We woke this morning to a gigantic noise of parade drums, crowds and an endless, amplified Italian commentary just outside our apartment. It turns out, we are staying only a few steps from the colorful finish line of a major Italian marathon that was today.

 The celebration began with drummers and marchers in Renaissance finery, holding flags that would line the red-carpet finish. Marathon runners (42.195km) would come after the 10k and 21k half-marathoners, thousands of runners, all getting ribboned medals. Local TV covered it. Disco music blared. Along with runners and spectators were hundreds of staff in t-shirts that read “Sieme correre,” Running together, connecting this race with its support of awareness and agencies supporting people with disabilities.

It’s called the ColleMar-athon, a play on “colle” (hill) and “mare” (sea) since it was the 20^th running from the hill-country town of Barachi to the Adriatic city of Fano. It’s a beautiful course through ancient little villages, woods, vineyards and olive groves.

It’s also along where the historic Via Flaminia brought the chariots of the Roman Empire to one of its destinations, Fanum Fortunae. That became Fano, the town where we’re staying, in an Airbnb called Casa Fortuna.

It was hard to take it all in, surprised by the size, excitement and incomprehensible Italian commentary. A large screen showed live Go-Pro video of runners off in the country or small towns of the Marche, with a digital time indicator that matched the digital clock at the finish line. I didn’t understand how the first runners could be coming in at 45 minutes, though I later learn this was for the 10 k runners.

Doing the math later, I see this pace would be a 3:17 marathon. I have to convert km to miles.

The conversion that made my head spin, though, was seeing 21^st century world-class runners coming through a 2000-year-old Arch of Augustus on centuries-old cobblestones. When I ran on those a few days ago, it hurt my ankles.

From here, I’m translating the account in the local edition of Il Resto di Carlino to report the results.

After eight years, an Italian won. Carmine Buccilli, a 41-year-old from Frosinone, came in with a long lead and a time of 2:27:54. Buccilli is a renowned ultramarathon runner, boasting two victories in the 50km Pistoia-Abetone, four in the ‘Strasimeno’ (58km), and several victories over the 42km and 195m distance, where he holds a personal best of 2 hours and 16 minutes, set in Rotterdam. His was a solo run, the result of a very fast pace from the start. At 10 km he already had a one and a half minute lead over a pair of opponents — the Moroccan Youness Zitouni (winner of the last 4 editions of the ColleMar-athon) and Matteo Lucchese.

The women’s winner, Croatian Marija Vrajic, born in 1976, clocked 3 hours, 6 minutes, and 8 seconds. Unlike Buccilli, she was already familiar with the ColleMar-athon, having won it four times in the past, from 2011 to 2014.

In the half marathon, Gian Marco Bertini of Fano won the men’s race, finishing in 1:16:09. Chiara Camporesi of Dinamo Sport dominated the women’s race, finishing in 1:29:10. In the men’s 10k, Luca Jannuzzo of Podistica Torino took first place, ahead of Andrea Fiorani of Fano and Lorenzo Boinega of Atletica Urbania. In the women’s race, Giulia Morbidelli won, beating Federica Lorenzini and Monia Palazzesi.

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