(Io) Fuori Strada (I) Off the Trail Brief dialogue with myself, associationism and (my) Trail Running over the past decade.

Sport hurts: that's the phrase I used to repeat on a loop, I ended up organizing races on a loop.

What hasn't worked? Nothing, it's the simple flow of life. You grow up, you get married, you have children, time shifts and changes you, spaces shrink and then expand. I have always defined myself as a rubber, adaptable person, and so transformations have always been in my nature.

Sports, as a competition has never intrigued me, maybe not even sports. I have always been intrigued by the attitude, the attitude of people turned to a passion, to research, to discovery.

It all started 10 years ago waiting for my son to finish bicycle training. There was time to occupy, and I decided to do it by running. Many people say that running is a solitary, individual sport, but for me the constant instead has always been the group, friends, sharing. I started with 2 people, then increased.

I started running with the goal of exceeding 10 kilometers, then I experimented with 30, then 50, 100 and now I dream of 100 miles. Over the miles I have mutated a passion for inclines into a craving for runnability, a need for spectacular views and mindless rambles with heartless flatwork. In all this there is nothing right and there is nothing wrong, there is a path, a search, an experimentation: curiosity.

In the midst of all these miles, I met Gente Fuori Strada. We were a few enthusiasts of an activity that was slowly growing or perhaps had already grown enough. Thursday at Makalù, Renato's, and then off we went. From racing I then became involved in the board until I became its president. In my own small way I tried to give a line, a direction. The association grew, we institutionalized Giro Thursday by stealing the day and the idea from Renato and little by little we grew the desire to share miles words and labors. Thus was born a community that from a few dozen friends now has over 160 members and in fact has become the largest Trail Running sports association in Italy. The historical period 2014/2024 was the time of explosion of outdoor activities in Italy and this made our work much easier.

With the group races then also began. I remember the disbelief at discovering the existence of distances I thought were crazy, but then the madness slowly turned into everydayness and awareness.

Experiencing the sport through association, I was able to confront many different approaches, both in mentality and purely athletic factors. I have been confronted with people at opposite ends of the spectrum: those who were starting out, those who were already athletes, those who were struggling, those who just stopped, and those who say they will never stop. I have been fortunate to see the many changes the sport has undergone over the years, from a sport of the few to a sport of fashion. The Trail, like me, has rightly changed over these years. Over these years the Trail and I have kind of lost touch. I don't feel better than today's Trail, and today's Trail is not better than me, I just don't find myself in certain rules of the game, in an exaggerated growth of certain circuits, certain races, certain showmanship, but I don't condemn anyone for that. Spectacle serves, serves to get people out of the house, to lift a lot of heavy asses off the couch. The tragedy of show business is that as quickly as it enlightens you, just as quickly it pulls you back into the shadows. Entertainment cheats you with its timing, doesn't let you grow and make yourself constant in activity, in relationships. Time is the most important thing we have, through time we can develop passions and relationships, learning about details that can make us take one direction rather than another, time develops curiosity.

I firmly believe that the main role of sports associations and communities in general is to make people curious. Curiosity creates knowledge, and the more things you know the better you will be able to read the big picture, you will be able to choose, make mistakes and choose again what fits best, at that moment, your personality.

The path has to be helped and that is what a sports association, a group, a club has to do. I think an association has to make its members aware of the many realities that revolve or may revolve as satellites more or less distant from its orbit. If I had not experienced the association, I would not have known some realities, some people, some ideas and events that to this day I think are more right, closer, more in touch with my personal vision of the Trail and running world.

You have to give people alternatives, different thoughts and visions, that's why, as I wrote before, I don't condemn anyone, on the contrary I push people who come to this activity to touch "the show," to know it, but it is important to be aware that there are alternatives.

Today I love Tuesdays more than Thursdays, I prefer small groups to larger realities, I prefer events to races where I time people, but I do it because of Thursdays, immense groups and the stopwatch. Gente Fuori Strada gave me awareness of what was beyond Gente Fuori Strada, for better or for worse, and that is why I will always remain an Off-Street person. That is why associations must exist, must live, must continue to train people in curiosity. I see so many new associations, groups and clubs springing up all over Italy and it fills me with joy and I cheer for them, but remember that making community does not mean creating a group of like-minded people, it means confronting even those who do not think like you, with those who do not run like you: to evolve both without then necessarily moving forward together.

In conclusion, let yourself be contaminated, contaminated by everything. Curiosity is more important than going under 5 minutes per kilometer.