Paris Marathon

I was assuming pacing duties for the girls today around the Paris marathon course. I had arranged to meet them just before the 5 km marker and run the rest of the marathon with them. A modified photocopy of Laurence's bib would hopefully ensure that I wouldn't be ejected from the end of the circuit by the marshals and would allow us all to finish together.

I stood waiting in the cold (6°C) just before Bastille watching the elite go past and then searching hopefully for François and Benj on their quest to beat 3 hours. No sign of them at all but it's so hard to spot individuals in the mass of runners and if you don't concentrate really hard, all you notice is a blur of bright shoes and running gear passing in front of your nose. For Laurence and the girls, we'd specified the spot where I'd be but it was still a relief when I saw Laurence in her Florence marathon running top and Katia and Sandra beside her. I left the pavement and dropped in behind them.

The aim was simple 4'58 per km for 42.2 kilometres and they were slightly ahead of schedule when I met them. I was happy to just sit in behind them to start with and chat easily while they focused on the race. I would act as the gofer at every feeding station, picking up 4 water bottles at each and then sharing out the Gu chomps that were appreciaed by all. We went through 10km in 44:33 and the pace was steady and all of them looked pretty fresh.

We were joined by Stéphanie at this point, who was recovering from an injury with sore ribs (don't ask!) and was looking to run a marathon easily with her girlfriends. A capable runner, she has the potential to run a good 10 - 15 minutes faster than the objective for today. We headed into Vincennes and admired the staging set up for François Hollande's presidential rally in the afternoon. Both he and Nicolas Sarkozy had chosen today to hold their Paris meetings, with the marathon too it wasn't the best day to be in town if you wanted to get anywhere in a hurry.

We had been running for over an hour now and Laurence and Katia were slightly red in the face, whereas Sandra still looked very composed and relaxed. She was suffering from a bad hip but this didn't show at all in her stride or her running today. There was a glimpse of sun from between the clouds and I was happy that the temperature was beginnning to rise as I was feeling the cold. This feeling wasn't shared by all as the girls were obviously more strained and looked slightly warm now. I proposed to share a sponge at the next sponge station situated every 5km but no sponges were to be found. You had to carry them from the beginning or find an alternative. Mine was a piece of cotton cloth I found beside a bucket which I dampened and passed to Laurence to cool her down.

We left Vincennes and through the 20km mark in 1:38 so still slightly ahead of schedule but nothing outrageous compared to the pace fixed for the race. Sandra would shout out every now and then to slow Laurence or Katia down if she thought that they were pushing the pace too hard. I was happy tyo sit at the back of the group and watch as they ran. They had plenty of admirers in the field too. Several male runners would come and latch onto the group, passing on encouraging remarks to the girls. I told one bloke to stop chatting up the women as they were my groupies!

The group held together until 30km when Laurence who had complained of a stitch just before fell back slightly, and Katia who had suffered herself just before, pushed on in Sandra and Stéphanie's wake. Pascal accompanied Sandra from the 22km mark and I dropped back now just to accompany Laurence through her wall and to get her to the end. The pace dropped as we left the Seine, heading up to Porte d'Auteil, and whereas we'd been running at under 5'00 per km until then, we now ran at 5'07. The marathon starts at this point and I could see that Laurence was going to find the end hard. The road rose before getting to Roland Garros and we slowed to a 5'30 pace before picking it up again as the road flattened out.


The last 7 kilometres were a case of gritting your teeth and getting on with it. Katia had disappeared from sight now too, accompanied by Michel the girls' coach. I encouraged Laurence onwards, telling her that it was only 3km to go, a short track session before the finishing line. We passed this point in 3h16 and I knew that we wouldn't go under 3h30 but we wouldn't be far off. It was only a case of hanging on in there which Laurence did admirably, passing literally hundreds of runners in these last kilometres as they were racked with cramps and crying out in pain. The last roundabout appeared and I told her that there was 300m left to run. We managed to accelerate slightly, recovering the 5'00 pace to end the course in a time of 3:33:29. Once over the finishing line, she burst into tears and told Katia, who we saw limping a few metres past the line, that she couldn't breathe.

A great race by all, capped by the news that François had beaten the 3h00 barrier to finish in 2:59:23. Benj missed out by a couple of minutes having suffered from cramps after the 35km mark. Marvellous race for all overall. Sandra and Stéphanie managed to beat 3h30 by a handful of seconds, with Katia finishing a minute ahead of Laurence.

37.6 km for me in an average time of 5'03 per km, completing a good week for mileage with 92km on the clock. Congratulations to all on an excellent marathon and looking forward to Amsterdam now to take part myself and share in the record-breaking attempts.