2020 – HOW CAN WE START AGAIN? INTERVIEW WITH FULVIO MASSA AND SIMONA MORBELLI

2020 – HOW CAN WE START AGAIN? INTERVIEW WITH FULVIO MASSA AND SIMONA MORBELLI
We are following up the journey we have just embarked on with a series of interviews with some of the leading figures in the world of trail running.

INTERVIEW WITH FULVIO MASSA AND SIMONA MORBELLI

2020, THE YEAR WHEN EVERYTHING STOPPED… HOW CAN WE START AGAIN?

We are following up the journey we have just embarked on with a series of interviews with some of the leading figures in the world of trail running.

Race promoters, journalists, coaches and prominent figures who will tell us from their point of view, what is happening in the industry due to the current crisis caused by COVID-19, how they are doing and if they wish, what their vision of the future is.

This week we offer a double interview with two names that need little introduction: Fulvio Massa and Simona Morbelli.

Fulvio is a multifaceted character, physiotherapist (Massafisio) expert in rehabilitation and athletic preparation, journalist e writerwhose other publications include ‘Il Trail Running Manual“He is a FIDAL technical instructor and part of the technical staff of the Italian national trail running team and organiser of Le Porte di Pietra, an important race in the Alessandria area.

Simona è a trail running athlete from Team Salomonalso passionate about mountaineering e rock climbing has a career in the field of Trail impressive punctuated by important results and victories in the most prestigious races Nationals e International competitions. Since 2019 he has been in partnership with Fulvio for the project Trail Running Coaching – TRC providing consultancy to elite athletes, amateurs and companies in the sector.

Simona and Fulvio will give us their view on the delicate phase the sector is going through and fundamental indications on how to start training again in phase two. https://www.youtube.com/embed/lyNda1vNm-M

NBS Good evening Fulvio Massa and Simona Morbelli, yours will be a special intervention as, as well as being two well-known faces in Trail Running, you are both coaches and founders of the Trail Running Coaching project. Would you like to tell us about yourselves?

SIMONA Thank you and good evening. I’m actually a coach now, but first and foremost I’m an athlete, since 2011 and I’ve been running for Salomon since 2013. At the time I lived, and still live, in Courmayeur for at least 6/7 months a year, because I love climbing and free riding. Running only came later by chance! At the time I started running to increase my lung capacity and I didn’t know anything about trail running, but in 2011, after I had started running for a short time, I got a sprain, went to Fulvio for treatment and that’s when it all started.

I always say that I do Trail because I met Fulvio Massa who became my coach, I probably would have done asphalt if I had known another person who did road coaching. I say this because as much as I love trails and mountains, I also like asphalt.

FULVIO: My sporting career is well and truly over: I went from professional football straight to mountain running, I started doing my first races in the 80s and have never stopped, gradually moving on to longer and longer distances of 70/100 km. I always say that I could win a race the moment a landslide knocked down the first 50% of the competitors because otherwise I would stop in my position and enjoy it like that! As a professional, I have been involved in sport and physiotherapy, and for 30 years I have had an activity which is particularly aimed at Trail Running athletes. The story of Trail Running Coaching, the project I share with Simona, goes back a long way, but was officially founded in 2019.

SIMONA Trail Running Coaching: Trail Running Coaching was born out of a need which both Fulvio and I have noted over the years: the need for the athlete to inform themselves and understand how they can approach trail running. In other sports, having a coach is a well-established practice, whereas in Trail running it is only recently becoming a habit.

We realised that when we’re out and about in races or at evenings, runners ask us questions: how to run, how to use the pole… So we thought we’d put together this link and create Trail Running Coaching, which is a coaching service for both elite and amateur athletes and for companies in the running sector.

NBS is an important new project, but three months ago it clashed with the events related to COVID: How did you experience this transition and what kind of problems and uncertainties did you face?

SIMONA I’m answering you as an athlete, it was problematic at first because I was used to running, ski touring and doing lots of different sports, mostly outdoors.

But I was also used to working out, for me doing 1 or 2 hours of core stability, abdominal exercises, weight training is normal, and I was already doing some specific work, work that I also give to the kids I follow, which in this period have become a habit, or indoor circuits: for example, stairs combined with core stability.

