La Mezza di Cremona

La Mezza di Cremona, often shortened to LMC, is a road half marathon certified by FIDAL and listed on the national calendar of the Italian athletics federation. Organised by the Triathlon Cremona Stradivari club under the patronage of the town council, it was born in 2026 with the aim of giving Cremona, in Lombardy, a competitive race over road running's benchmark distance. It is now held in spring, on a Sunday in mid-April, and is surrounded by two non-competitive runs and an expo village that turn the event into a city-wide celebration of sport.

The 21.097 km half marathon starts at 9:00 from Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and finishes in Piazza Stradivari, at the foot of the Torrazzo. The first part winds through the historic centre past the main monuments, then the course heads to the banks of the Po and the more open areas around the city, where the faster second half offers views of Cremona's skyline for several kilometres. The profile is flat and well suited to fast times. The 10.2 km Stracremona and the 6 km Family Run start at the same time, behind the competitive field, with the Stracremona following the first part of the route; they are open to everyone, running or walking, with no medical certificate required.

The competitive race, capped at 1,600 entrants, is open to FIDAL members and to Runcard or Runcard EPS holders with a medical certificate for athletics. Runners start in pens based on their declared time, pacers cover targets from 1:25 to 2:10 in five-minute steps, and the three-hour time limit gives slower runners plenty of margin. That makes it a good fit both for chasing a personal best and for a first half marathon, while the two shorter distances let families and beginners share the same morning.

Cremona is the city of the violin: Antonio Stradivari, the Amati and the Guarneri families founded a violin-making tradition here that is listed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage and is still carried on by dozens of workshops. Piazza del Comune brings together the cathedral, the baptistery and the Torrazzo, one of the tallest brick bell towers in Europe, which towers over the finish line. Running here means going from medieval lanes to the wide open spaces of the Po plain in just a few kilometres, in a city built on a human scale.

On the practical side, bibs, the technical T-shirt and the race pack are collected in Piazza Stradivari on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday morning until 8:30. Changing rooms and a free bag drop are set up in the same square, and showers are available at the Barbieri gym on Via XI Febbraio, a few hundred metres away. The course has five aid stations and two sponge points, refreshments await at the finish and every finisher receives a medal. Online registration stays open until a week before the race; for the non-competitive runs, entries remain possible for a few more days at partner shops, without timing chips.