Migidio Bourifa was born in Casablanca and grew up in Italy's Bergamo. As a distance runner he started out with distances of 5,000 metres to the marathon, but it was the marathon that awakened his passion. He is coached by Italian runner Massimo Magnani. Bourifa's personal best marathon is 2:09:07, which he achieved at the 2002 Paris Marathon.

Surely running and moving in nature are something we all love?! The marathon is the greatest challenge for me. It regularly takes my body to its limits. Of course, there are other, even longer and more extreme runs that pose a different, hard test of body and mind. The marathon, however, is a part of history. Maybe marathon runs therefore also have a more human and more authentic component.

I have been wearing X-Bionic for a few years now. The high-quality products ensure outstanding compression and perfect thermoregulation. I personally performed a combination training with the X-Bionic® Running Pants this winter. I started out at temperatures around 0 °C outside and then continued my training in the fitness studio on the treadmill at 20 °C. In spite of the transfer from warm to cold, I experienced no problems with the temperature fluctuations. I did not have the highly unpleasant feeling of overheating. I could therefore try out the unique product characteristics of X-BIONIC fully and can confirm that X-Bionic® turns sweat into energy!

You need to have a calm and considerate approach when planning marathon training. This is not about running all out. First, you need to plan the training macrophases, i.e. first check how many weeks you have until you want to start your marathon run. Generally, recreational athletes with basic running experience without any special marathon knowledge will need about 4 months for preparation, depending on their experience; beginners and first-time participants will need 6 months. If you have never run before, I suggest you plan on 8-12 months.

In the first training phase, you want to increase your aerobic stamina. Training is characterised by long runs, ideally 4 - 5 times per week. I believe that runs on level ground are particularly good for this. Later, you should plan on runs that are more diverse in distance, speed or slightly changing terrain.

In the second phase, the aerobic performance must be increased. This can be done very well by more intense training units with faster runs over a distance of 1000 to 5000m alternating with recovery periods of 2 – 3 minutes.

The last phase finally is dedicated to specific stamina. We simulate our marathon rhythms on route sections of 3 to 6 kilometres. We alternate them with sections of 1000 – 2000 metres at a lower running speed to recover our strength.

Here's an important piece of advice:
Before you participate in the main event, use 10km runs and half-marathons for test and training purposes.

Since clothing is important to me in addition to planning, I will gladly report on a training unit in Morocco in February 2011 (Ifrane 1750m). During a long-distance run, the weather suddenly changed from 12 °C to a snow storm. That day, I wore only the X-Bionic® Running Speed Shirt and the X-Bionic® Running SphereWind Jacket… This running combination alone kept my body temperature constant and protected me from the extreme cold/heat fluctuations. X-Bionic®-technology truly helps to improve my performance!

Your Migidio Bourifa
Running Specialist