I AM NOT SO … LEO

I AM NOT SO … LEO

The soleo … this stranger

And who (or what) will it ever be !?
I understood it on a day in mid-May at 20 ^ km when between the torrid sun of a summer day and the clear blue of the sea that was confused with the serene of a clean and cloudless sky, I felt a slight fatigue gradually more and more annoying …
“I do the last km” I said to myself as good stubborn as I am.
And everything has collapsed.
All or almost in the middle of preparing for MY SECOND PASSER.
– “I will never accept it” – I kept repeating inside myself shouting all my anger and disappointment for a goal that I thought I would never reach again.
I in Faenza, there in Piazza del Popolo, theater of authentic emotions, I had to get there
Even limping … but I had to be there!
I was thinking about all this while I was upside down on the green lawn bed of my physiotherapist who fumbled with his skilled hands and giving me different facets of pain, he assured me by looking at me with those blue and sincere eyes of one who loves you: “Mimmo, it’s nothing … Of course a 100 km didn’t take you right now, but you’ll run! ”
The cot oozed tears
They were mine
They were the ones I had swallowed in the anger of a dismal day that I hoped would take on the appearance of an increasingly clear light after the dark moments
Ten days without running
An infinity for me
I who used to run every day or almost, even twice a day
And if it wasn’t racing it was bike
Km on km
From home to work and vice versa
Always and only with that square and that goal in the head.
It is precisely because of my stubbornness that I had jeopardized the realization of my dream
A dream that I had almost broken.

A dream similar to that of El Dorado, the lost city of gold, which had led many adventurers on an unsuccessful path through the rainforest and mountains of South America.

Theirs was an illusory thought, revealed to be a crude reality that took on the appearance of a tragedy.
I was experiencing my personal tragedy every time I woke up and moving my leg I felt pain
A pain that released an indescribable anger
Until I finally found myself looking out a window to admire the clear cloudless landscape and flooded with serene, which accompanied my unexpected trip to Florence
The approach to this event had not been serene
So much so that I was there by now
And the sun that shone up there at high altitude seemed to hold out my hand
It was close to me
It shone for me
Giving me that serenity that in a certain sense I had lost, restless as I was for fear of not being there
The pain was finally gone
The last tests had comforted me
And now I was there on that plane, in the middle of that blue and cloudless sky that accompanied me like a mother with her baby, to the appointment I had dreamed of so much.
The same blue sky that dominated via dei calzaiuoli the next day
It is May 30th
It’s 3pm
The gunshot
2504 hearts
One goal: to get to Faenza
It was already a dream for me to be there among them
I meet Laura’s gaze
I caress her hands
I hold her tight
Run Laura
Run
I’ll always be here
I knew there had been
a challenge
The preparation had been compromised and I had no ambition for results
Of course everything was going well
Fiesole had been drunk in one sip and in no time we were in Borgo San Lorenzo in all ease
The glue bog was there and waiting for us
And I lived it, the glue, in all its magnificence, all its splendor
Letting myself be enveloped by the rustle of the lush vegetation of beech woods that surrounded me
While there under the Lamone river, with its waterfalls, it emitted humid sounds of freedom
And I was walking in the middle of freedom.

Yes, I was free

Like the full moon that up there illuminated the gushing streams of life
And I lived with them
At every step
With every breath
Slowly up to three km from the 48th where we could have changed
Here I meet the great supermarathon runner Angela Gargano more determined and determined than ever that makes me hare up on top
Here we are
Now it goes down
But there is something wrong
I begin to have a rejection crisis, caressing the idea of ​​abandonment.
What do I do ?
Do I continue or will I stop?
Do I stop or continue?
But right in the middle of this inner fight, I hear a voice that echoed from below
He was the soleus
Yes, he is!
– “but are you crazy?” – he says reproachfully.
And he urges: “you accused me of not letting you run because of my whims and now that I am good, good you want to give up? Never be!”
Eyes widen …
But … am I crazy or what?
I’m listening to an inanimate part of me that scolds me and tells me not to give up!
Maybe it was my conscience that spoke to me
Like a man in the mirror, I analyzed myself and looked for reasons to continue
Well … so much so that really up to now I hadn’t had any physical problems
Ok let’s start again
I don’t think much about it and I’m already traveling
Run and walk
Run and walk
Until suddenly there is a drop in pressure with consequent dizziness
I stop at km 70 and ask the mobile rescue unit for assistance
I stop for about an hour when I fall asleep
When I wake up I have a hypothermic crisis that almost causes me to give up, even under the advice of the health professionals.
But he, the soleus
His voice
His reproach
I feel everything … just me in my infinite madness
And as a madman in love with the race, I decide to continue
Run, walk
Run, walk
Until the 80 km where I decide that I can no longer wait
Piazza del Popolo is only 20 km away and the dawn appears with its violet brushstrokes that color our journey
I start to run
Just run
I get over two hundred who walk only at this time of the morning, dragging their legs like ballast on the asphalt that collects our drops of sweat
But above all I overcome my indecisions and my torments, convincing me more and more that this race has the flavor of the enterprise
Arrival in Faenza
The sun is high
It is seven in the morning
I look at the red inflatable
Red like this dawn in late May
Red like runner’s blood running through my veins,
Red like the color of that bed on which I lay down for a while and which risked ending this magic
Yes, the magic of the arrival with the tears that blur the view and the madness that distinguishes me
You are crazy, crazy and then crazy again
But this time it is a madness dictated by happiness that makes me proud not to have given up
And to have listened to that voice that sounded vivid from the nothing of my soul in the silence of my solitude

Solitude ?

What loneliness?

Domenico Baglivo