Running the Paris Marathon

In April 2017 off very little training, I managed to pull off what seemed like the impossible; I ran the Paris Marathon. This post is about the trials and tribulations surrounding the adventure.

THE PRELUDE TO THE STORM

  In June 2016 I moved to Lyon, France to complete a year-long student exchange as part of my Melbourne University Arts degree. Adapting to the set of challenges which accompanied this move wasn’t just tough, it was painful. To name a few, there were visa requirements to fulfil, notoriously difficult French bureaucracy to contend with, subjects to be selected without a subject master-list or guide, a foreign uni campus (and city) to navigate, not knowing a soul upon arrival and a language barrier to overcome. Suffice to say, I was stressed out to the max for the first few months and it was a struggle to simply enjoy myself. However, down the line I did manage to meet some people, one of whom, Jake, was running the Paris marathon the coming year in April. I immediately saw this as an opportunity to improve my situation as it seemed like a goal that was big enough to cut through the stressful fog of my new French life.

  First, I had to get my body into a state which could actually start running again as I had lost a lot of fitness since my arrival so I joined a yoga studio with my friend John Paul. After a couple of weeks of attending yoga classes daily and waking up my body, I started running again. However, before I could get into any kind of running groove, winter came and it was time for me to travel (mostly by myself) during the Christmas break. From Lyon I took a bus to Paris and stayed with a nice French lady in her Airbnb, went to many galleries and caught up with John Paul before he left to spend Christmas in the US. I then took another bus to Brussels and explored the Christmas markets, ate some waffles and oysters and visited many more galleries (all of which were Magritte heavy). From Belgium I caught another bus to Amsterdam and met up with some family friends, the Van Schaiik’s with whom I was to spend Christmas. We explored Amsterdam for a couple of days before heading to the Dutch countryside to meet up with their extended family and have an authentic Dutch Christmas in Oudewater. Over this time, due to the freezing weather, living out of a backpack, and being constantly on the go, no runs were completed. However, Emily Van Schaiik was training for the 100km Oxfam walk so we did do a full day’s hike through the beautiful pastors of Holland, followed by a long bike ride along one of their many premium bike lanes. Little did I know that this would be the only exercise I would complete throughout my winter travels *gasp*. After a good stint in Holland which included trips to Utrecht and Baarle-Nassau, I bid “vaarwel” to the Van Schaiik’s and caught a train to Berlin. This is where I saw my first snow for the winter and it was nothing short of a thrill (I may or may not have shed a tear). It was a bit of a shock being by myself again after spending time with a close family over Christmas but, needless to say, travelling alone is character building (especially in the snow!) From Berlin, I took a train to Prague and revelled in the heavy snow that fell there, despite it taking me ten times as long to walk through the slush in my Melbourne boots. After sampling Prague life for a good week and a half, I was lucky enough to take a couple of trains to the Austrian Alps and do a week’s skiing. Unfortunately, during this time I caught a bad cold which knocked me for six, but skied on I did! After an incredible week in Hopfgarten, Austria it was time to come home to Lyon, commence another semester of French university and finally start training for the marathon. The only problem was, was at this time it was only 5 weeks until race day and the weather was often below freezing! Nonetheless I commenced “training” and began running regularly along the Quai du Rhone, through the Parc de la Tête d'Or and up the steep steps of the Croix-Rousse, a village in the hills of the city. In addition, I got back into yoga which was my only cross training. In this way, I began to enjoy living in the city of Lyon way more and really appreciated what it had to offer. I was seeing sunsets from the top of the Croix-Rousse with the snow-capped peaks of the Chamonix alps in the distance and I interacted with the giraffes, deer and other zoo animals that dwelled in the park/free zoo, Parc de la Tête d'Or. These are just some of the experiences that opened up to me in the short time that I was training for the marathon. Even though the I never managed to increase my training distances above 20km, I saw so much of the city that I otherwise would not have seen and perhaps more importantly, had a purpose (on top of becoming fluent in French and travelling as much as possible.)

THE EYE OF THE STORM

   Very quickly, the date of the marathon weekend came upon me. Two days before the race, I caught the bus from Lyon to Paris. Needless to say, my pre-race preparations were totally unconventional. The day before the big 42.195km’s, I spent the day racking up a high walking mileage, exploring the city of Paris. In the morning I headed to the race village to pick up my race bib, had lunch in the Jardin des Tuileries, and visited the Musée de l’Orangerie, revelling at the panoramic paintings of Monet’s nymphs and clearing my head the day before the race. As I was staying in a small Airbnb apartment atop Montmartre, that night me and my friends did a warm up jog around the church of Sacre Coeur, stretching our legs on its steps and popping in for a quick visit before bed time. Like I said, my preparations were unconventional and totally surreal. During this time I was having visions of other runner’s night-before rituals and trying not to be nervous about the fact that I was so physically unprepared that I didn’t have any. Nevertheless, after loosening up around Sacre Coeur, my friends and I made some pasta for dinner in our tiny Parisian apartment and that was about as ritualistic and planned as it got. The following day (Sunday the 3rd of April) we awoke nice and early, caught two metro trains and arrived at the Arc de Triomphe to, omg, run a marathon.

   It was a cold, sunny morning and I remember standing at the start line and being astounded by some of the French runner’s nutrition supplements - many had brought chestnut cream and various jams to consume throughout the race (I brought energy gels). Despite this weird nuance, we all lined up together to attempt to run the epic distance and the race finally commenced. The first 1km was achieved by simply running down the cobble stone paved street of the Champs Elysees. As you would expect, however, the running became harder and by the time I was passing the spectacular Eiffel tower, it did not seem so spectacular. I was in a world of hurt, slowly trudging along, vowing to do more training the next time I was to attempt such a long race. With Paris being a relatively small city, the race itself covered an incredible number of historical sites, including the Louvre, Place de la Concorde and the Place de la Bastille. It also ran through the Vincenne and the Boulogne woods at both ends of the city, along the Seine river and through the tunnel where Princess Diana was killed.

  One thing I learnt from my first marathon experience was that you get what you train for. I never exceeded a half marathon distance in training and, low and behold, it was around the 22km mark where my body started failing and my average time/ km ballooned out. Not only that, but my pre-race nerves led me to tie my shoe laces too tight, so I had to stop several times to loosen them up as my feet became painfully numb. Because of this, my time for the race was nothing to brag about. However, I had known that my training wouldn’t be sufficient, so to offset my physical unpreparedness I had tripled down on mental preparations, vowing never to quit the race no matter how hard it got. More than anything, it was this accumulated mental toughness that got me through the second half of the run.

  The final stages of the race came around the Louis Vuitton foundation and as I was hobbling along, I saw John Paul, who had visited the Louvre while I was running and then came to cheer me on at the end. He ran with me for a couple of hundred meters and then I powered through to the finish line.

THE AFTERMATH

  All in all, it was a tough run but an incredible experience that made me stronger. When it was over, I called my parents in Melbourne then caught the metro back to Montmartre with my friends to get changed and head off to the Marais area for dinner. It’s hard to believe that such an epic event only spanned the course of a day, but it is one that I will remember forever and use to spur me on through other tough moments in life. After taking 2018 off, I will give running a marathon another go this year, most likely at the Melbourne marathon in October. I hope to achieve a much faster time compared to the Paris race, but then again there will be far less astonishing sights to see, so I’m sure that I will.