10 Things I Think About The Campaccio XC 2026

1. €1 Espresso

I think Italy is great, what a great country, a country where coffee isn’t out of control. €1 for an espresso at a café just outside probably the best running park in a city anywhere, Parco Sempione. There was no Trevor to run with this time like I had done before Cinque Mulini, although he was still in Milan, managing a team of Great Islanders and introducing them to the joys of Hotel Poli and The Birra. I should be getting commission at this stage.

2. Straight Down Rain

I think that the rain in Italy is much better than the rain in Ireland. Italian rain comes straight down because there no wind, also because there is no wind it’s not even cold. The weather for the Campaccio weekend was nothing like the almost summery weather we got for Cinque Mulini in November. I was hoping for enough rain to turn the course into a mucky swamp like last year but unfortunately all we got was enough rain to make the course a little mucky and a little soft in places.

3. How Dare You

I think that I was horrified to see M40 on the envelope when I went to collect my number for the race. The Italians do things differently, along with banning juvenile athletes from wearing spikes, age categories are based on the year of birth not the actual date so being born in 1986 makes me M40 already which is terrible as I’m still only 39 and a half. The only good thing is if they let me run this year I still have 5 more years left which is great.

4. Burundian Warm Up

I think that it is worth going to these Gold Label XC races just to see how the real athletes prepare for the race. An hour before the race just as Rhona was getting ready for her race, the Burundian ON athletes were warming up with a most impressive, synchronized skipping routine. I can do the skips but not this type of skipping, this was next level skipping, no wonder they are so much better than us.

5. Zero Craic

I think that the best level of running is my level, the level where things like results and times don’t really matter and it is just from fun. There was very little craic in the warm up pen before we were brought to the start line. I tried talking to the Burundians in the ON kit but I got no response. So I moved on to David Nillson a Swedish runner with Puma who was probably the second oldest man in the race after me albeit with a slightly faster 2:10 marathon time. He was a little bit more responsive than the Burundians, then we were called up to the line for the real craic.

6. Lesson Learned

I think that the most important thing with running these cross country races in Italy is that you have to get out fast at the start otherwise the race is over. I think I learned the lesson a little too well though as after a few 100m in Campaccio I was not far off the top 20 and ahead of my Swedish 2:10 marathon runner friend. This didn’t last long and as soon as we hit the twists, hills and turns of the middle bit of the 2k lap I began to be passed and passed and passed some more until it felt like I was last.

7. Turn Right then Turn Right

I think that I need to remember that the Campaccio course has some unique challenges that other cross country courses don’t have, the middle of the 2k lap is a mixture of almost all right hand turns which is a terrible thing when you have a very bad right ankle like I do. It didn’t seem so bad last year when the course was 95% muck but in this less mucky edition it was proving very difficult, a difficulty that was amplified by my poor choice of footwear in the Dragonfly 2 instead of the Dragonfly XC although it’s almost a course where a trail running shoe would be the best choice.

8. Backwards

I think that it is an awful feeling to be passed by loads of runners. Everyone in Campaccio is really good at running, most of whom are probably doing double threshold and stuff like that, so any mistakes like going out too fast will be punished badly. A lot of people passed me over the first three of the five laps. The only advantage of going out fast was that it seemed very unlikely that I would end up lapped which is my main concern at these races anyway.

9. Francesco Meade

I think that I have done enough of these races now to have some enemies. It took until the second last lap for my enemy from Cinque Mulini, Francesco, to pass me. I had just beaten him back in November so I decided that he was going to be last person that was going to pass me. As I got to the end of my fourth lap I saw the Burundians on the other side of the course heading out on the last lap so I was sure of not being lapped which made me happy.

10. Hot Lemon Tea

I think that the best part of the Campaccio is the hot lemon tea in a special Campaccio mug with the masot on it that you get after finishing the race. I didn’t manage to catch Francesco but I did hold off everyone else by sprinting as hard as I could on the track which makes up the last 300m of the lap. I collected my hot tea said well done to Francesco and walked back over to my shoes where I explained to an women in Italian that her son would be fine with 9mm spikes. Then I went back for a second cup of tea.