So as an athlete I have carved out spaces in my days where I do more sessions dedicated to weight training, abs and core stability. Training your upper body and back is important for trail runners because when you run and start to get tired, if you don’t have your upper body, shoulders and core supporting you, it becomes much more difficult. I have been doing these practices for a decade and I have amplified them by focusing them on the running objective and in these weeks focusing them further. I then combined these strength sessions with workouts such as stairs, and to maintain heart rate capacity I used a treadmill and elliptical.

FULVIO What Simona said is clear, and as a coach I would like to bring it to the attention of the wider public of trail runners, because in this case one of the key aspects of the discipline comes into play: unpredictability and the need to turn every problem into an opportunity.

When Simona and I found ourselves as coaches facing this situation, the first thing we tried to do with our athletes was to identify the weak point of each one and we made them work on that at home. It is important to understand that we could not at that stage work on implausible aspects, such as endurance, but in this situation emerged the advantage of being able to do specific work on aspects that during a normal racing season would have been less valued.

NBS: In this phase of indoor training, what was the most difficult aspect for the runner to manage?

FULVIO motivation! The motivation of many athletes at all levels is to find in the race the stimulus that can move the world. The lack of competitions has created a state of motivational depression in many athletes. We have therefore reviewed the annual programmes of our youngsters, just as we did for the National Team, and have replaced the competitions with temporary objectives that can recreate motivated work cycles.

Because whether there is a competition now or in September, your attitude must not change, because you have to grow as an athlete. As a physiotherapist I work a lot with injuries, and for me it is normal that a sportsman has to stop for six months for a trivial plantar fasciitis, but the point is that the world does not end: you have to rationalise yourself and continue to work on the next goals, you have to set intermediate stages and continue to grow.

SIMONA What I always say is that you have to be ready, regardless of whether the competitions are now or in six months’ time. Among other things, at this stage, when the cages open, if you haven’t trained because of a lack of motivation, when you suddenly return to a normal activity regime, that’s when the problems and injuries occur. It’s also unthinkable to work on circuits and stairs for months, then go out and do three hours of trail running. It is therefore necessary to think about shifting the cycles of your sporting activity in order to be ready when the time comes, which could even be without a bib. Because, above all, running is a passion, beyond the bib and the race, I continue to train because I like it!

NBS: So how do we start training again?

FULVIO We wrote an article a short while ago for the magazine Correre, in which we talk about this. We drew up a sort of map, a table, of the risks you run depending on the activities you do at home. For example, if I have an exercise bike or rollers, I will certainly have done a great job on my legs, but I run the risk of the cyclist syndrome, that is, I will have a great heart, lungs and legs, but I will miss my feet, my Achilles tendon, I will lack elasticity. So I’m going to go on the road with a lot of engine power, but I’m going to lack bodywork down below and I’m going to risk injury.

Training, and this applies not only now but in general, must be subjectivized to the person. More than ever in Trail running, which is a discipline which combines so many aspects such as endurance, strength, agility and so on, training must be personalised to the athlete, his or her physical characteristics, age, sport of origin and the goals he or she wants to achieve.

NBS: Are there, however, aspects common to all that cannot be missed?

FULVIO What must never be missing in Trail running from an organic point of view are VO2max and the fraction of VO2max, i.e. maximum oxygen consumption, and the anaerobic threshold, i.e. that fraction which allows you to work for a long time. There is also endurance, that is, the ability to be able to last for many hours, and then strength, because unlike road running, Trail running requires it, coordination, agility… the great thing is to take the pieces of the puzzle and manage to fit them together in such a way as to be able to have a final result. Our objective is always twofold: to try to bring the person to maximum performance and to try to ensure that they don’t get hurt. It sounds obvious but it is the real balance so that the rope can be pulled to its maximum without breaking. It’s clear that doing trivial training is easy because the athlete doesn’t get injured but at the same time doesn’t grow.

NBS among other things, it is very difficult for the athlete to regulate himself, simply by “listening to himself”.

SIMONA I speak as an athlete and as a coach, I’m often asked “but if you coach why do you need a coach?”

