Paris Marathon

April 2009

Last summer, one of my ex-Marathon Des Sables buddies, Graham Williams, a policeman in Wales had got in contact to suggest a small ‘boyz project’ – doing the 2009 Paris Marathon. It was small scale – just a quick weekend in Paris, 26.2 miles, a few beers and home. Job done. When the online entries opened in the autumn, we signed up, as did my other MdS mate, Simon Owen. We all got entries and started to plan the logistics. I had already completed 48 Marathons, so I thought it would be nice to complete Paris as the 50th.

We all got training in our different ways. I had a heavy schedule set for the first three months of 2009. Graham was in Australia over the New Year but ready to rumble upon his return. Simon was determined to pace himself and take the slow burn approach – just enough to carry him through comfortably.

Somehow, our training went tits up. After Graham had flown home, he couldn’t walk and had to go on long term sick leave. The Doctors weren’t sure if it was deep vein thrombosis but eventually decided it was a blood disease. Whatever. Graham could hardly stand without pain for a few weeks and he was resigned to never start the race.

I started 2009 well with 150 miles in January and 18 km in the swimming pool. I did a comfortable marathon (49th) at Gloucester at the end of the month in 5 hrs 25 mins. This was a good time for me. I was 17 stone in weight. Over the next two months, I did 5 half marathons and a 20 miler. During another 20 miler, three weeks before Paris, I pulled a thigh muscle at 13 miles but managed to hobble to the finish. On top of that, I was diagnosed with an overactive thyroid which maybe explained why I was gaining weight instead of dropping it, and also explained why I seemed to lack energy. Simon did as he said. Just enough. He ran about 6 times up to 20 miles. Much smarter than me. I guess we are all just getting older.

Wendy had never been to Paris, so on the evening of Friday April 3rd we drove down to the ferry port at Dover. Arriving around 10.45pm for the Norfolk Lines midnight ferry to find it grid-locked. Usually, I can guarantee to be parked up ready to board within 30 mins of arriving at the port. This time, we sat in stagnant lines of cars trying to reach the check in booths. I didn’t know it was the start of the school Easter holidays. Neither did Norfolk Lines apparently. One of the booths was shut down.

75 mins later, we finally reached a booth. The only problem was that it was midnight and our ferry had already left. The jobs worth on the booth blamed the holidays for the gridlock. “Its not our problem if everyone wants to leave the country at the same time” while not suggesting that if all their booths were running, maybe more cars could have boarded the ferry they had booked a ticket for.

No matter. Instead of arriving at 3am French time, we had a two hour wait until the 2am ferry and we’d get in at 5am. I grabbed a nap while we waited and also slept on a floor on the ferry during the sailing.

It was still dark when we drove off the ferry. We had a full tank of petrol, which was just as well because the rise of the Euro against the English Pound over the previous six months meant that a litre of petrol on the main French roads was as high as 1.24 Euros - £1.20 – nearly 25% more expensive than English prices.

I decided to take the same route as before when driving to the Loire Valley. Following the E40 past Calais and the A16 past Bologne, I avoided joining the Peage (Toll motorway) before steering a local route (1) south via Abbeville, then following the 901 to Beauville.

During the start of the trip after Bologue when we joined the A-road to Abbeville, it was still dark and foggy. Deer grazed by the side of the road and occasionally ran across the road in front of the car which was pushing 80 mph. At one point, a snowy owl flew out in front and crashed off the windscreen. It was a goner. It was strangely atmospheric to be driving along deserted foggy roads as the dawn rose and Pink Floyd blaring away.

As Wendy slept, I made good time on the mostly empty roads and Route 1 turned into a dual carriageway just north of the Paris outer suburbs. It was around 9.30am as I started to tackle the road into central Paris. It seemed easier than skirting around the outer ring road. All things considered, the A-roads probably took one hour longer than the Peage and saved us 40 Euros in tolls.

The striking white basilica of Sacre Coeur which stands majestically above Montmartre came into view. The top of the Eiffel Tower could also be seen as we headed towards the River Seine and negotiated the skyscraper business city of La Defense on the western Paris. At the turn of the century. it was the largest new office development in Europe and dominated by La Grande Arche which, built in 1989, is an enormous hollow cube large enough to contain the Notre Dame Cathedral.

I knew our hotel was in the Bologne-Billancourt area in the south west of Paris just over the River Seine. We found the Porte de St-Cloud and then struggled to follow their map. I pulled up by a taxi driver who told me it was the second turning on the left. I am the Golden God of finding my way around big cities by car! I had previously arrived in Paris by bus and plane.

