700 runners from all over Campania and even from outside the region are expected at the starting line on Sunday, February 4 for the 11th edition of the "Stabiaequa" race organized by the "Stabiaequa Half Marathon" association chaired by Andrea Fontanella with the patronage of the CONI, the Municipality of Vico Equense, the UISP (Italian Union of Sports for All), the I.S.I.S. "Francesco De Gennaro" and with the collaboration of the Municipality of Castellammare di Stabia.
The departure, for the first time from Vico Equense instead of Castellammare di Stabia, is scheduled for 8.30 am at Piazzale Siani. The athletes, after a short circuit going up along Via Filangieri, Piazza Umberto I, Via Roma, Via Nicotera, will descend along Via Luigi De Feo and then walk along Via Luigi Serio and then onto the Sorrento State Road towards Castellammare di Stabia.
The entrance into the City of Waters is from Via Guglielmo Acton to continue on Via Brin, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Via De Gasperi, turn onto Via del Marinaio which represents the halfway point before entering the Stabia seafront and returning to Vico Equense.
"We are very pleased - explains Andrea Fontanella, president of the Stabiaequa Half Marathon association - that this year hundreds of athletes have believed in our event, which has become a fixed appointment for professionals and amateurs. This confirms the high level of appreciation that our race enjoys among runners well beyond regional borders. To them goes my most sincere "good luck" for the competition. A 10-mile (16.093 km) course, shorter than the usual half marathon of past editions, to be run with the sea view with Capri, Ischia and Vesuvius in the background, bordering invaluable natural assets such as the protected marine area of the Banco di Santa Croce and the fossil site of Capo d'Orlando. But the shorter length corresponds to greater difficulty: the departure towards Castellammare will indeed be downhill, the arrival (and return to Vico) uphill, as the SS.145, in that stretch, reaches slopes of up to 12%. A variable that runners will have to take into account to manage their forces well and finish the race. The scenario remains the same, the Sorrento State Road in the kilometers that mark the entrance to the coast which has always been one of the favorite places for athletes and amateurs for training. A stretch of road designated to host the "Route of the Olympians", a protected cycle-pedestrian path already funded for 5 million euros and which takes its name from the fact that rowing champions such as the Abbagnale brothers and Francesco Esposito or athletics such as Alfredo Norvello have always chosen it for their training.
At the end of the race, the awards will be held in Piazzale Siani: the first 5 male and female athletes overall will be awarded, in addition to the first 5 male and 3 female in the UISP categories. All participants will instead be given the medal with the effigy of the Church of SS. Annunziata, symbol of the City of Vico Equense as a memory of participation but above all of a day dedicated to sport, friendship, aggregation and psychophysical well-being.