Even when practiced together, as in a classic relay, running often remains an intimate gesture, an inner dialogue unfolding step after step. On the night of Wednesday, April 8, it became something else. No less personal, but more collective. Horizontal, yet crossed by a new vertical force made of light, pressure, timing and shared momentum.

From the On flagship store on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II to San Babila, an 800-metre circuit transformed one of the city’s most iconic streets into a living loop of acceleration and trust. 120 runners, 30 teams divided into 2 waves, took over the center of Milan. Four runners per team — two women and two men — alternated from sundown onward, passing a luminous baton from hand to hand, lap after lap, as if what was being transferred was not only speed, but stored energy. At the end of every loop, that energy was collected inside a totem, slowly filling it, making visible what usually remains invisible: effort built together. At the end of this special race, the ‘Ready 2 Run’ crew proved to be the one capable of generating the most movement, and therefore the most charge; a performance worth more than a victory, stamping their special passport with the mark that secured them access to the Barcelona stop of the On Squad Race.

A race deeply contemporary in its structure, and ancient at once. The relay is one of the oldest collective forms in the sporting landscape; here, it was rewritten through the energy of the city’s running communities. The baton lit up. The totem named the winners. The route became an urban ritual. And Milan discovered a version of running no longer concerned only with personal pace, but with the transmission of communal energy.

This kinetic flow began with the new On Cloudmonster 3, a shoe designed to enhance propulsion and rhythm, tested not in abstraction but in the electric reality of urban competition. What remains is not simply a race, but a city temporarily reorganized around a different idea of movement: running as a collective voltage.

As the official media partner of the Milan event, Athleta Magazine was there to document this transformation through an original photo series and firsthand accounts from some of the runners that took part in the race, who told us how running can stop being mere performance and become, for a few intense hours, a shared source of kinetic energy.

The On Squad Mission format turns energy into something visible, through the passing of a luminous baton and the filling of the totem. As a runner, when do you truly feel that your energy stops belonging only to you and becomes collective?

Eugenio Solari, Running Rebels: “Absolutely. The very concept of the relay, in general, is exactly this: often you run alone, but then the final result is the sum of the effort of every participant. And that’s a beautiful thing. As far as I’m concerned, it also speaks very clearly to the meaning of sport and to what we’re experiencing in Milan today with the running communities: things are done together. Sport — and running, in this case — is something you live together. The effort may remain individual, but the goal is shared.”

Aurora Motti, Off Road: “From my point of view, there was an incredible transmission of energy with my teammates, also because we already knew each other and we were a very close-knit team. Every time we passed the baton, and even just by looking into each other’s eyes through the fatigue, you could clearly feel that exchange. That was definitely the greatest return of energy. Of course, the shoe also helped a lot from the start, and it performed brilliantly throughout the race. I was running in the Cloudmonster 3 Hyper, so from that point of view I felt very good. But the strongest energy, without a doubt, is the one your teammates give you.”

Luca Liuzzi, On Ambassador: “I’d say it’s definitely when energy becomes group energy. The beautiful thing is that, in the end, for each of us there were two key moments: when you gave the baton and when you received it. But even more beautiful, at least the way we experienced it, was the fact that we were always trying to encourage each other even during the turns. Every time you came past the beginning or the end of the circuit, you felt that your teammate was still there with you. It was like experiencing fatigue together with energy. In a format like this, with 800-metre legs, short but intense, you almost feel as if you never really stop. At a certain point, you enter a kind of competitive trance. It was really something very powerful, but also very enjoyable to experience.”

Alessandro Lotta, Ready 2 Run: “It was a beautiful experience, also because it was so different from every other race I’ve done — and also from the ones my teammates have done. Running here, in the middle of the crowd, in Milan, with the Duomo in the background, is something truly incredible. Then the cheering from the crowd made everything even more fun. And relays are beautiful for exactly this reason: you’re not competing only for yourself, but for others as well. All of these elements together made the evening truly magnificent.”

Running in a relay means trusting in other people’s rhythm as much as your own. In a race like this, how much does the relationship with the team matter compared to pure individual performance?

Eugenio Solari, Running Rebels: “It matters in a fundamental way — I’d say it’s everything. In fact, even in the way we put together the relay teams we brought tonight, the idea was precisely to bring our community. We are people who know each other, who over time have become friends precisely through the Running Rebels, through the Milan running community. And that, in a race like this, makes an enormous difference.”

Aurora Motti, Off Road: “Trust is everything. In our case, it was already there beforehand: I had absolutely no doubts about my teammates. In my opinion, the last person in the relay is also the one carrying a little more weight on their shoulders, because that’s the runner everyone ends up relying on. But yes, the trust in my teammates was total. I was the one who selected the team and, beyond performance and therefore each person’s pace — which of course I knew — I paid a great deal of attention to spirit as well, to the way people are together, to truly feeling part of a team.”

