My wonderful Paris (marathon) experience

After the Boston marathon yesterday, I thought to tell you how I 'survived' the Paris marathon. It has been over a week now since I passed the finish line. The 26.2 miles, in increasingly hot weather, all started out in November when David suggested to run in Paris on April 10, 2011.

I thought that was a great idea, running past all the great Paris monuments and visit Paris again, enough time to prepare and it would be fun to run another race with David, my US race buddy. Unfortunately, David had to cancel on the race as his sister was due to deliver her first child which eventually happened a few days ago. Welcome to the world, Madison!

The Preparations
It would be training during winter time. Normally that would mean lots of wind, rain, maybe some snow, cold, with maybe extremes. And then, late November, it started to snow, heavily ... and the snow stayed as the temperatures dropped below freezing. And then three weeks later, it snowed again, heavily ... same thing, temperatures stayed below freezing so for over four weeks, I actually trained in a white landscape. Just beautiful!

For January and February, it was cold, gray, sometimes sunny and in late February, early March it became increasingly windy and I discovered with my height and weight that THAT is really not fun weather to run in. But, I was lucky, I could finish up my training with a nice 33k run in beautiful weather and a wonderful 21k race in DC.

Then it was the last two weeks and suddenly I felt these little pains. In my calf, in my shin .... And I realized, there is nothing worse than running a 2nd marathon. The first one, you can only win (simply by starting and running it). The second one you have to proof the first one was not just luck and of course you want to beat the time you ran in the first one (especially because you trained so hard) .... And ... after all that training on my own, I now had to run the race itself all on my own with no one to cheer me on or wait for me at the finish line (this is the reason I will now run my next marathon in Amsterdam!)

Paris, here I come!
I had not been to Paris for I honestly don't know how many years (somewhere between 8 and 10, I guess). I contacted a former classmate of mine from SAIS and on the Friday I arrived (by Thalys as with only two and a half hours from Rotterdam to Paris there is no better way these days) we met up and she suggested to go to Auvers-sur-Oise, the small village where Vincent van Gogh painted in his last years, committed suicide and where his grave, and that of his brother, can be found. We visited the auberge he stayed in, walked through the little town and saw some of the monuments and landscapes you can find in his paintings.

The dining room of his auberge is still in use as a restaurant. They serve meals as Van Gogh had in his days based on recipes they found from that time. We ate an hard-boiled egg in wine sauce as a starter, a beef and lamb casserole as a main course, and then a red fruit dessert. Such a wonderful idea to offer a taste of Van Gogh's time. It was also great catching up with my former classmate.

The Saturday I took it easy, walked to the Sacre Coeur, visited le Jardin de Luxembourg (still my favourite) and went to bed early, and then, race day!!

Paris Monument Day
In the morning I went out, just to see what clothes to wear. The forecast was warm and sunny and as we were starting rather late (8.45am) we would be finished (or at least, I would :-) way past mid-day. It was clearly weather for a short-sleeve shirt, already at 7am ... After running months in freezing to close to freezing weather, running a race in, let's say, HOT weather, is not such a splendid thing.

40,000 people had registered and in the end over 32,000 people started. It took me 18 minutes to pass the starting line and then we were off! Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, Les Tuileries, Place de la Bastille, Chateau de Vincennes and then back along the Seine, Notre Dame, and La Tour Eiffel. I actually thought I might miss that one as we passed underground most of the time along the Seine (through those tunnnels where Lady Di had her fatal car accident) but then, just before we reached the Eiffel Tower we got above ground again. Just beautiful! That was at the 29km point ... another 13km (7.5miles) to go ... very hard miles.

By that time, temperature had reached 77 degrees. Just after the 40k (25 miles) mark, I saw a man lying on the ground, passed out. So close to the finish line, such a shame. From 35km it got really difficult but I brought my music and played Keane's 'Somewhere only we know' over and over again (one beat, one step) for the last 7km. It had the right beat for my running and so I made it in 4:26:48 which was 11 minutes faster than my first marathon. It is far off of that 4 hour mark that I want to dive under in Amsterdam but ... as many have already suggested, I need to do way more interval training (NOT my favourite!). So that will be on my plate for this summer.

The Afterglow
I am still on a cloud over this marathon. I was in severe pain for three days after (upper legs mostly), of course able, but preferring NOT to walk stairs, sit down or stand up. Yesterday, I did my first run again, a 3-miler which went sooooo easy. I'll take it easy for a while now, do some more biking as I did this past Saturday as everything is blooming and blossoming here right now and there is still a lot to discover in this region. And of course, the weather is wonderful until Easter!

I wish you all a wonderful sunny week!

Rose