Disclaimer – If my writing seems odd, it’s not only because I’m a weirdo, but because English is not my native language. I just want to share my thoughts with other audiences and even though the page translator does a sometimes decent job, I like to practice my english! 😉
Enjoy!
April-2013
For the record: both of us signed in for this race right after the NYC marathon cancellation. Then he got injured. Then it was February already and we hadn’t trained one.single.day since October so… Flying to Paris was really for sightseeing and enjoying good food and not at all for racing :/… And I said to the Pro: “I won’t race. If you want, I can go and cheer for you“ .
I always stick by my guns.
Ok, well…maybe not always… A few days later I agreed to start the race -just to experience being among 40,000 people at the start line as a preparation for NYC.
Two weeks before our trip I said “OK, let’s run/ walk the 26.2 miles…!”.
And there we went….. shameless people..!
Average temperatures in Paris for April were supposed to be around 56-60 F but this year they were much cooler, 55F at the most…
You wouldn’t have guessed a huge marathon was going to be held because there weren’t any signs or anything else on the streets announcing it. Just some gates pilled up in some corners.
EXPO.
Very well organised. We arrived a few minutes before it opened so we just waited a few minutes to get in for the bib pickup. Nothing really useful in the goody bag, the only good thing was the plastic poncho for the early morning.
You are supposed to do some carbo-loading for a couple of days before a marathon, right? Well we tried. We really did. But we couldn’t. (Restaurants with pasta in their menus were either closed or did not had pasta at all!) Maybe we had bad luck, I don’t know. No ‘marathoner menu’ anywhere… The very last night we ended up eating anything but pasta at La Fouquet. Anyway, eating out in Paris is insanely delicious.
Race Day.
Sunday morning was freezing but sunny which later on became a stunningly beautiful day.
We had breakfast in the room, early enough to digest it and get dressed.
The start line was on in Champs Elysees at 8:45 am, pretty near any centrally located hotel, so you don’t have to get up so early. It only took us about 5 to 10 minutes to walk to our starting corral.
Volunteers checked that everyone got in the right one.
There weren’t many runners around yet so I decided to make the line to use the porta-potty.
I was waiting there (there was ONLY ONE in each corral; crazy, right?) the whole time until 30 sec (literally) before the shot of the gun!
Good news for the men: there was this kind of… ‘carrousel’ urinal…lol
I had never seen anything like that before. (I thought I took a picture of it but I can’t find it so, after looking arround in the web I finally found a picture of it:
Apparently, these are very popular in some european cities… No way!
Pretty disgusting but functional… It took like 5 minutes for the Pro to use it…I wished I was a guy…!
As a result of the lack of porta-potties, women -and some men too- were ‘doing their stuff’ everywhere, like…. Around the cubicle. On the curb. Next to me. OMG!!!
The runner’s guide suggested to enter the corral 20 minutes before the start but didn’t mentioned when they would close them: so, close to start time many runners literally had to climb the gates (they were pretty high- higher than me!) to get in!
The corrals were split in half -left and right- by barricades and once one half left, the other half would go on.
One odd thing was having cars parked along the first miles.
There weren’t many expectators there; I guess French people get up late in sundays… 😉
The course was very flat for the most part and cobblestones were never an issue.
Energy drink is only provided once throughout the race, and no gels. You’ve got water and food stations – oranges, bananas, raisins and sugar – ….only every 5 km.
I wonder why they’re believed to be tight-fisted… 😛
Porta-potties along the course, again very very few, which caused people stopped anywhere; the park was a popular place for these matters… I took a walk around a bush, too.
This was also where the least spectator were cheering -if there was any. It got a little boring for a while.
Running out of the park, and then along the Seine was really wonderful. This is when the french had already gotten up from bed and had had a big cup of coffee showed they were really supporting the runners. They even cheered you by your name (which was printed in our bibs)
Then the course went through a tunnel (where Lady Di died) and several under passes; I guess that’s what made my IT band angry 😦
People along this portion of the course were amazing!
The course narrowed at times when spectators pushed in.
I took my iPod with me that day but curiously I didn’t even care. I never felt like using it. There were lots of bands along the 26 miles to keep you entertained. Like this one playing Tell it Like it is.
Finally the last 8k through another park, the crowds thinned out again.