Luca Liuzzi, On Ambassador: “It matters enormously. And there’s almost a parallel with everyday life. I’m thinking, for example, of the neutral exchange zone: you can choose whether to move closer first, whether to take the baton immediately or a little later, whether to accompany for a few steps the person passing it to you or the one receiving it. You have to adapt. Of course, you trust the other person, you know you have to meet at that point, but then you also have to move toward them, understand how you can help them based on the energy you have in that moment. That’s why, to me, it’s a beautiful parallel with daily life: there is trust, but there is also the ability to meet each other halfway.”

Alessandro Lotta, Ready 2 Run: “It was very fun, in the sense that giving your all for others as well makes everything more intense: you put even more into it. On top of that, even before the race, we were a little undecided about who should start first and who should go later. In the end, it was all fairly casual: we mixed up the bibs and decided at random. But then each of us gave the maximum of what we could give, precisely for the team.”

Running today is increasingly also a communal language — of belonging, crews, urban ritual. Do you think events like this make deeper truths of contemporary running visible?

Eugenio Solari, Running Rebels: “Personally, I believe these are the events that truly create community. Of course, there are also events where you go for an easy run, spend time together, have something to drink, and that’s it. But here there is something more. There’s a bit of competitiveness, which in my opinion never hurts. There’s the fact of living through moments where you cheer for others, where you are together in a slightly different way, and from that a great hype is generated. For me, this kind of format — where there’s a strong mix of the brand side, the community side and the competitive side — is exactly the kind of event that works. These are the right events, the ones I personally like the most.”

Aurora Motti, Off Road: “In every team you could feel a truly unique grit. Seeing this mass of people all driven toward one single goal, pushing themselves to the very last drop of sweat, was incredibly powerful. It was something highly motivational, but also very fun. Because beyond having squeezed every bit of energy out of ourselves, we were all genuinely so happy, thrilled to be experiencing such a unique atmosphere.”

Luca Liuzzi, On Ambassador: “I do triathlon and I often train alone because, when you practice three different sports, between timing, work and organization, it’s not always easy to do otherwise. But when I come here, to initiatives like this, or even to the Wednesday evening running club here at On, it’s a completely different energy. You might arrive after a long day, tired, and then suddenly you feel recharged. You see someone, you share emotions, experiences, you stop even just to exchange a couple of thoughts. Maybe you go for a run and, while you’re running, you’re already making plans for the next one. It’s contagious. You know that appointment is there and, even if you’re tired, you don’t postpone it, because you know someone is waiting for you. And that, to me, is where the most beautiful and most powerful part of doing sport really emerges.”

Alessandro Lotta, Ready 2 Run: “More and more groups are forming, and even tonight I saw so many crews. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it. I come from a small town, and even there these realities are starting to emerge, but here you can feel it even more strongly. It’s almost becoming fashionable, I’d say, and in my opinion that’s a good thing. Because promoting sport is always positive, and not necessarily only in terms of performance. It’s good for being together, for staying healthy, for sharing quality time.”

On Squad Mission made it possible to run at night in the center of Milan, on a circuit powered by shared energy. What kind of feeling does that leave you with compared to a more traditional course?

Eugenio Solari, Running Rebels: “Actually, this is the first time I’ve run in a situation like this, although being part of a crew and a run club, I had already seen many events like it. They are very fun experiences, very particular. You run in the middle of people, there’s also a certain degree of risk, there are shouts, people’s reactions — who, to be fair, have every right to find themselves caught in the middle of it. Then, of course, running between San Babila and the Duomo has something special about it. It’s fun, certainly very challenging, and it leaves you with a very different feeling from that of a more traditional course.”

Aurora Motti, Off Road: “My team was called Offroad because we’re a group of trail runners, so this isn’t exactly our usual environment. Of course, since we all live in the city, we run here often, almost every day. But the team was conceived this way precisely because our real comfort zone is the trails. That said, running here — in an area that is familiar to us — and seeing it so empty, so completely dedicated to the race, was something truly unique. I don’t think I’ll ever see it again this full of people and yet at the same time so charged with motivation, adrenaline and energy. So yes, for me it was a truly unique moment.”

Luca Liuzzi, On Ambassador: “A city night run, with the Duomo just a few steps away and on one of the most beautiful and recognizable streets even from a tourist point of view, was something beautiful. But perhaps, even more than the setting itself, the most powerful thing was being among all those people. The curious onlookers, the cheering, the other runners: everything contributed to creating a special atmosphere. It’s an emotion that in other contexts — I’m thinking, for example, of an athletics track — you don’t feel in quite the same way. Here there was the setting, yes, but above all there was the warmth of the people, the curiosity, the cheering. There were people high-fiving you even if they weren’t there specifically for the race, but were simply out for a walk. It left me with a profound emotion.”

Alessandro Lotta, Ready 2 Run: “The setting makes everything even more incredible. Usually this place is crowded with people, and I would never expect to be able to run a race like this, in this context. And yet, thanks to this event — thanks to On, which gave us the chance to live an experience you would normally never have — it became possible. And for that very reason, it was something truly beautiful.”