The hotel Hotel Balladins Superior (Superior over what?) was a small cramped affair, four stories tall with a narrow lift. The small bedroom was functional with enough room for a double bed, TV bolted to the wall and a separate bathroom, aircraft toilet sized with a toilet, sink and shower. To work the shower, you turned on the taps in the sink and pulled a handle and pulled a shower curtain around you. Interesting concept.

The Bologne-Billancourt area was a comfortable working neighbourhood with a large Saturday market, plenty of shops and restaurants and restricted parking. The friendly hotel reception told me of a secure underground carpark by the market and I was fortunate enough to grab the only spare place. At 10 Euros per 24 hours, it was affordable and came complete with piped classical music. Which was nice.

After a welcome shower, we made for the nearest metro station at Marcel Sembat about 10 minutes walk. The most important job today was to pick up my number and goody bag from the ‘Expo de Marathon’. This was at the Porte de Versailles on the other side of the River Seine, but requiring two metro changes and a tram ride to reach. The Carnet de Billets (10 pack of urban transport for 11 Euros) came in handy.

The Expo was a large exhibition hall. Arriving around 1pm, I expected loads of queues, but I was able to walk in and pick up my number, goody bag and T-shirt within 10 minutes of getting off the tram. Everyone was forced to head upstairs to pass through various companies peddling running gear etc.

That done, it was time to give Wendy her first taste of Paris. I had last visited the city in 1997 a week after Princess Di had been killed. This was not deliberate, I had booked up the trip weeks before! I had previously toured all the major sights in detail. With limited time, today we would just do a walking tour taking in the exteriors and familiar sights.

Paris, the capital of France, is a city of over two million people covering 40 sq miles Catching a metro to the Concorde stop, we started at the Place de la Concorde. At the end of the Champs-Elysees, lay one of Europe’s most magnificent and historic squares that originally built in the Seventeenth Century has changed over the centuries. During the French Revolution, the guillotine was erected here and over 1100 people including Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette lost their heads. In the 19th Century a 3200 year old Egyptian obelisk was erected in the centre and still dominates it today.

Nearby, flamboyant statuary decorates Paris’s most ornate bridge - the Pont Alexandre III – endless River Seine boat trips carried thousands of sightseers up and down the main artery of the city.

From the bridge, we could see the Eiffel Tower looming in the west. Named after the engineer who designed it and built it in 1889, the Eiffel Tower is the city’s best known landmark. It towers more than 3290m above Champ-de-Mars park. We decided to skip a close up visit. I had been to the top a couple of times before.

South of the bridge lay the magnificent Hotel des Invalides (1675) with its harmonious Classical façade. The four-storey building was originally a military hospital and home for French war veterans and disabled soldiers who had previously been reduced to begging. They probably still would be if they were using English Pounds instead of Euros. The re-gilded Dome now glitters above the complex.

Heading east, the Musee d’Orsay holds Paris’s most important collection of Impressionist art in this converted railway station. It is a superb building which was designed for the Universal Exhibition in 1900. Outside, parties of foreign school children sunbathed in the breathtaking sunshine.

Re-crossing the River Seine, the Jardin des Tuileries was originally laid out in the 17th Century as the gardens of the old Palais des Tuileries. They are now more sand than grass and flowers and contain striking modern sculptures. My kind of big fuck off pieces of art.

Next door, the enormous Musee du Louvre never fails to amaze me in size and stature. It is the city’s most impressive museum with an unrivalled collection of artifacts from around the world. Four centuries of French kings improved and enlarged it. The Mona Lisa would have to wait for a visit. Hundreds of tourists sunbathed by the large glass Pyramid and fountains.

Following the River Seine, we reached Pont Neuf – the oldest bridge in Paris (1607) which spans 275m over 12 arches. It was the first stone bridge to be built without houses in the city.

The Ile de Cite is the oldest part of Paris – an island in the middle of the River Seine, where the river was forded and bridged for the first time. It has been built and rebuilt countless times but two structures still dominate it. The Conciergerie is a former palace that was a prison much used in the Revolution. Around the corner, Notre Dame Cathedral dominates one end of the island. Started in 1163, it took 170 years to complete. A gothic masterpiece, it is 390m long and dominated by its two 69m towers at the front. At the rear end are impressive flying buttresses. There was no sign of Quasimodo (‘the bells, the bells’).

Back off the island, the Hotel De Ville is also an impressive 19th reconstruction of a 17th Century Town Hall that burnt down in 1871. It is highly ornate with elaborate stonework, turrets and statues overlooking a pedestrianized square.

A few blocks away, the Pompidou Centre – is like a building turned inside out: escalators, lifts, air and water ducts and the steel struts that hold the building together have all been placed on the outside. It is the National Museum of Modern Art and is still probably my favourite building in Paris. It is just so…French

You can eat in countless places in Paris, but you will never eat in a place like ‘Chartiers’. Just around the corner from the Grand Boulevards metro in Montmatre, it is a former Railway station waiting room with old large mirrors on the walls. The menu is cheap (for Paris) and limited. The waiters wear long white aprons and scrawl your bill on the white paper tablecloth. You are hustled in and out and you never know who you’ll be sitting next to.

