The Paris Marathon 2009: Mile 2 to Mile 6
I’ve never been to Paris before and I don’t know the streets very well. What I know now is that the Rue de Rivoli is a very, very long street, where the course continued for over two miles. Looking back, the Paris Marathon had several of these long stretches, where there were virtually no corners or turns. At the beginning of a marathon this doesn’t really bother me, I was too busy admiring the fabulous period architecture, but nearer the end, you need those turns and corners to make it feel like you’re making progress and getting closer towards the finish.
Since I’ve never been to Paris, nor do I know it very well, what I didn’t realise was that the Rue de Rivoli runs behind some of Paris’ most famous buildings – the Louvre, the Tuileries gardens and the City Hall. There was plenty of support from bystanders, some Parisians were even game enough to shout “Allez Simon!” (Go Simon!) because my name was printed on my bib. It all contributed to the great atmosphere at the start of the race, helped along by the thousands of other runners that were still running past us.
At the end of the Rue de Rivoli, the tall buildings open out onto one of Paris’ squares, this one being the Place de la Bastille, with a huge column in the middle of it. This was also significant because it was the first refreshments stop. The Paris Marathon is the first one I’ve run where food (orange segments, bananas, raisins and sugar cubes) was offered as well as drinks, but because I hadn’t eaten anything but energy gels during training, I didn’t take any food. Instead I just took my first bottle of water.
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- Running past the Hotel de Ville, Paris
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- Approaching the Place de la Bastille
Now I’m used to running through water stations, but the pacemaker slowed to walking pace whilst going the water stations and this time, I reluctantly did so as well. The intensity of my training for the marathon and how exhausted it left me, as well as the fact I took a three week holiday in the middle of my training meant I wasn’t trying for a personal best this time, but moreover, I wanted to make sure I completed the marathon comfortably, rather than like in Dublin last year, where I felt I nearly killed myself finishing it.
I didn’t feel like I needed to walk through the water stations, but I recognise now that it was a part of the negative split strategy – taking a short walking break to allow a little recovery and preserve energy.
I’d run a little far ahead of the pacemaker, so I slowed down until the group caught me up again. The course followed another side street of Paris, the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, to the next Place, the Place de la Nation. Around this huge roundabout was another station, this time handing out sponges. Hundreds, maybe thousands of filthy, discarded sponges littered the ground. I didn’t take one this time because I didn’t feel like I needed it.
The course then continued down the Avenue du Trône, though I didn’t see the two columns, because they were both covered in scaffolding and on for another kilometre down the opposite side of a busy main road. It was quite boring running down the Avenue du Trône because there was nothing but grey concrete buildings on either side of the road and the crowd had thinned out quite a bit now, so the atmosphere from earlier had evaporated.
However, the sun had now come out a bit which made it a little bit warmer and a bit nicer. At the next roundabout, the Porte de Vincennes, the course took a ninety-degree turn right onto the Boulevard Soulit, which would lead eventually to the next milestone – the 10km point.
The long stretch which led to that was the perfect time to record my next update…
Approaching 10km
The 10km point was on the corner of the road which took the course left onto Avenue Daumesnil and out of the city, towards a huge park called the Bois de Vincennes. After passing the 10km point, I was feeling alright. My muscles had taken a while to get warmed up, but with each mile that passed that stiffness dissipated.