Marathon de Paris

When I got home last night from the marathon it was all I could do to take a shower and crawl into bed, so the blog had to wait until today. Endorphins don't wait til you have an internet connection before fading, alas!

On Friday morning Vanessa and I headed up to Paris. The marathon wasn't until Sunday, so we had a couple days to sightsee before the race. We visited some museums on Friday and day-tripped to Chartres on Saturday, but details on that will have to wait for a later entry.

Since they don't mail out race numbers, I had to go by the Running Expo in order to pick mine up. After a long day of museum going and strolling the streets of Paris (probably a less-than-prudent idea considering I had an imminent 26 mile race, but oh well), we made our way down to Paris' Parc des Expositions. It was there I made the unfortunate discovery that you had to provide a medical certification from a doctor saying you were fit to run a marathon, which I hadn't even thought to bring since they're not necessary in the US. Thankfully I'd had one done in the fall, so in a panic I called my roommates to see if they could scan or fax it to me. An even better solution presented itself: my roommate Simon was coming up to Paris later that evening for work, so he brought it with him and I met him at the train station to pick it up.

Running Expo: Round Two on Saturday was more of a success. I was there early enough that there was no line, so I got in quickly and had some time to browse the various stands of running gear and promotions of future races. It really amused me to what degree wine and other famous French beverages were used to attract runners to upcoming marathons:


Beaujolais is a region just outside of Lyon known for its red wines; every year on the third Thursday of November, there's a celebration and tasting of Beaujolais Nouveau (or "new" Beaujolais), so called because it's fermented for just a few weeks before tasting. The Marathon de Beaujolais coincides with the release of the new wine, so of course this figures heavily into the promotion of the race. This all sounded lovely to me at the expo, but after running the marathon yesterday I couldn't imagine anything less pleasant than a dehydrating cup of wine...except maybe if someone had told me I had to keep running. The Marathon de Marseilles also jumped on the boozy bandwagon and used pastis, Marseilles' signature liqueur, to promote their race. Ricard is a specific brand of pastis that my roommates are especially fond of, though I'm not much of a fan of the cloudy, licorice-tasting drink.

Sunday morning came sooner than I might have liked, but by the time I was up and dressed I felt ready. Despite my usual aversion to eating before running, I knew it would be a bad idea to go into a four-hour race on an empty stomach and managed to get down some trail mix, fruit, and water before heading to the metro.

The beautifully organized expo gave me high hopes that the race itself would be similarly well thought-out, which I guess it was but for a few notable exceptions:

You might think that the marathon organizers would have realized that 40,000 hopefully well-hydrated people might need to empty their bladders at the last minute before attempting a three to five hour undertaking, and they'd indicated on the map of the start area with a little "WC" dot that there would be toilets in each of the eight start wave groups. And indeed the start map did not lie; there was a port-a-potty in each section. ONE. Eight toilets to serve 40,000 runners... you do the math. Having banked on being able to go pee after having downed a bunch of water in the hotel, I was greatly disheartened to see at least 50 people waiting on line to use one port-a-potty 15 minutes before the race. If I hadn't been in such full-bladdered agony I would have thought to take a picture, because it was a really funny sight.

I did at least have the presence of mind to ask a fellow runner to take a picture of me with my phone camera at the start line, and I also snapped a picture of the start on the way up to my time group's waiting area:



Back in idealistic October when I signed up for the race, I thought just doubling my best half-marathon time would be a good indicator of where I'd finish in a full marathon, and I signed myself up in the 4:00 time group. As the race approached, though, I realized that was perhaps not realistic and thought 4:15 or 4:30 was a more reasonable (if not still totally crazy because I had decided to run a marathon in the first place) goal. I still started with the 4:00 group, which worked out perfectly when I could stand it no more and had to run into a fancy hotel along the Rue de Rivoli about 10 minutes in to the race and ask to use their toilettes. Thankfully they obliged, and I ran out just in time to see a runner with a 4:15-pace banner flying.

