Paris Marathon - Race Report

So. Paris, eh? Magnificent city and glorious weather, but unfortunately little time for sightseeing. On our arrival late on Saturday morning, we headed straight to the 'expo' at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre to pick up my race number, and were greeted with the longest queue in the world ever. It snaked out of the exhibition hall for maybe 800 yards and was at least four-a-breadth from start to end. Heads down, we joined the back and murmured about how disorderly and un-British the whole set-up was. But despite my innate pessimism and general grumpiness, it only took 25 minutes or so to reach the front. We got my number, bypassed all the pointless commercial nonsense that was thrust in our faces and made our way to our hotel (about 5 minutes from the marathon starting area!) to check in.

I started my carb-loading early. Club sandwich -- that French classic -- and a side order of fries for lunch. Went down very nicely indeed. A bit of mooching around in the mid afternoon and then a rendezvous (see what I did there?) with a couple of my good friends who happened to be in the capital. Tagliatelle carbonara and garlic bread for dinner and back to the hotel in time for a decent night's sleep. Or so we thought.

I drifted off at about 11:45 p.m. and then woke up again dazed and confused at 2 a.m. At least five or six cars on the street below were beeping almost continuously. What the hell was going on? An accident? A fire? Nope. Just a traffic jam. And the French way of dealing with that, much like the Belgian way I might add, is to hold down your horn and not let go. Because that's bound to solve it. Bear with me because I'm not finished ranting yet. Once we were awake, we couldn't help but notice the thudding bass practically shaking the light fittings out of our room. Probably some numpty in a Renault 5 with speakers bigger than family-sized pizzas, I thought. But in actual fact, it was the night club next door. Super. I went to reception and explained to the concierge that I was getting up to run a marathon in another four hours but was told my room was as far away from the noise as you could get. Helpfully, he offered me some cotton wool to fashion earplugs out of. Cheers, frog features. Exhausted, I managed to get another measly hour's sleep, making a grand total of three hours for the night.

After breakfast and another argument with reception, I staggered like a zombie to the starting area and waited for the gun, which may as well have been fully loaded and pointing right at me given how I felt. Let's just focus on the task in hand, I thought. A bit more waffle from the announcers and we were away.

Four weeks beforehand I had started a half marathon too fast and crumbled. There was no way I would take that risk with a marathon. I didn't fancy running 20 miles with a stitch. To hit my target time of 3h 15m, I would need to average precisely 7m 27s per mile, so I thought I would start conservatively and run just the other side of 7m 30s per mile for the first few markers. The 3h 15m pacesetters were just ahead of me. I would keep them in sight for at least another 13 miles, then I would never see them again.

The Paris Marathon felt to me like two entirely different half marathons, something which my GPS data seemed to corroborate. For the first 13 miles I felt good, if a little tight around the calves. I chatted with a couple of other runners and took on fluids where the opportunity arose. It was fine. In fact, the first half of the race flew by (if not literally, then at least in my head). According to my Garmin, I had hit the halfway mark in 1h 38m. Not bad at all, and if I could find a spurt from somewhere later on, then I was more or less on track. Easier said than done, of course, but at this point I still felt pretty optimistic.

Then something happened at about mile 16. Someone stole my legs and replaced them with concrete blocks. Bollards! I wasn't counting on this. Heart: fine. Lungs: OK. Come on legs! Wake up! Then I noticed the heat. Who turned up the sun?! I looked at my Garmin and did a few sums. If I could average 8 mins/mile, I might still come in under 3h 20m, beating my PB by four minutes. At least that was the plan. But every mile turned into a complete slog. I was desperately trying to keep dehydration at bay and ignore the rigamortis setting in from the waist down. I must have taken in about a 1.5 litres of water and, in one case, Powerade (not my choice -- that stuff is like liquid candy floss!). But it was no good. I felt like a train running out of steam, a clockwork mouse running out of... clocks? I felt tired.

The more I moved the goalposts, the worse I got, and so I was constantly setting myself new targets. In the end, it became a matter of finishing. I can't emphasise enough how hard the last 4 miles or so were. No fuel in the tank at all. Apart from the lack of sleep and the heat, I can only put my performance down to one other thing: not enough long runs. Training had all been a bit rushed, and I just wasn't prepared enough. Cramp set in 300 yards from the end I hobbled over the line in just over 3h 30m. It didn't help that I had strayed from the racing 'line' and added another 0.2 miles to my total distance. I was hugely disappointed and upset, but at least I'd made it. Official results aren't out yet, but see my GPS data here.