Su e Giù, Campobasso's non-competitive run

Discover

A podium-less race created to unite

There is a race in Molise, a footrace to be precise, that for over 50 years has united friends, acquaintances, or strangers, made people discover a city, become an excuse for physical activity, and, only ultimately, put them in competition.

In the heart of autumn, the Su e Giù, a race organized by the Virtus Sports Group on the second Sunday in November, has been repeated in Campobasso since 1974, although, more precisely, it is based on the summer of St. Martin’s Day. A non-competitive race born from an innovative idea, almost crazy as it were.

The story, as anticipated, starts from afar. And it starts from the intuition of one person, Nicola Palladino, a philosophy student, coach, athlete and Virtus executive. A person always full of original ideas, he proposed one that was as simple as it was countercultural and ahead of its time. The ideas, which had already been crowding his head for some time, were all there, but something was still missing. Something was needed to hold them together, to unite them.

How to combine the enhancement of Campobasso’s historic center, a cultural event and one that would put children at the center of attention? Then, out of the blue, the idea. A non-competitive run, with no limits of age, sex or gender, to be held in the alleys of the city’s historic center.

An idea unlike any other that was immediately greatly appreciated by the other leaders but also by the city, so much so that more than 700 people took part in that first edition, enough to leave most unprepared. Since then, the Su e Giù has never ceased to inflame the hearts of Campobassans but also of the many who come to the city each year from other towns and even other regions.

Not to compete, not to demonstrate superior strength, endurance or speed to others on the approximately 8 km route that winds through the streets of the historic center and places dear to Campobassanians. But to spend a different day, in the company of friends and family and, why not, to make new friends by spurring each other on, especially along the steps of the historic center that, almost at the end of the route, may well “break the legs” but certainly not the desire to take part, once more, in a race that, in reality, race is not.