Rather than do what I usually do during shorter races and expend my energy by starting too fast, I realized I had to consciously pace myself and decided to stick with the 4:15 group. The first half of the race passed quickly, and before I knew it we were passing the halfway point at 2 hours and 7 minutes (just one minute slower than my first Atlanta half-marathon time, which I thought was kind of cool). Up until the half-marathon point, I felt surprisingly great and was wondering if I maybe shouldn't be going faster, though I was soon disabused of this notion. No sooner had I crossed that point than fatigue began to set in, and by the time we were 2/3 done I knew I would be seriously hurting after.

I also made a point to stop every 5km (about 3 miles) for water and food, generally grabbing a handful of raisins and a bottle of water. They also were offering sugar cubes, bananas and orange slices, but I didn't want to take the time to stop and peel/eat the fruit, and pure sugar just wasn't appealing.

For once, having an iPhone was actually more of a hindrance than it was useful. I'm used to running while holding stuff, and I thought having my phone with me while listening to music would be convenient. I would have wanted my phone regardless in order to meet up with Vanessa afterwards, but listening to music turned out to be unneccesary given all the activity going on during the race. Every kilometer or two there were bands, drum circles, or stereos blaring music to motivate us, and the noise of the crowd was such that I could hardly hear my music anyway. Also, having a precious electronic device to protect really got in the way of wanting to pour water over my head or run through the water they were spraying on the course! I did give in to temptation once (you could even call it necessity, given how warm out it was), and so far the phone seems to have escaped unscathed.

Despite feeling progressively more and more fatigued, apparently I was still advancing as far as my placement in the race, at least according to the text messages Vanessa got about my splits at the half, 30km, and finish. I don't remember all the exact numbers, but of 40,000 runners I was around 22,000 at the half; around 20,000 at the 30km/18.5mi point; and I finished at 17,888. So I finished the top half! Considering only 19% of the runners were women, I'm pretty proud to have done so well.

There's a bit of a discrepancy about my final time; according to the chip/text sent to Vanessa I finished at 4:26, but according to my watch and the fact that I was ahead of the 4:15 pace groups, my time of 4:14:45 seems like it's right. Either way, I did it!

The fun was not quite over once I crossed the finish line. We were herded down the block to have our time chips cut off our shoes, then picked up t-shirts, water, powerade, and fruit. I hadn't made time for more than a couple handfuls of raisins during the race, but once it was over I must have devoured an orange or two's worth of slices in a matter of seconds, and my big bottle of powerade was long gone before I'd even managed to find Vanessa.

I felt during the whole race that we were really packed together; usually after the beginning of most races, people spread out a bit as some speed up and others slow down, but either due to France's narrow streets or just the sheer number of competitors, you had to be just as careful about watching your step at mile 1 as at mile 21. In fact about 20 minutes in (somewhere around the fourth kilometer), the race came to a dead standstill for about 30 seconds, and we only slowly got going again after that.

This only intensified after the race, which brings me to my only other complaint about the event -- the post-finish line set up was horribly arranged. Wanting only to get to the metro and sit down, I didn't dawdle at all once I'd grabbed some basic nourishments, and it still took 40 minutes to trudge a block and a half to find Vanessa. I guess central Paris doesn't have the convenience of being able to spread out the finish area in Piedmont Park like Atlanta does for the Peachtree, but even so, 40,000 sweaty, exhausted bodies (or at least 20,000 around when I finished) along with friends and family members they're trying to meet up with crammed into the space of a block and a half just seems like poor planning to me.

However, I eventually tracked down Vanessa and had her take a lovely sunburnt post-race picture of me, and we set off for the metro (after a brief stop for a candied apple for her and a hard-earned but unfinishable kebab for me). Our hotel was kind enough to let us leave our bags there in the morning after checking out, and they also let me use a washroom to change out of my now biohazardous running clothes and at least wash my face, though unfortunately (more for the world at large than for me particularly) I couldn't take a real shower until I got home to Saint-Etienne.

I wrote on facebook that the marathon was one of the most painfully wonderful things I'll never do again, which I think is true. It was a great experience, but I think one marathon in my life will suffice. Though there is a slight nagging voice in my head wondering if I could break 4 hours... but I'm going to ignore it for a good long while (at least until the idea of walking more than five steps doesn't fill me with abject horror :)

Thank you to everyone who supported me both during the race and while I was preparing for it!