I had visited this restaurant on my previous two visits and was amazed when I found a video of the place on You Tube. Bugger, my secret was out. It hadn’t changed since my last visit 10 years ago. At 6pm, it was just opening for the evening session and we were able to walk into an empty restaurant. We ordered a carafe of house red wine, starters and my usual – steak au pouvre with pomme frites. Then another bottle of house red, desserts and coffee. The restaurant quickly filled up and eventually an old local man was seated next to us. By the time we left, an hour later (they don’t hang about – and who says its just the younger generation who binge drink!), there were 30 people lining up to get in.

Catching the metro home, fully prepared for the Marathon the next day with plenty of wine sitting on top of a steak, we crashed. I sometimes have a snoring problem – usually brought on by red wine. Tonight, my snoring was so loud that Wendy gave up trying to put up with it, that she actually went down to reception to try and book another room! The hotel was full. She ended up putting a blanket and pillow down in the ‘bathroom’ and curled up into a ball. Bless! I of course was oblivious to all of this.

Early on Sunday morning, fully refreshed, I found Wendy in the ‘bathroom’. I was not flavour of the month. I got ready while Wendy tried to get her bearings. The marathon was starting at 8.45am and we were an hour or so from the start including the walking. I had also arranged to meet Simon near the start at 8.15am. So we were out of the hotel around 7.15am and started walking towards the metro. I was just wearing my running gear.

A couple of Frenchmen were loading up their car. They had jogging suits on. ‘Do you want a lift’ they asked in French and then in English. Result. Vincent and his mate were from Lille and were down to run the marathon. They had done it last year. He had a hybrid car that was silent. We drove into the centre of Paris along quiet roads feeling as if we were being chauffeur driven to the start.

Vincent parked two blocks from the Arc de Triomphe in an underground car park complete with piped classical music. When I saw the hourly prices, I gasped. ‘16 Euros for 4 hours?’ Vincent replied ‘Yes. The problem is that we will need around 6 hours. But it will be worth it at the end’. I didn’t want to think about my journey home – changing metro lines – up and down stairs, plus the walk back to the hotel at the end.

It was after 8am but we were there. I told Wendy where I was meeting Simon and said I’d jog on to the meeting place – and that was the last I saw of her until the finish! Simon was there as arranged. It turned out that he had had an interesting time as well. After flying in, he’d headed to the Marathon Expo and was there at the same time as me. Then he headed for his ‘reserved’ hotel in the Turkish quarter. Only to find that there had been a problem with the credit card and they had not reserved a room. They directed him to another hotel in the Arab quarter where he told me “the mattress was about 2”thick. I got fuck all sleep last night”. Simon also found the Euro’s strength surprising. He had ordered a ‘Grande Beer’ without seeing the prices. It was 13 Euros! “Thirteen fucking quid for a large beer. For fuck’sake”. At least it was litre of beer.

The thousands of runners were congregating in the Champs-Elysees in between the tall metal fences that lined either side. Originally, I thought that 35,000 runners were starting, but it was around 30,000. Even so, they were packed in for a quarter of a mile from the start. Simon made for his time slot of 4 hours. I hung around right at the back – I was going for a finish. No heroics. Looking behind me, I could see the magnificent Arc De Triomphe under clear blue skies. It was a perfect day for sightseeing – but not running! Nearby was a tiny bloke on 5ft stilts. Fair play to him. 26 miles on them. I’m not sure where he attached his electronic clip for the official timings.

The gun went and I didn’t. For the next 10 minutes, I walked past/over discarded warm up clothes and empty water bottles and past runners peeing in those portable stand-up plastic urinals. It looked like a camp of pikeys had just left. The avenue was awash with rubbish. Wendy later told me that she picked up a couple of items “Great quality - fancy throwing them away.”

After 10 minutes or so, or was it 20? I finally passed under the ‘Start’ inflatable. The cobbled stones beneath my feet were unwelcome, but the crowds were. I pottered down the Champs-Elysees and took photos. By the time I reached the Place de la Concorde (see yesterday) at the end of the avenue, I felt the need to remove my top. I prefer running topless – even if my beer gut tends to put off small children and dogs.

As I passed by the Louvre, someone yelled ‘Allez La Boeuf!’ (Go Beef!). The crowds seemed to enjoy the fact that a fat bloke was running topless. I learnt the French for ‘Who ate all the pies?” “Show us your tits!” and “Run, Fatboy, Run!”

