The open day on 21 November
The open day is a single one-hour session, free of charge, on Saturday 21 November 2026 from 9:00 to 10:00 at Parco Fausto Noce in Olbia. Its purpose, the organiser says, is to explain the project, meet the coach and find the right group for each person. No running experience is needed.
Places are requested through a short form on the project's page, which asks only for a name and a mobile number used on WhatsApp. Di Marzio then replies personally on WhatsApp with the exact meeting point in the park. The privacy notice says the number is used only for the open day and the group sessions, is not used for newsletters or advertising, and is deleted within 30 days of the open day for anyone who does not join.
Two Saturday groups from 5 December
Level 1, Camminata (walking), 8:00 to 9:00: brisk walking, walking technique, posture and arm use, strength, joint mobility and coordination. The page says no running is done in this group.
Level 2, OpenLab, 9:00 to 10:00: starts from brisk walking, moves on to alternating walking and running, then to continuous running, with running technique and strength work.
In December the groups meet on 5, 12 and 19 December; there is no session on 26 December. People in Level 1 can stay there as long as they like or move up to Level 2 when they are ready. Each week the coach also suggests at least one session to do alone, two depending on level, with instructions sent through a group chat.
Who runs it
Marco Di Marzio describes himself on the project page as a certified athletic trainer and an instructor specialised in running technique. His main website, DimaTraining, says he is certified by sports promotion bodies recognised by CONI, the Italian Olympic Committee, and that he specialises in coaching amateur cyclists over 40. It gives Loiri Porto San Paolo as his base in Sardinia. A photo caption on the project page says he has organised group sessions in Olbia before.
What the page does not say
The page gives no price for the weekly groups, no maximum group size, no age limits and no plan for bad weather. On 5 November, a red-alert day for Gallura, Olbia closed Parco Fausto Noce along with the city's schools and cemeteries. The organiser advises anyone with a known medical condition, or taking medication, to speak to their doctor before starting.
Why a walking group
The World Health Organization recommends that adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week, and estimates that 31% of the world's adults, 1.8 billion people, are physically inactive. In Sardinia, ISTAT data published by Sport e Salute show that in 2024 33.3% of people aged three and over did no sport or physical activity in their free time, against 33.2% in Italy as a whole; Sport e Salute says it is the first time the island has been substantially in line with the national average. Another 32.1% of Sardinians did some physical activity without playing a sport, compared with 28.9% nationally, and 26.8% played sport regularly, against 28.6% in Italy.
A note on the numbers
The Sardinian figures come from ISTAT's annual survey of daily life (Aspetti della vita quotidiana) for 2024, as published in Sport e Salute's 2025 regional sheet. They are self-reported, cover free time only and include children from the age of three, so they are not a measure of adults alone. The WHO figures are global. The health benefits listed on the Olbia Gooo Lab page are the organiser's own summary of WHO, American Diabetes Association and ISS material; we have not assessed them.
The park is described in our guide to Parco Fausto Noce.
Illustration: AI-generated with ChatGPT and marked with the EU "AI generated" icon. It does not show the real group, the coach or the park.
Sources: Olbia Gooo Lab, Marco Di Marzio · Olbia Gooo Lab privacy notice, 7 November 2026 · DimaTraining, Marco Di Marzio · World Health Organization, physical activity fact sheet · Sport e Salute, Scheda Regionale 2025 Sardegna (ISTAT data, 2024) · Sardinia Blog, 4 November 2026
Related reading
Elsewhere on Sardinia Blog: the red alert that closed Olbia's schools and parks on 5 November; the home telemedicine scheme for 1,410 Sardinians over 80; and the Storie di un attimo photography festival running in Olbia until 15 November.
Sardinia Blog is published within the Rental12 ecosystem, a business that lets homes it owns in Olbia and Golfo Aranci. Its own guide to spending the winter in Sardinia and its press archive are company statements, not independent evidence.