1. The New Marathon

I think that cross country events like Cinque Mulini will eventually become the new marathons. Cross country races abroad are a far superior experience to marathons. Cheap flights (Ryanair), cheap four-star hotels with jacuzzi baths (Poli Hotel), no problem entering and a unique experience where you run through a few old houses. It’s only a matter of time. Trevor Cummins and Mark Gallagher have already been converted.

2. Milano Nord

I think that much like the marathon weekend it is important to have a shakeout run the day before. For our shakeout run we took in two venues, the incredibly cold but somehow ice free Milano Nord ParkRun for Mark and Rhona followed by a influencer style collab run by myself and Trevor around Parco Sempione which must be the best city centre park for running in the world.

3. Campione Trevor

I think that it was great to get to watch Trevor and Mark run in the masters race early in the morning on Sunday, they ran the same course as the international race, the only difference being three laps instead of four. Trevor who much like myself is experiencing new club fever ran like John Meade and ended up winning his age category. Not since Michael Herlihy beat me badly in a session a few months ago have I seen a man as happy as Trevor going up on the podium to receive his gold medal for first in the M40 moderately old man category.

4. Bravissima Rhona

I think that the great thing about international cross country races versus marathons is that a couple can both run and not need childminding to do so. It’s something that is rarely thought of in Ireland. Rhona’s race started after Trevor’s podium with two laps of the course which means two runs through the houses. The only reason I discovered the Cinque Mulini XC is Rhona, she had heard about the race where you run through the houses and had always wanted to do it, so was great to see her have bravissima and dai! shouted at her as she navigated the frosty course in the glorious November Italian sunshine.

5. Rules and Regulations

I think that I am very lucky to still be able to run the international race. Technically it is limited to non-moderately old men as you can’t enter online with a date of birth after 1990, luckily I am very good at reading all the clauses in the regulations and it said that if you could run under 33:00 for 10k you could enter as a moderately old man so I emailed them and was let in. I think it may also have helped that I ended up 96th in the World Cross Country Tour last year mainly because of the race in Castlegar, just ahead of Aregawi and Crippa.

6. Drills and Troy Parrott

I think that the warm up for these big international races is nearly the best part of the whole experience. Getting to see the elite Kenyans and Ethiopians doing their A,B,C skips while trying to do my own hobby jogger version of an A-skip is great fun. To make it even better I spotted a fella warming up in full Hungarian kit so I ran up behind him and whispered Troy Parrott in his ear. I was surprised to have him reply in a Dublin accent but it turns out that he is coached by Feidhlim Kelly so he caught the accent too. Istvan was his name, he beat me badly.

7. Great Sport

I think that running is the only sport where a total amateur like me gets to compete side by side with the best in the world. On the start line I was standing beside Iliass Aouani who had finished third in the World Championship marathon. I had been talking to him the day before at the elite athlete presentation as he was in college in America with Ryan Creech who he said was a legend which is correct. Anyway there is no other sport where this happens. It is unique, then the race started and I realized that there is a reason why this doesn’t happen in other sports as I wasn’t able to keep up.

8. Don’t Come Last

I think that when you are one of six moderately old men in a field of 100 youngfellas a lot of whom are Kenyans, Ethiopians and World Championship medallists the best you can hope for is not to come last. This was proving quite difficult initially as the race went off at a pace that I simply cannot run. Luckily for me there was a small bit of muck at the far side of the course which slowed them down a little bit allowing me to gain a good bit of a buffer from the tail end of the field.

9. Trevor in the Houses

I think that running through the houses is every bit as good as it looks. It never gets old, I would happily run this race forever it is so perfect and great. The first time through the house there was even a bit of a traffic jam which meant that I had to stop and wait for the backlog of runners to clear. Then on the last few laps I spotted Trevor who had somehow snuck into the area around the houses which is not for spectators, this was very good for me as he managed to take some rare video footage of a tall moderately old man like me navigating the houses expertly.

10. 81st

I think that I did very well to finish 81st out of the 100 starters despite being the second oldest man in the race. The fact that there was an older man than me running in the race is great because it probably means I can run it again next year. The fella that won it Amanuel from Eritrea was born in 2007, 21 years later than me which is very scary but also great. Once finished I collected my nice cup of hot lemon tea and returned to the nice hotel before a nice pizza and some wine at the other reason that this is a far better weekend than any marathon TheBirra. Everyone should run Cinque Mulini, it is the Boston Marathon of cross country races.