Team DLD Running Together Around the World from Bologna

A French Holiday That Changed Everything

It was a summer holiday in the South of France, and nobody was thinking about marathon training. A group of friends from Bologna had gathered somewhere along the French coastline in 2014, running casually along the shore in the early mornings, the kind of loose, unstructured movement that happens when you have nowhere particular to be. Nobody had a plan. Nobody had a race on the calendar. Then, somewhere between the sea air and the easy rhythm of running with people you genuinely like, someone suggested signing up for the New York City Marathon. The idea stuck. And so, without any formal founding moment or ceremony, Team DLD was born, out of a hashtag, a holiday, and a spontaneous decision that would shape the next decade of their lives. The name itself came not from a running tradition but from a social one. Team DLD grew out of a hashtag the group had been using for years before anyone laced up a race shoe, something that belonged first to parties and evenings out rather than to split times and training blocks. That origin matters. It tells you something essential about who these people are and what running means to them. It was never about performance or identity as athletes. It was about the continuity of a friendship, finding a new shared activity that could carry the same spirit of togetherness that had always defined the group. The hashtag became a crew name, and the crew name became a community.

From New York Back to Bologna

When the holiday ended and the friends returned to Bologna, the New York City Marathon was now a real commitment on the horizon. That meant training, and training together. The city's streets and parks became their preparation ground as the group built toward their first marathon as a unit. Nobody was chasing a personal best. The goal was collective, simply to get to the start line ready and to cross the finish line together. That first marathon did exactly what it was supposed to do. It gave the group a shared experience serious enough to bond them further, and casual enough to invite more people in. After New York, the running did not stop. Friends who had been watching from the sidelines, curious about the half marathon distance or simply looking for a reason to start running, began to join. The group grew organically, without recruitment drives or structured onboarding. People arrived because they knew someone, because they liked the atmosphere, because Team DLD felt less like a club and more like an extension of a social circle that had already been intact for years. That quality of ease, the sense that you are joining a group of friends rather than enrolling in a fitness programme, has remained the defining characteristic of everything Team DLD does.

Giardini Margherita, Twice a Week

Bologna is a city with strong neighbourhood loyalties, and Team DLD has made its home in the Giardini Margherita, the large public park that stretches across the southern part of the city centre. It is a place that Bolognesi know well: tree-lined paths, a small lake, families and students and elderly residents sharing the same green space across all four seasons. For Team DLD, it is the anchor point, the place where the crew gathers every Tuesday and Thursday at 18:30 and where the runs begin regardless of weather, season, or how busy the week has been. There is something grounding about a fixed meeting point. It removes friction. You do not need to check a map or confirm logistics. You know where to go and when, and that simplicity is part of what makes showing up feel easy rather than effortful. The Giardini Margherita suits Team DLD's character well. It is unpretentious and accessible, a democratic space in a city that prizes its public life. The Tuesday and Thursday rhythm gives the week a shape, a twice-weekly reminder that there are people expecting you, not in a pressured way, but in the way that good friendships create gentle accountability without anyone having to say so explicitly.

The Captains Who Keep It Moving

Three captains help steer the crew through its weekly runs and wider adventures. Niccolò, who was also among the founders who made the original call in France, continues to lead alongside Edoardo and Davide. The other co-founder, Bruno, was there at the very beginning on that French coast, one of the people whose enthusiasm turned a casual conversation into a decade-long commitment. Together, they represent a founding generation that never really handed anything off, because Team DLD was never structured enough for formal handovers. Leadership here is organic, earned through presence and investment rather than assigned by title. Around 15 members make up the crew today. That number is not large by the standards of some urban running groups, and that is intentional, even if it was never a deliberate policy. Team DLD stayed small because it grew through genuine personal connections rather than social media campaigns or open recruitment. Every person who runs with Team DLD today knows someone who was already there. That web of real relationships is what gives the group its texture, its ease, its ability to pick up mid-conversation on a Thursday evening as if no time has passed since the last run.

Running Together Around the World

The phrase the crew uses to describe themselves is telling: a group of friends that love to run together around the world. The emphasis falls not on the running but on the together, and not on any single city but on the world. From the very beginning, Team DLD's identity was tied to travel and shared experience rather than to any particular race calendar or local running circuit. The New York City Marathon was the starting point, but it was also a signal that this was a crew willing to go somewhere to run, not just to run as a means of getting somewhere. That spirit of collective adventure has continued to define the crew in the years since 2014. Whether it is a destination race, a trip that happens to include a morning run, or simply the twice-weekly gathering in the Giardini Margherita, the constant is the company. The distance is secondary. The pace is irrelevant. What matters is that the same people who ran along a beach in the South of France are still, years later, putting on their shoes and meeting each other in the same park, on the same evenings, in a city that has been home to their friendship long before running entered the picture.

No Times, No Pressure, Just Running

Team DLD's philosophy fits neatly into a single sentence, and they state it without apology: they do not care about time, they care about fun. In a running culture that can become heavily focused on data, splits, and personal records, that position is a quiet kind of rebellion. It does not mean the crew does not train seriously or that its members do not have individual goals. It means that when they are together, the collective experience takes precedence over individual metrics. You run at a pace that lets you talk. You wait for each other. You make sure nobody finishes alone. This philosophy is also what makes Team DLD genuinely accessible to people at different points in their running lives. Someone who has just decided to try running has as much a place in the group as someone preparing for their fifth marathon. The crew has absorbed both kinds of people naturally over the years, not because it actively positions itself as inclusive, but because when the priority is fun and friendship rather than performance, the barriers to entry fall away on their own. Bologna is a city that tends to value its social rituals, its aperitivo culture, its long tables and long evenings, and Team DLD carries that same instinct into the act of running. The run is just another form of being together.