“My son and the Oxyburn gear are essential for completing this 2012-km adventure”

Talk to the cyclists and they’ll tell you it’s tough, exhausting, and incredibly long. The race starts in Cesenatico and covers 202 km, crossing 9 hills. Over 10,000 people ride it—you’d call them heroes. But then you realize there are runners for the 9 Colli Running race. It’s absolute madness. The same start, the same finish, the same 9 hills, and the same endless 202 kilometers. A few hundred at the starting line—the toughest ultramarathoners around—for one of the most difficult ultramarathons in the world. And sometimes someone up there decides it has to rain and be cold, deciding to make things even harder, as if they weren’t already difficult enough.

Oxyburn was also part of all this, thanks to Ilaria Fossati’s flowing blonde hair and the “black-bearded” Maurizio Ghidini. Heroes of a bygone era, warriors of the night battling wind and rain, with legs that never stopped. Ilaria is a veteran of these kinds of experiences, but for Maurizio, it was almost a “debut.”

“This race is crazy—a wonderful 24-hour and 47-minute journey, 18 hours of which I spent in a downpour. Something out of the ordinary, but ‘something that left its mark on me and taught me a lesson’—those were Ghidini’s first words, still euphoric even though he’s now back in the quiet of his home. “It was a grueling race, difficult to manage, and maybe I made the mistake of starting out dressed too lightly. I caught a bit of a chill, and after the 100th km I started walking—and when I start doing that in races, I tend to hit a mental wall, to get depressed. Because I love running, not walking. I started out too fast; I had to slow down and let my body recover. And then there’s one person I need to thank.”

This is where the heart of an ultramarathoner shines through—one who focuses on what really matters and cuts out everything superfluous: “I have to thank my son Mattia, who followed me from start to finish for the first time. Twenty-one years old and twenty-four hours in the van following me, driving through the hills along the winding roads at night. He’d turn up the music and talk to me. We looked like the A-Team with how organized we were: he’d pull over, I’d sit in the swivel chair, eat, change clothes, and set off again. I hung in there for him, and thanks to him talking to me through the window.”

A son who follows in your footsteps—the emotional side of you that covers just as many kilometers as your legs, if not more: “I think I taught him never to give up during those 24 hours, but he also taught me that a person—that a son—is always there, no matter what. So I want to thank him publicly. It was just him and me and no one else—that was important to me.”

And then came the race—the remaining 100 km—the cold snap, nearly hypothermia to the point where I had to walk for a while wearing a down jacket and gloves, and being unable to eat anymore—until even Oxyburn, with its top-quality gear, made all the difference. The 5055 Forty-Two short-sleeve jersey and the 5030 Shout shorts kept me dry and free of chafing despite dozens of hours on the trail. I never needed to change clothes. I just preferred to stay warmer later on by wearing the 5035 Rampage and the 5025 Build. I appreciated this material more than ever, pushing it to the limit where you really feel the difference. Of course, I had arm warmers, socks, and the Spyd compression tights.”

“I ended up running the last 30 km like crazy, making up more than 10 positions at an incredible pace—I don’t even know where I found the energy to keep running. It was a crazy and wonderful journey with my son.”