Sunday, April 7, 2013

Marathon de Paris

OK, so it's not actually 2013 as I'm writing this, but I wanted to put a race report out there for people who might be curious...

So, back to 2013. My husband was going to Paris for work in April, and I was planning to tag along, so we already had a hotel booked and plane tickets. I did the GHS half marathon with my sister and some friends on March 7. It' s a point-to-point race, so we carpooled to the start, and on the way one of the guys who was also going to Paris for the same meeting as Brad mentioned that he was doing the Paris Marathon while we were there. Never having done a full marathon (and maybe never intending to), I immediately asked if they had a half. They do, but it's not the same weekend.

So, after the race I got online and checked into the marathon. Sure enough, it was on Sunday, April 7. Luckily, even though the meeting finished on Friday the 5th, we were planning to fly home on Monday the 8th (note to the naïve like me - it's probably not ideal to plan an 8-9 hour flight the day after your first marathon... just a thought). Also luckily, our hotel was about a mile from the start/finish. It doesn't start and finish in exact same spot, but they're only about 0.2 miles apart and we were near both (second note - the Hôtel Concorde Lafayette is very convenient, but maybe not affordable if you're not there for a big corporate meeting). Unluckily, since the race was only 4 weeks away, they had already closed registration. I couldn't stop thinking about it though. I knew that I would be disappointed to be there and see all the marathon stuff and not be doing it, so I looked up other options to get entry slots. They have charity slots (have to raise 600 €... ouch) and travel agency slots. One of the travel agencies, Sports Tours International out of the UK, had a thing on their website about how they were out of the packages including hotel and/or airfare, but they still had race entry only packages - perfect! Important note to Americans (maybe any non-French) - in order to do a running race in France, you have to have a doctor's note. There's information about it on the Marathon de Paris website, but since we're not used to looking for it I just wanted to point it out.

So I was signed up and just needed to train. 4 weeks to go from a half to a full is ambitious. Maybe insane. So I googled something like 4 week marathon training plan and found this: http://www.menshealth.co.uk/fitness/cardio-exercise/emergency-marathon-training-plan . Counting the half marathon, I actually had 1 week more than this plan was made for, so I planned out my long runs. After the half, I had 3 Saturdays before the one that was race weekend. So for those 3 Saturdays I did 16, 20, and back down to 10ish to "taper."  The 20 mile run was hard, but I didn't have to walk. I figured even if I had to walk the last 6.2 I could finish before the cutoff and get my finisher medal.

Before I knew it we were on a plane headed for France. We got there early Wednesday morning and took the Air France bus to the hotel (definitely the best balance of cost and convenience if you happen to be staying near one of their stops. We dropped out bags off at the hotel and headed out to sightsee (typically flights from the US get to Paris early in the morning and you get to the hotel before check-in so most hotels are good about storing luggage). We've found that keeping moving helps with jetlag. We stopped for some pastries (pain au chocolat and croissant aux amandes...) and walked to the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs-Elysées. Then we headed over to Notre Dame - my grandmother had passed away a few months before (she was Catholic and her mother had come to the US from Paris... in fact, I think her mother was baptized at Notre Dame), and I wanted to light a candle for her and one for her mother like she always did. After walking around and placing the candles, we decided we wanted to do the tour of their towers since we hadn't done that.




After Notre Dame, we walked back to our hotel. We made sure to go by the finish line to see the first signs of the marathon preparations and to decide where we would meet post-race since our phones wouldn't work.

The Michelin meetings started on Thursday, so I hung out with Sarah, another Michelin wife whose husband was attending the meetings. She had wanted to go to Paris for years and finally got to tag along with her husband (she's a teacher, but the meetings were during the week of spring break, so it was perfect timing). They had been all over most of the city and seen a lot of the museums, but she hadn't been up to Sacre Coeur yet so we went there first. I had started feeling like I had a cold, but I wasn't going to waste a day in Paris!
After Sacre Coeur, we went to the Rodin museum. Sarah had already been, but I had always wanted to see it and she could get in free with her museum pass, so she indulged me.
 A quick stop by the Eiffel Tower...
... and on to the Expo! This was easily the biggest expo I'd ever been to and Sarah took lots of pictures for me and waited patiently while I got my bib and shopped a little.
On Friday, the meetings ended around lunch time. I was still feeling sick, so I had gotten some Nyquil and Dayquil from Sarah and decided just to sleep in and rest. Once everyone got back, we went out to lunch and explored some more. Sarah's husband, Daniel, really wanted to see one of the Statue of Liberty replicas (there are a few replicas and the original model in Paris since the statue itself was a gift to the US from France), so we went to the Jardin du Luxembourg first. I think this one is the original model, but I don't remember for sure.

