To attract, that is, to generate interest in the area even out of season; to educate and raise awareness of respect for the environment and safety; to create clear and easy-to-follow routes that can satisfy the search for novelty and adrenaline of the widest possible audience. These are the challenges that Asd Maremontana of Loano has set itself with the creation of the Vibram Maremontana Running Park, a project for the promotion of outdoor sports carried out with the contribution and collaboration of Vibram, a leading Italian company in the production of soles for footwear, and the municipalities of Loano, Balestrino, Ceriale and Toirano, and destined to expand to many other locations in the western Savona area.
Asd Maremontana was founded on October 27, 2014 with the aim of promoting and developing outdoor sports activities: fit walking, Nordic walking, running, trail running, mountain biking, and climbing. It is also best known for the Vibram® Maremontana - Cencin De Francesco Memorial, the competitive and non-competitive trail race held in the Loano hinterland every spring.
On the strength of this experience and the success achieved regularly at each edition of the race, one of the most anticipated events for fans, Maremontana decided to create, in the west of Savona, the first running park in Liguria. A large outdoor sports promotion project which has hill/mountain running as its focus, but is developed through a series of trails suitable for all kinds of audiences, from athletes to enthusiasts, from “trained” to “untrained,” from runners to walkers to bikers. The slogan of the project is “Give Your Trails a Sense.”.
The Vibram Maremontana Running Park consists of a Series of planned routes that run between the coastline and inland. Each itinerary is ranked according to the level of difficulty: there are those “urban” for those who simply love to walk; the “lover” are aimed at those who walk and run as a hobby but do not do so regularly or follow specific training; the “trail” are instead reserved for those who follow a precise training program and also participate in competitive races; finally, the more challenging “ultra” reserved for the most trained athletes. In short, a series of trails able to respond to every type of athlete: from the family who wants to spend time outdoors with their children to the “grandpa” who walks to keep fit to athletes who want to test themselves or train for an important competition.
Next to the routes to follow on foot there are those to be addressed Riding mountain bikes and e-bikes.
Each route winds through evocative landscapes and vistas, which accompany the runner and bikers on a continuous discovery of the area.
To date, the project has already seen the creation on the Loano territory of 186 kilometers of running trails (divided into five “urban,” four “lover,” five “trail,” and one “ultra”) and 85 kilometers for bikes (divided into four trails). Others are being built on the territories of Balestrino, Ceriale and Toirano; agreements are being finalized with the administrations of Albenga, Boissano, Borghetto Santo Spirito, Borgio Verezzi, Castelvecchio di Rocca Barbena, Cisano sul Neva, Giustenice, Pietra Ligure, Tovo San Giacomo and Zuccarello to expand the project and integrate these territories as well. In all, the following were Developed and assigned about thirty paths and more will be created progressively.
Each route has a ring conformation, so completing it will automatically return you to the starting point. Guiding each runner will be the “balise”, that is, the plaques placed along the route. They are colored according to the degree of difficulty of the route and report their number, so as to immediately communicate all the information needed to orient themselves. The same type of “balisa” will be installed on the territories of the municipalities participating in the project, so as to give homogeneity to the routes and provide the same kind of information. Thanks to this stratagem, even users who are less experienced or less accustomed to consulting maps and using apps will be able to smooth orientation.
And for those who love technology, you can download the Vibram Maremontana Running Park app. The app enables geolocation of the user and is based on a technical cartography of local coordinates. This means that the position indicated on the map by the device's Gps is more accurate than, for example, that provided by a map based on a global reference system such as the one used by Google. Thanks to this, it is possible to tackle any route in total safety, having real-time Gps data, information on distance, elevation gain, and altimetry. There are also the overall cartography and for each route the map with the direction of travel and the description in the desired language. For each route there are short audiovisuals, the list of points of interest and, more generally, tourist, cultural, technical and commercial information. The app speaks in four languages and is already set up for further development: for example, in the near future the individual route descriptions will be recorded live in the original languages rather than the product of a voice synthesizer; this will allow listening to the description to be interrupted at will and give the opportunity to resume as one progresses along the route.
Complementing the information tools will be the signage. The signs are installed at the main points of interest in the various municipalities (such as the Toirano Caves), show the routes that can be taken from that particular point and some information about the location. On each sign is a QR code that, for each route, will link to the fact sheet, preview video and list of points of interest. In addition, to ensure the safety of each user, each sign urges you to: consult the weather forecast; inform an acquaintance of the program; bring food and water; equip yourself appropriately and in accordance with the sport; choose footwear with a Vibram sole that provides traction, has grip and is durable and protective. And to protect the environment, it is necessary to: bring your own garbage with you so that you do not abandon it along the trails; respect flora and fauna; avoid unnecessarily leaving the trail and taking shortcuts.
The Vibram Maremontana Running Park is not only a sports project, but it also has important tourism and environmental implications: by incentivizing the frequentation of the urban environment and the hinterland even in the “low season” period, runners and bikers reappropriate the territory and contribute to its protection, ensuring environmental monitoring and constant maintenance; moreover, since its routes also cross little-known areas and zones, the Running Park helps to rediscover the peculiarities of the interior; finally, since runners and bikers “follow” their passion at any time of the year, the Maremontana project allows to deseasonalize tourist flows. This will allow, in the long run, the possible growth of induced services (related to catering and accommodation) and the creation of new professional figures (escorts and guides) and therefore the growth of employment.
The format will be inaugurated officially On the occasion of the 11th edition of the Vibram® Maremontana - Memorial Cencin De Francesco, the event divided into three competitive routes (one 25-kilometer route with a positive elevation gain of 1,384 meters, a second 45-kilometer route with a positive elevation gain of 2,650 meters, and a third 60-kilometer route with a positive elevation gain of 3,640 meters) to be held at Loano from March 25 to 27. The competitive races will be joined by other non-competitive running and walking events dedicated to discovering the area.
The project was presented on Thursday, March 10, in Varese at the Vibram Connection Lab, the company's spin-off dedicated to the development of innovative, interdisciplinary and communication projects.
Jerome Bernard, Sport Innovation Marketing Global Director of Vibram, explained the concept behind the initiative, “We came up with the Vibram Running Park concept to promote the outdoors and enhance some territories that are potentially very suitable for trail running. The project was born as a system, replicable in different geographical areas, offering a connection of trails, services and tools that speak the same language. In this way, we want to encourage sportsmen and the public to practice ‘stress-free’ their passion for sports in nature immersed in the beauty of new places, for an out-of-town outing of a single day, but also during a weekend or to organize a vacation under the banner of ‘discovering the territory by running’.”.
Antonio Ghilino (secretary of Asd Mare Montana) presented the Vibram Maremontana Running Park, a pilot declination of the concept: “Developed by MareMontana ASD, the Vibram Maremontana Running Park is connected to the Loano area and extends to encompass a large territorial basin that includes a total of twelve municipalities, places chosen as starting points for the different marked trails designed for trail running, designed for different levels of difficulty in terms of distance, elevation gain and technical difficulty. The first trails are already usable and will result in 500 kilometers divided into 50 routes. Vibram Maremonatana Running Park therefore offers routes, services and tools to both beginners who want to approach outdoor activities, but also to enthusiasts looking for a unique place to organize their outings.”.
Special guest and ambassador of the project the multi-time trail running champion Gediminas Grinius, a top athlete of the Trailrunning Team Vibram, who about his experience said, “I got to explore the trails of the Vibram Maremontana Running Park, they took me to discover typical villages and breathtaking views in a very pleasant Mediterranean environment, let yourself be ‘guided’ by running between sea and mountains as I did.”.
