ORover 320 kilometers to cover, running, in four stages, the equivalent of two marathons a day. He will travel them for In Extremis, from 4 to 7 July, in Norway, Ivana Di Martino53 years old, the Milanese athlete who for 10 years has combined his love for running and extraordinary sporting achievements with social commitment.
Ivana di Martino, the activist runner
In short, she is an “activist sportswoman” and her next challenge is clear: now, with time almost up, we must all do something to reduce the impact of climate change on the planet. Ivana, who is an ultra runner athlete?
«It is someone who runs more than the 42 kilometers and 195 meters of the marathon in a single race, the distance par excellence. Some people complete 60, 70, 80 even 100 a day. Then there are also 300 km competitions, in stages of course».
When did she become an ultra runner?
«I started doing athletics when I was eleven, I was a middle-distance runner, and I also took part in international competitions. Then I preferred to lighten my sporting commitment, to continue my studies until I graduated. In the meantime, after the age of 18, I began to lengthen distances, running marathons and half marathons. For me, running has always been the way to find new energy, evaluate and face problems with a different degree of lucidity. And it is the tool that has allowed me to find strength in the most complicated moments of my life».
Ivana Di Martino has been measuring herself in ultramarathon feats for 10 years to raise awareness of society’s hot topics.
Sport and a cause to fight for
When did you switch to combining sporting and social commitment?
«My athletic career has continued steadily through graduation, in social psychology, hiring in a company, marriage, pregnancies. After the birth of my third child, Caterina, at the age of forty, a heart problem occurred which forced me to stop for two years and for which I needed an operation. That was a very hard period for me, who finds freedom and mental energy in running.
I got out of it when I managed to set myself a goal: to be able to run all over Italy within a year. Having made the decision, I resigned, and I gave shape to the project which in 2013 saw me run 21 half marathons crossing all the Italian regions in support of the Double Defense association which fights gender-based violence.
It wasn’t easy at all to find sponsors for my venture, I received my sports eligibility 15 days before departure, but I managed to complete the project and get people talking about the problem of gender-based violence almost everywhere in Italy. I “attached to social media” and wrote to all the mayors of the localities touched by my journey to make the initiative known and to invite anyone who wanted to join me in the race. I believe that active participation helps to feel involved, to commit much more than what happens if you limit yourself to starting a donation from your mobile phone. It is this involvement that I look for in all my undertakings. Also for In extremis».
How do you choose the causes to fight for?
“It’s my way of reacting to situations in which I otherwise feel completely powerless. In 2014, I completed the Running for Kids enterprise for Terre Des Hommes from the Catania reception center to the Milan one. Also on that occasion 21 stops touching all the Italian regions to support the rights of migrant children in Italy. To invite Europe to fight food poverty, which affected 23 million minors in Europe in 2016, I traveled from Milan to Brussels in 13 days, supporting the Banco Alimentare.
In Extremis, a new venture
Why is his upcoming venture called “In Extremis”? And how do you participate this time?
«I will run two marathons a day moving from Alta to the North Cape, in Norway, to urge us to take drastic measures against the environmental risk that threatens us and which is almost no longer possible to avoid. By going to the Strava app, you can pool the kilometers that everyone wants to donate to bridge the 3,500 kilometers that separate Milan from Alta. The company has the patronage of the Municipality of Milan and you can also participate by donating a tree to the “virtual forest” that we want to create together with Treedom ( treedom.net) and which will be planted in various countries».
How will he reach Alta?
«It would be nice to answer that we will all travel by train. But who follows me – physiotherapist, driver, who accompanies me along the route by bicycle, etc., in short, my team is made up of people who do other jobs and cannot take too many days off to allocate to travel. I will probably go by train. The same problem arises for getting around Norway: you need a big car, because the physiotherapist must have the space to undergo the necessary muscle treatments after the race. It is not certain that you will be able to find an electric vehicle of this size. Then of course it will be an undertaking where we will not use anything plastic. But sustainability is a complex goal to achieve. If it were easy, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
Ivana di Martino: no boredom while running
How long does it take to prepare for an athletic performance like this?
«If I participate in many races, as in this period, I train by preparing for those. Otherwise it takes 6 months. It must be said that I am not racing against the clock, barring exceptions, and this is one less problem to deal with. And then it helps me to respect my effortless pace: if I can cover 10 kilometers in 55 minutes, I don’t get tired».
How does time pass while running?
“I never listen to music. First of all because in the race music through headphones is considered psychological doping, as it makes the mind less sensitive to physical effort. Then, the music muffles the noises of the external environment, and after having suffered violence at the end of a training session in 2014 in Milan, I feel more than ever the need to be vigilant of my surroundings. But I don’t get bored while running. I try my hand at some complicated and somewhat abstruse mathematical calculations. Or I think about a year, and try to bring back all the memories associated with that date. The day before yesterday I was concentrating on 1982 and, among others, the image of Pertini during the soccer World Cup final won by the Italian national team came to my mind. He jumps to his feet and fastens his jacket it had opened up in his eagerness. I saw it on TV.”
How did he react to the attack?
«From a psychological point of view, I asked for help from a mental coach. I took part in the support program that the Mangiagalli clinic in Milan offers to women victims of violence but I understood that I needed more. At that moment I wasn’t in a position to go back to what happened to get rid of it, as I was advised, but I had the need to project myself into the future. Which I did with this professional. From there I deepened my studies and today I too am a coaching professional. Since running is my privileged channel of expression, I then translated my desire to move from the darkness of violence to the light of resilience into a 700-kilometre undertaking, ReXistRun, in eight stages from darkness to light, that is, from the West of Ventimiglia, east of Muggia. It was perhaps the most tiring journey of all, but it was also an itinerary of rebirth and forgiveness”.
How much of your coaching skills do you bring to the competition?
I learned to visualize an image and I use all five senses to make this “vision” clearer and give it the strength to come true. After all, running is a sort of meditation, I repeat a certain phrase to myself and then I manage to reach the goal. After the first 50 kilometers your body abandons you: even if you’re very fit, you ache everywhere. If you bear the effort you have to go further, get there with your mind. And in the last 5 kilometres, your heart is needed, the only one that tells you: you have to get there».
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