The organisers had laid on pace makers for different times. There were a couple for 5hrs 30 min which was my target time (what is the French for “in your dreams”?) One of them started to pull away from the other, so I followed him. I was feeling pretty good, despite the night before, and got into my regular pace. It was already hot and I was sweating.

I ran past the Hotel de Ville at 5km and then past the Place de la Bastille. What I hate about large events like this is that I have no idea of pace. You are overtaking runners and being overtaken yourself. So how do you know what pace you are running? I followed a team of runners that included an overweight women and a man older than me. The bloke on stilts had come past me! But I passed him within a mile when his a stilt had collapsed.

It was a lovely course – flat, well supported by crowds and included over 20 different bands playing all kinds of music. I remember the first - a military band in full costume played marching music.

I headed towards and around the Parc de Vincennes in the south east of the city and could hear English runners. There were over 5000 English runners on the course today. Someone was reading out the times. “We’re doing 12 minute miles. Spot on”. It sounded good to me and I followed them for a few miles. We passed a band dressed like the Smurfs.

But by the time we left the park heading west and passed by the half way mark, I was already buggered. Usually, I can do a half marathon in two and half hours. I saw the clock – 2.45 and I already felt blitzed. The right thigh injury had returned and I was Limping. Christ. 13 more miles to go and I feel buggered.

From that point on, it was an endurance just to finish. No energy, no spring in the right leg. The horror, the horror. Runners past me – fatter, older. There was nothing I could do but preserve.

Heading back into the centre, the sun was above me. The heat seemed intense. I was entering the most scenic section, running on the other side of the River Seine, past the Ile de Paris with Notre Dame’s towers, then past the Musee d’Orsay and eventually past the Eiffel Tower.

By now I was walking and jogging. The water stops were awash with water and eaten orange slices which made the surface slippery. You could only walk through them without slipping over. Just after the Eiffel Tower, a couple were sat outside a café drinking wine. They saw my sorry ass, applauded and then invited me over for a drink. Red wine? Well, it would be rude not to. I sat down, relieved to have a rest and downed a couple of glasses. As you do.

The next section seemed to take forever. I was disheartened by the fact that I had trained so hard earlier in the year, but 17 and a half stone and an injury is not the best preparation. You do what you can.

The course seemed almost deserted as I entered the Park de Boulogne, with sweeper cars and people starting to clear up. I didn’t know it then but 5000 people were behind me or had dropped out. I slogged on the finish. Time was irrelevant. I just wanted to finish. The last few miles took as long as any I have ever done. Just no energy.

I crawled into the finish in 6hrs 23. It was my 50th Marathon and my slowest of all time. I have run and walked one in 6hrs 45mins with a 15kg backpack. But what can you do? I finished and was rewarded with a lovely medal. I thought the course beat London’s hands down. Much more scenic.

I was surprised to find Wendy at the finish. I was an hour slower than normal. She had passed the time by watching the start and then going back to the hotel for a shower and coming back to hang around at the finish for a couple of hours - just in case I destroyed my personal best. I certainly destroyed my personal worst.

Watching me negotiate the metro steps was a sight to see. Returning to Marcel Sembat metro, I still had the long walk back to the hotel – still in running gear. No one gave me a second glance.

Showered, changed and topped up by red wine, we returned to the metro station and caught the train back to the Hotel de Ville by 7pm. Simon, Graham and his wife were already there. I hadn’t seen Graham since the Marathon Des Sables. I waved my medal in his face. “Unfinished business” he replied.

It turned out that Graham had booked into a posh hotel two blocks from the start., but he watched he start on EuroSport TV. “It was weird. I was watching it on TV but could lean out the window and watch the real thing.”

We repaired to the Left Bank for a meal and a catch up, followed by me negotiating the metro steps to get home. Simon had finished in 4 hours 50 mins. He had been aiming for 4 hours but his legs gave way in the last few miles

Monday morning – the planned 8am departure was more 9.30am by the time I had crawled to the car park to pick up the car. Deciding to head west out to the main arteries, it took an age to leave Paris, find the right roads and then retrace our route. This time, the roads were not empty. Old timers pottered down the road – all the time in the world. In your own time.

Reaching the Dunkirk ferry port before 3pm, we checked on ahead of schedule. No problems. Until we boarded the ferry and they spent an hour dealing with ‘technical difficulties’. No matter. We got home.

Conclusions: You may not visit Paris for years, but it never lets you down for sights and ambience. I did not see Pere-Le Chaise cemetery on this visit, but it’s in my top five Paris sights. I always find the French helpful and polite. A few French phrases get you a long way. The Paris Marathon course is wonderful. I’d like to do it again and fully fit. But you know what? Berlin in 2010 would be a better challenge!