I need to have a coach because when you talk about yourself it is always a problem! The athlete, whether he is an elite, an amateur or someone who is going to finish the race is always bulimic of training, he always thinks that something is missing, he always thinks that he must do more, so he does not focus on quality but on quantity! It happens sometimes following the boys that you point out a certain specific work to do and they answer you “only this?”, “yes, today only this, and tomorrow you do another targeted”. If I tell you to do a climb, it’s because we’re working on strength, so today do that, not a climb and a descent, because otherwise that’s a fartlek and has another purpose. You have to have the maturity to understand that to improve you have to focus!

NBS: so how do we get this strange 2020 home?

FULVIO We reset our objectives. Let’s go out and run without the anxiety of races, but by recreating a fictitious programming of races with ourselves. For example, if you were planning to go for a 70km race in July, make sure you do a training session in July that simulates a 70km race.

SIMONA if possible on a surface that is the same as the race itself or similar.

FULVIO On the other hand, from the global point of view of the season, it should be reviewed; when the conditions are right for resuming the races, we will review the seasonality. It is possible that the 2020/2021 schedule will be a bit upset, because it is possible that many athletes will decide to compete in the period that will be granted to them, i.e. autumn/winter. So the first input we give is to pursue our goals, which are plausible but challenging. As soon as it is possible, I am going to make my Stone Doors!

NBS Fulvio, would you like to tell us about the Stone Gates and how you experienced this moment as an organiser?

FULVIO I am part of that group of Italian organisers with whom we have been exchanging ideas and opinions over the last few months, we have lived this period very intensely, studying decrees and regulations.

As an organiser, at the beginning I couldn’t believe that the 15th edition of the Porte di Pietra could be cancelled. Since 2006 we have been organising this race, which is one of the pillars of Italian trail running, and to think that there could be no 2020 edition was a bit mortifying. We’ve come to terms with it logically, because with the social and health situations that existed it was absolutely impossible to think of organising a race. Will there be races this summer? Yes, no, maybe. It will depend on the evolution of the contagion or its eradication, we will see as it progresses, and it will depend on a series of regulations that have been decided by technical task forces. The point is that if there are any competitions in the summer, they will be formalised by a series of extremely restrictive rules which, on the one hand, will put the organisational capacity of an organising committee to the test, and on the other hand, will make the athlete think carefully that the eventual race which takes place this summer will not be the Trail Running race which we have been used to up until now. We are talking about other races, with other constraints, other restrictions, other regulations, linked to the whole pre-race, during the race and post-race. So it’s easy if there are some races in the summer months, they will be races born of proven organisational skills that will be able to put a human front on the field to manage a certain number of people and also with a discreet economic capacity to support the realisation of the event. So I don’t want to be either pessimistic or optimistic, but realistically, if the conditions are right and some organisers are able to take these steps, some races will be held. At least in those races that award titles, like an Italian Championship. I won’t go into the regulations but there is so much to say, starting from the time trial starts, individual or in steps, from the prohibition to stay in the slipstream with the athlete because the doplet during the slipstream is much longer than a metre, starting from all the pasta parties that should be forgotten, to the prize giving, to the briefing…

SIMONAAs an athlete I thought if one does a marathon it’s fine, but if I’m at Bertone and I do the Bertone-Bonatti, or any other path that is half a meter wide and with the overhang on the side, how can I overcome at 1-2 meters? it is impossible. è impossibile.

FULVIO I imagine an athlete who, in an important competition, finds himself in the slipstream, realises that he can overtake him because he has more, but he can’t! We have to calculate that the attitude of an elite athlete is much more sanguine than the one I could have, that is to say, I would get behind and I stay good until I have the possibility to overtake in safety, but an athlete who prepares a year just to be there on purpose to be in front of that other, how does he do? It’s embarrassing to think that at that moment you have to give up overtaking because you’re too much in the slipstream or because there are no safety spaces.

NBS do you want to declare something spontaneously?

FULVIO I would like to say that we must remember to train for the pleasure of running, to grow and improve! When there are competitions, it’s a good thing, but let’s not fossilise on that.

SIMONA Running, like doing any other sport, must be a passion, you must enjoy it, so it doesn’t matter if there is no race and you can’t wear the bib. I want to run and train, to measure myself, to follow the schedule even without a race. If you like running, if you like climbing, you do it regardless! Maybe it’s because I come from the mountains, from climbing and ski mountaineering, and there you don’t have a bib number: you go to the mountains out of passion and I have translated this attitude into running, so whether or not there is a race at the moment, I don’t care, I am motivated every morning anyway!

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