The history of the chimney sweep running in the Sahara

With the legs on rooftops and chimney pots, but with his head already into desert: Mario Paonessa, the chimney sweep from Cadegliano Viconago, wants to become a legend. After the last-year-successful undertaking when he reached the Val Vigezzo, running for 75 km to remind the efforts that his colleagues used to make many years ago, in few days, the trial will be a little more difficult: running for 22 hours through the Tunisian desert. The run is called “100 km into Sahara”, but this year it will be no-stop: no stages for the race which year by year, used to last one week.

“I will leave Varese with a group of friends. I am in a team with the 61-year-old Roberto Pezzini, from Atletica Verbano too, with the strength of a 30-year-old man. But with us will leave also Stefano Ruzza, (one of the favourites) and Raffaele Brattoli, who already joined extreme races, of 250km too”.

The race will start next Friday at 5 p.m. The extreme athletes will run during the night with temperatures from 10 to 15 degrees.

“To train, we have run during the night. Our last training, some days ago, consisted of running around the Lake of Lugano: we left in the evening for a 54km route”.

How is the idea of running such a marathon born? 

“It comes from the desire to undertake an extreme venture. In the past I have already taken part in races in drastic conditions. Two years ago I crossed the line of the Chott Marathon, in a salty lake in the Northern Africa: at that time they were 42 kilometres, this time they will be more than the double.”

But is it more important to win or to participate? “The important thing is to arrive: I never made comparisons with competitions of this kind: the preparation aims to arrive within 22 hours and to enter the classification table.”

What will you bring with you during the competition? “The regulation provides one litre and a half of water, a survival kit of 1500 calories, a whistle, a swiss army knife, a chemical lamp, and a k-way, nothing more.” In the route there will be one rest stop every 20 kilometres, but the competition won’t certainly be a joke “even if here we have the desert in the blood”, says Mario, ready to lace up his shoes.

The way will follow the old course of the 100 kilometres of the Sahara in laps, those that, during the past 10 years was theatre of many challenges, the track that join the natural oasis from Chenini to Ksar Ghilane: the peculiarity of this path is that, for the most part, it winds up into clay track, but in the last 15 kilometres the runners must make their way through sandy dunes. The competition in stages is nothing new for the efforts of the athletes from Varese: last year Vittore Angelini, veterinarian, participated in the "100 kilometres of the Sahara" at the beginning of March; a fan of triathlon and marathon, he tried the experience of the "extreme racing" that he told to Varesenews.