 After that we just walked around Paris, stopping for pictures (and chocolate!).
Since we saw one Statue of Liberty, I really wanted to go see the other. It's on an island in the Seine (Ile aux Cygnes), at the very end of the island near the Pont du Grenelle in the western part of Paris. I wanted this picture with the Statue of Liberty replica and the Eiffel Tower. :)
And of course, every time I'm in Paris I like to see the Eiffel Tower twinkle at least once. They do this every hour on the hour, so it's a little tricky to get the timing right but so worth it.
On Saturday, I didn't want to walk too much, so we took the metro to Place de la Concorde and visited the Orangerie since it's smaller than most of the museums in France. The main galleries house 8 (I think) HUGE paintings by Monet, and then there are a few galleries downstairs as well. After the Orangerie we bought some macarons and headed back to the room to rest.
After a nap, we went back up to Montmarte so Brad could see it and then went to dinner at a Moroccan restaurant. Carb-loading with couscous works just fine. ;)
Morning came early on race day. Even though it was only about a mile to the start, we decided to take the metro to save my legs. It was cold, too.
I want you to notice how many people there are! There were around 40,000 runners, and of course lots of spectators at the start too. My ONLY criticism of race logistics is that there were ~5000+ runners per corral and only 1 portajohn per corral. We got there early, but I was still in line when the race started. Unfortunately, Brad had gone up to try to get a picture of me starting, so I had no way of telling him that I started ~30 minutes after the 4:15 pace group that I'd planned to stay with.
Once I got started, I was feeling pretty good. Obviously one of the best parts about doing this race is that you're running past all the sights of Paris, which makes the miles go by much faster. A very cool benefit of the race was that the website had .mp3 files you could download for your target pace that mix music (nothing I'd ever heard before) with tourist info ("on your left is the Louvre...")  and coaching info ("aid station coming up, make sure to eat..."). I was making good time and staying a little ahead of my pace .mp3 and hoping that I'd either catch the 4:15 pacers (stupid, I should have known there was no way) or see Brad soon. Another cool thing they did is that the metro gave out cards that told spectators what train to take to where as well as when and how long to wait in order to follow people who are targeting a certain time, so I knew where I might see him. Unfortunately, he left the first place before I got there, and he got a little turned around coming out of the metro station the 2nd place (they have multiple exits onto different streets), so I didn't see him until around mile 10... which means I went out WAY too fast.

So, back to the course. You see ALL of Paris. And it's relatively flat. At the beginning, you run down the Champs-Elysees, past the Louvre, to Bastille and out of the city proper into the Bois de Vincennes. The route loops around on the east side of Paris and comes back in parallel to the way we went out. Close to Notre Dame, you take a left turn to go down closer to the Seine and actually run on the sidewalks/roads right on the shore for a big portion of the race, passing Notre Dame and eventually the Eiffel Tower. The crowd support is excellent throughout, but especially in this part that's really in the heart of the city. There were even firefighters with their ladder truck around mile 13 with a sign that said "les pompiers sont avec vous" ("the firefighters are with you") - I didn't get a picture of them (though I took approximately 1000 pictures during the race), but I found one (and lots of other great pictures) - here: http://www.team-bittel.de/team/Veranstaltungen_2010/20100411_pAris_2_int.htm (these are from 2011, but you get the idea).

I did finally see Brad around mile 10, so I was able to give him my hat and gloves and explain to him that I was later than planned, which allowed him to get the timing right to take this picture. Honestly I would have been a little disappointed to have done the Paris marathon and not get a picture with the Eiffel Tower. :)
Now is probably a good time to talk about the aid stations, because the one at Trocadero (somewhere around mile 18) is the first one I took full advantage of. Be warned, the French are not into sports drinks/gels. If you want anything artificial, bring it yourself. The aid stations mostly had water, bananas, oranges, raisins and sugar cubes. Yes, sugar cubes. I went with it. The only sports drink (Powerade, I think) was at the halfway mark.

The last few miles are in the Bois de Bologne. I was really starting to feel my lack of training and decided after mile 20 to alternate run 2 km / walk 1 km for the rest of the race. It worked for the most part. Finally, finally I made the turn onto Ave Foch and saw the finish. Hooray! In the finisher chute you got your medal and your finisher shirt (it says "finisher" on it, so they don't give it out in advance like other races).
Once I found Brad and took a few more pictures, we went off to find food. I had my heart set on crepes, but the restaurant I had carefully picked out and dragged Brad all the way to was closed. Lots of restaurants in France are closed on Sundays, so it's smart to check. After way too much walking when all I wanted to do was eat and sleep, I did get my crepe.
After a nap and a shower, we wanted to find something to do that I could sit down for. The solution: sunset boat ride on the Seine!


Definitely a great race and I'm glad it was my first marathon.