sam and the city

The paris marathon run down

Good day faithful readers. Well the Marathon de Paris has now been run and won, and I'm happy to say I was one of the successful finishers, crossing the line in a time of 3:47:01. This time put me in 12,019th place, or just outside the top third of the field, which I was quite happy with. Prior to starting the race I had hoped to finish in around 3:45:00, so missing this by only 2 minutes is certainly nothing to complain about.

The start of the race was phenomenal! Standing amongst 35,000 other people, all about to challenge themselves over 42km, it was amazing! On a different note, I also discovered how you deal with the ever present problem of needing a nervous pee on the start line... however, for purposes of good taste I won't go into details. Let me just say that it doesn't involve visiting the portaloos, where the lines are so long that the first runners would be crossing the finish line before you sat your bum on the seat.

Somehow or other I managed to leave half of my energy gels in my bag at the start line, so I was very happy that the organisers had taken it upon themselves to provide bananas, oranges and water at regular intervals along the route. The statistics they quote are: 87tons of oranges, a similar amount bananas, 400,000 bottles of water! Unsurprisingly this resulted in a huge amount of rubbish along the course. They were obviously prepared though because by the time that I returned to the Champs Elysees it was totally clear with traffic flowing as per normal.

The race itself went by very quickly thanks largely to the fact that you spend the entire time surrounded by hundreds of people, taking your mind off the kilometers. Definitely the most memorable part though, unsurprisingly, was the finish. The final 4-5kms of the course are largely run through the Bois de Boulogne, only popping out onto the Avenue de Foch (the finishing straight and one of the roads leading to the Arc de Triomphe) for the last 400-500m.

You come around the corner onto the Avenue de Foch, look up the road and see the finish line and just beyond it the Arc. With such a motivational sight and with the crowds yelling there is nothing you can do but give it everything you've got all the way to the line. It's a sad thing trying to sprint on legs that have just run 42km, but you do all you can and when you finally reach the line it feels amazing!

Now, what's my next challenge going to be?

posted by sam @ 11:52 pm