The Pro was struggling with his leg so he asked me to go on by myself -since I was still ‘strong’….but not for long… 
A few km ahead my right leg IT band was giving me a hard time to the point I had to walk more than I could run. I was soooo mad! I wished I stayed with the Pro……
Basically, I had three choices:
1- Run backwards. WRONG. No way!
2- I stop and wait for him: WRONG. If I do stop I won’t be able to walk again.
3- I go on and wait for him at the finish line. RIGHT.
And that’s what I did.
That straight portion through the park seemed never ending; I was pissed because of my leg not letting me run and where the heck was that #$%& finish line?!
And all of a sudden a lady told me “it just around the corner”. I thought ‘yeah, right’ -someone else told me the same like one mile ago…–
And there it was: the arc in front of me, still not that close but in sight!
And I felt like crying. A few tears came down my cheeks; it was so overwhelming.
With a few minutes difference, we finished in around 6 hs!!!…..
But we did finished!!! And that was highly rewarding.
They installed those pads 300 meters from the finish line, to calculate the energy generated by the 40,000 runners in action. They estimated it was able to light up the Eiffel Tower for 2 hours!
We got a finisher technical T-shirt and a hooded poncho.
And the long-awaited medal!!!
There were lots of food and beverage vendors after the finish area…even bbq which I’m not sure if it was the optimal post-race meal but…WTH! We were starving, and after six hours of struggling those grease sausages were begging to be eaten!
The most important thing for us was finishing the race and getting the medals!!!
The Pro, wanted to take a cab -of course he did!- but I refused suggested it would be better for us to walk to the hotel, since it was a short walk…which seemed to be hundreds of blocks long
Would I run it again? Absolutely! So much history along the course to admire makes this marathon -my very first one- an unforgettable experience!
xoxo
Who was there too?
Did you like it?
*{nota: esta version en español la estoy escribiendo en Febrero de 2018…asi que básicamente voy a traducir, ya muchos detalles se me han olvidado.}
Para que quede claro, los dos (el Pro y yo) nos anotamos después que se canceló la maratón de New York del 2012. Yo estaba re-caliente y me quería anotar ya ya ya mismo en otra carrera. Paso el tiempo, el Pro se lesionó el gemelo, después nos fuimos de vacaciones y nadie entrenó. Nada. Cero. Pero el viaje ya estaba pago y planeado. Y la verdad hacia mucho tiempo que teníamos ganas de conocer Paris, así que el no haber entrenado la verdad no me preocupo en lo mas mínimo. Yo le dije al Pro: “yo no voy a correr, si quieres vos hace y yo te aliento desde afuera”.
Y como soy una mujer de palabra…Unos días mas tarde estuve de acuerdo con solo largar, principalmente para entender lo que es largar en medio de 40,000 personas, como preparación para la maratón de New York que haríamos en Noviembre de ese año.
Y ya unos dias antes de viajar, finalmente me entregué y dije: “ok, hagamos como sea, así tengamos que caminar los 42k”. Y así fue como de muy cara duras la hicimos.
La temperatura promedio en Paris para ess dias suele ser entre 13 y 15 grados C, pero este año estaban en los 12 de máxima…
No parecia que una maratona de semejantes características (40,000 corredores) se iba a llevar a cabo en la ciudad porque no había ni un cartel de publicidad en ningún lado. Solo algunas vallas apiladas en algunas esquinas la noche anterior.
EXPO.
Muy bien organizada. Nosotros llegamos unos minutos antes de que abriese así que esperamos un poco afuera. Nada realmente util en La Bolsa del kit, excepto por el poncho plástico (técnicamente una bolsa de basura más fashion) para la mañana.
Very well organised. We arrived a few minutes before it opened so we just waited a few minutes to get in for the bib pickup. Nothing really useful in the goody bag, the only good thing was the plastic poncho for the early morning.
You are supposed to do some carbo-loading for a couple of days before a marathon, right? Well we tried. We really did. But we couldn’t. (Restaurants with pasta in their menus were either closed or did not had pasta at all!) Maybe we had bad luck, I don’t know. No ‘marathoner menu’ anywhere… The very last night we ended up eating anything but pasta at La Fouquet. Anyway, eating out in Paris is insanely delicious.
Rode for a While and then Some 