“At New Balance, we believe running is much more than simple performance: it is connection, reflection, and sharing.” There is something profoundly Roman — and perhaps profoundly human — in the words of Bruno Laroque, Senior Director of Brand Marketing EMEA: the idea of pausing to reflect, in a city that has always been synonymous with layers of time, of ruins, of different life paths.

In Rome, during marathon weekend, everything seems to move in a single direction: the finish line. Streets are closed, thoughts narrow, the body enters that suspended zone in which every gesture begins to measure itself against the anticipation of starting. And yet, at the heart of this collective tension, New Balance chose to create a space that moved in the opposite direction: not toward acceleration, but toward pause; not toward urgency, but toward care.

For the Rome Marathon 2026, the brand transformed the historic Corsie Sistine into the New Balance Run House, restoring this place for three days to its primordial function, carrying it across the centuries without losing its meaning: to regenerate and to heal. Overlooking the banks of Tevere river, this Renaissance hall was built as one of the first municipal hospitals in the world. A place born for bodily care and for the necessity of recovery. To bring it back today into the world of running is a gesture that is not merely scenographic, but symbolic: a reminder that running, before performance, is a relationship with one’s own body. And that every body, in order to go far, needs to listen to itself.

An event designed to suggest a broader vision of running: a practice that does not end with the stopwatch, that does not coincide only with race day, but includes everything that surrounds it — preparation, recovery, conversation, the presence of others. Principles made tangible through workshops, immersive experiences, and community runs that shaped an ecosystem where sport, culture, and belonging coexist.

By returning the Corsie Sistine to their original function, New Balance did not simply reopen a historic space: it reactivated its memory. Demonstrating that a place conceived for care can still speak to the present, even within contemporary running culture. And that perhaps true innovation today lies not only in making a runner faster, but in reminding them that taking care of oneself is an integral part of movement.