For the last few years, I’ve basically used running marathons as an excuse to go somewhere nice. After taking on Lisbon, Amsterdam and Valencia (and giving up all hope of ever getting into London through the ballot again), this time I settled on Paris for my spring marathon.
With a short hop on the Eurostar, I arrived in Paris on the Friday and headed straight to the expo to pick up my race number, a vaguely useful running vest and not enough freebies for my liking. I hadn’t realised just how big the Paris Marathon is… at over 54,000 runners, it’s apparently the second biggest in the world.
It was 26 degrees in Paris on the Saturday. After a shakeout run in the Jardin du Luxembourg, I mooched around Le Marais until I realised I’d done over 20,000 steps and swiftly retreated back to my hotel to put my feet up. An early night was needed.
The race all started pretty smoothly. I was up at 6am sharp to try to eat as many carbs as my stomach could handle before jumping on the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. Bag drop was easy enough, then they had a much better wave system than I’d seen at any other big marathon – letting off small groups on each side of the road every couple of minutes rather than just sending people off in one go every 10-15 minutes.
The race plan was simple – don’t go off too fast and try to hold even splits. The first half went by swimmingly as I stuck to my pace. I was probably paying too much attention to sticking to the green racing line and not looking up enough to take in my surroundings. Around the halfway mark, I remember getting to the Château de Vincennes and thinking “oh, that’s nice!”. I then tried to keep my head up and take in the scenery a bit more. After all, running a marathon abroad is also a good chance to do some tourism.
I had been warned that Paris was a tricky course, especially towards the end. I didn’t find the notorious tunnels too bad, but that was probably because of the sheer number of supporters on the side of the road shouting “allez, allez, allez !”. The scenery also helped – the route takes you right past a lot of the major landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.
With 10km to go, I was feeling great. Maybe starting to tire a little bit, but I could afford to slow my pace down a tad and still hit my target. Then the hill came. A long drag at about 37km as you enter the Bois de Boulogne. Earlier in the race, I don’t think it would’ve caused too many problems. But at that stage, it sapped all energy out of me. I started to slow down and knew immediately sub 3 wasn’t going to happen this time.
The last 4km were a bit of a blur, apart from the seemingly endless cobbled sections. But again the crowds kept me going and I managed to cross the line in a time of 3:03:09.
So I just missed out on my target and was 5 minutes off my PB. But that’s fine. It was still a great experience and there’ll be other marathons (next up: Amsterdam again in October).
Yes, I was initially annoyed to miss out on my target (I imagine a few of you reading this will be getting the world’s tiniest violin out…). But it was still a great achievement and something I should be proud of. I’m also moving in the right direction and improved by 7 minutes on my previous marathon in Lisbon in October.
Marathons – and running in general – are also about more than times. The process of training does wonders for my mental health (something I have struggled with previously). I loved heading down to track most weeks and the Sunday long runs with a group of Harriers. The support and camaraderie was great.
Were there a few tweaks I could’ve made to improve my time? Probably. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is that you enjoy yourself.