Our running adventure guides and founders
Cristina and I, Pablo, we truly live our passion for our trail running adventures. We’ve built NomaTrails from scratch, you know, right from the ground up, fueled by a simple idea: running isn’t just about speed or medals. For us, it’s about real connection to the land and to each other. If you’ve got questions, please contact us. We love to chat about this stuff, really.
Running Beyond Racing: The True Meaning of Running
January 1, 2018 by Pablo Rodriguez and Laura Schwecherl
Chi Running, Costa Brava, Runner Testimonial
What is Running Really About? Running Beyond Racing Limits
We’re all missing the point sometimes, aren’t we? There’s a reason we lace up, and it’s not always to make fools of ourselves in front of our buddies. For us at NomaTrails, it’s about getting back to the roots, moving through the world the way our ancestors did – exploring, discovering, truly seeing the land. This is the heart of running beyond racing.
I’m going to make a statement: wake up, runners! Don’t you feel like hamsters in a wheel sometimes?
I recognized that training for a long race wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. The stress of devoting so much time on a single race was too much for me to bear. I liked running for the majority of my adolescence, but marathon training ruined that love.
I’m not out on the road to prove anything to anyone, including myself. I simply do it because it is a part of who I am.
Is running equal to racing, or is there something else? What truly makes runners “equal”? Often, it’s their excuses about why they didn’t get a better time in their last marathon. I’ve seen it countless times, and honestly, it breaks my heart a little. We’re so focused on the clock, we forget the experience — the wind on your face, the dirt underfoot. That’s what really matters, isn’t it?
There are a lot of people who train for a marathon and secretly despise it.
After years of complete sedentarism, I decided to start running again in 2005. My perspective on running back then was much like most people’s: running equals racing. So, I started training for a half marathon in Budapest. As part of that preparation, I even competed in a mountain race, climbing up and down a mountain. It was… fine, I guess, but it wasn’t it yet. I felt this pull, a craving for something more, something deeper than just beating a clock or a personal best. I wanted to understand the true meaning of running.
The World is Waiting When Running Beyond Racing is Your Goal
We’re not about speed here. If you can run a marathon in under two hours, that’s fantastic! But that’s not our focus. For us, running isn’t about speed; it’s about something far better: exploring the world. We use our bodies as a means of transportation, just legs, lungs, and heart, carrying us to incredible places (that’s how my family, Cristina and our kids, and I have always done it, you know). This philosophy, this idea of running beyond racing, it’s the very heart of NomaTrails. We don’t just run; we traverse territories, discovering new places every single day, just like our ancestors did. It’s an exploration, a way to truly connect with the earth beneath our feet. This is how we push past the idea that racing limits running, and find true freedom.
Take Sicily, for example. Our guide, Pasquale Mangione, he talks about it with such passion. We’ll start right by the sea, then we push inland, through the beautiful, rural heart of the island. Imagine passing through these old mountain villages, not climbing the peaks directly, but weaving through the valleys, finding those “weak points” in the terrain, as Pasquale says. From there, we drop back down towards the sea, maybe sleeping in a place like Isnello, where you can practically see the water from your window. Then, another stretch takes us above Cefalù, a town that just drips with history. The coast there, it just plunges into the sea – it’s incredibly dramatic. Sometimes, the land is just too rugged, too wild, and we have to jump in a vehicle for a quick transfer, a necessary evil, I suppose. But even then, it’s just a short hop to Cefalù for a well-deserved swim in the Mediterranean. It’s not about the clock; it’s about the stories we collect and the salt spray on your face.
Stop Making Excuses – Find Your Own Path
There’s no point in comparing yourself to others, or even to your past self. We all have our own path, and that’s okay. We’ve seen people come on our trips, sometimes couples who were struggling, and they leave completely changed. I remember one couple on a Costa Rica trip; they were married, but not to each other. By the next year, they were married to each other! (Yes, it really happened, and we couldn’t believe it either.) It sounds wild, but these trips, they really do change you. They strip away the noise and bring you back to what’s real. That’s the power of leaving the idea that racing limits running behind.
It’s about the Adventure, stupid!
It’s not about how fast you get there, but how you experience it. It’s about the feeling of the sun-baked earth under your feet, the taste of a shared meal with new friends, the deep conversations that happen when you’re truly present, away from the clock. That’s what we chase when we talk about running beyond racing.
At a certain point in our lives, we all become a little slower, that’s just how it is, but our resistance increases, and it stays that way for many years. Running is the most human activity of all, and it has nothing to do with competing. It’s about being truly in the moment. I remember one morning in Morocco, waking up at 3 AM in the desert. We ran for two hours, just Abdu and me, through the soft sand, under a sky so full of stars it felt like you could touch every single one, a million glittering diamonds. Then, we stopped, just as the sun began to paint the horizon. That sunrise, after two hours of moving in the quiet darkness, it was a moment I’ll never forget. That’s the kind of moment we create for our small groups.
Using this incredible ability to transport our body through running, moving point to point, it’s a true gift, a blessing of nature. We’ve been doing this for 12 years here in the Costa Brava, exploring every limestone path and feeling the Tramuntana wind push us on. Denying ourselves the possibility of going out there and truly enjoying the world because we’re obsessed with improving a mark in a competition – often on terrain our bodies weren’t designed to work on – that’s just immense nonsense, isn’t it? Especially considering that this obsession often leads to injuries that could end our ability to run altogether. We need to respect our bodies and the natural world, and rediscover the joy of running beyond racing.
