fun "run" with five delicious stops along the course featuring different traditional Italian food paired with the perfect wine. www.eatalyworld.it
2019-08-24 - Ask any Italian, and they all will know Brescello, a small town in the Reggio Emilia province, hosting the Camminata di Peppone e don Camillo. The two characters to whom this fun run is dedicated are from a popular humorous book (and then movie) series written by Giovannino Guareschi. The popular stories center on the hot-tempered priest Don Camillo and his eternal rivalry with Giuseppe "Peppone" Bottazzi, the Communist mayor of a small town in post-World War II Italy, where everybody knows everybody. www.germanolanzi.altervista.org
2019-01-06 - In the small medieval town of Bazzano di Neviano degli Arduini, near Parma, first mentioned in the year 921 and told to be part of Satan's Kingdom (until the local miller defated the Lord of Darkness), the fun run Camminando tra i presepi di Bazzano is also the occasion to visit the annual Nativity Scenes festival, with more than two hundred outdoor installations springing up on every street. Saint Francis of Assisi is credited with creating the first live nativity scene in 1223 in order to cultivate the worship of Christ after having been inspired by his visit to the Holy Land and Jesus's traditional birthplace. www.43020bazzano.it
2018-05-01 - Traditional balsamic vinegar is produced in the Emilia Romagna region typically from Trebbiano grapes boiled down to create a concentrate, which is then fermented with a slow aging process in wooden casks, becoming dark, sweet and thick. The Maratonina dell'aceto balsamico tradizionale held in Spilamberto, near Modena, features several courses ranging from 1.5k to 13k, but most important of all, each runner with a symbolic entry fee, will receive a bottle of the traditional "black nectar" as a participation prize.
2017-01-14 - Strap yourself for the post-holiday diet, Italian style, and be one of the participants at the Corsa dei ciccioli, in Bagnacavallo (Ravenna), also dubbed "Trofeo del colesterolo, Gran premio dei trigliceridi" (Cholesterol Trophy, Triglycerides Grand Prix). The title of this 9k event is a mouthful, and it is all because of the prize runners will receive at the finish line - a bag of "ciccioli", leftover pieces of pork compressed, dried, and aged in a sack cloth, before they are served "wet" sliced, or "dry" as delicious crunchy chips.
2016-11-19 - "Nothing speaks more of Romagna than this bread of ours... it is a symbol that speaks of devotion to our land" wrote the famous Italian poet Giovanni Pascoli and the Corsa della piadina romagnola in Russi, near Ravenna, is dedicated to the thin Italian flatbread typically prepared in this region. A package of piadine is the coveted prize for all participants to this 7k event.
