Paris and marathon stories

We returned from Paris yesterday, and we had an absolutely wonderful time - and finally our legs feel normal again! I now also have an idea of how the French - or the Parisians, at least - are able to eat and drink like they do and not (generally speaking) get fat - it's all the freaking stairs they go up and down on a daily basis! I don't think I would have realized it had I not been as sore as I was, but geez they have a lot of stairs there, especially in the metro system! I must have elicited some laughs those first few days, gingerly hoisting myself down the stairs with lots of grunting and grimacing!

Still, we couldn't let sore legs stop us from enjoying our first visit to the city of lights. There was just too much to see, and too little time to spend there! We did manage to make it to the big sights, places like the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe (both of which we climbed via stairs too!) Versailles, Notre Dame Cathedral, Sainte Chappelle, the Louvre, and the Musée d'Orsay. We missed out on Montmartre, the Sacré Couer, the Catacombs and several other sights though, and in general we didn't feel like we had enough time to just soak in the culture and enjoy the café and dining scene. I guess that means we'll have to go back! :-)

Before we went to Paris we had heard for years about the famous Parisian "attitude", and had prepared ourselves for the occasional rude individual. Well, maybe we over-prepared for that, or maybe we've adjusted a bit to the French attitudes since we live in a heavily French influenced city, but I must say that we didn't have even one bad experience. Everyone we encountered was polite and patient with our far-from-perfect French, and a few people were so friendly that it frankly caught us a little off guard! Regardless, the charm of both the city and its people definitely makes us want to return, and soon!

Now for some marathon stories...I'm not going to give the usual run-down of how my knees hurt at mile or kilometer such-and-such, but rather focus on my impressions and things I saw and heard during the race, because that's the stuff I think you'll enjoy reading about, and it's definitely the stuff I really want to remember!

First up is all the trash. The race had approximately 35,000 people participating, and that adds up to A LOT of trash! Just trying to get to the starting line was a challenge, stepping over all the discarded junk from the 30,000 or so who had already run over that space. We started pretty much at the back of the pack - it took us nearly fifteen minutes just to get to the actual starting line! - and I guess a lot of people decided early on not to wear the plastic bag "rain jackets" the organizers had been handing out (it hardly rained at all). Anyway, all along the course there were discarded water bottles, banana and orange peels, various empty sports gel packs and who knows what else. It was amazing though, by the time we finished the race and made our way back to the start at the top of the Champs Elysées, it was entirely cleaned up! I don't know whether it was volunteers or the city workers who did it, but they did an incredible job!

Next up is the scenery - I'm embarrassed to say that after a while, and particularly towards the end, I kind of stopped noticing it. This is pretty funny - at our celebratory dinner I mentioned to Dan, one of the other people from Carl's program who ran (we all finished by the way!), that I had somehow missed seeing the Eiffel Tower during the run; Carl nodded with me, because he hadn't seen it either. Well Dan looked at me like I was nuts and said "It was kinda hard to miss - we practically ran right past it!" To my blank look he says "Uh, it was to your left around kilometer 30?" Yeah, oops, missed that one! I guess in the latter stages of the race I was too focused on getting to the next kilometer mark to pay attention to what was beyond the street I was on.

Now what I did notice was all the people cheering us on, the bands who came out to entertain us, and also the other people running with me. First the spectators: our race bibs had our first names on them, so throughout the race I had people cheering me by name - that was great! I'll never forget the first person who cheered for me - a little girl about 10 years old who yelled "Allez, Jennifer!", pronouncing my name with the cutest French accent...totally made me smile! There were easily tens of thousands of people out there, and it was everybody; little kids holding signs to encourage their mom or dad, elderly residents of the city, families of the runners, tourists taking a break from sightseeing, and firefighters from at least a half-dozen different fire houses. Oh, and for you single ladies out there - the Parisian firemen do NOT disappoint! :-)

Now for the entertainment - we heard a pretty good variety of music, including steel drums, disco and a mini-orchestra, but the one thing that really sticks in my mind is the thought that every brass band in Paris must have been out there! Some were better than others - I remember thinking that the small band of horns playing around kilometer 38 sounded about like I felt at the time - but the fact that they all came out there to entertain and motivate us was awesome.

Last up, the other runners. Although I ran the race pretty much alone and only briefly conversed with a few people, because of the sheer number of people participating I was still surrounded by fellow runners the entire time. As a result I saw and heard a few things that were memorable in one way or another. One was a young woman towards the end of the race who ran past me, repeating out loud to herself over and over, "There IS no wall, there IS no wall". I imagine you've probably heard of the infamous "wall", but in case you haven't, it's basically the point at which the body runs out of its stores of glycogen ("instant energy") and has to begin burning its own stores of fat in order to continue. The fat stores don't provide energy as well as glycogen does, so when that switch happens it can produce a pretty severe fatigue - "the wall". As for me, I kinda bumped my head into the wall a bit, but fortunately I didn't hit it too severely!

The second "fellow runner" story is a little gross, but too funny to not share with you. Somewhere around kilometer 30 I came up behind a guy I hadn't seen yet in the race, with long, graying hair down to about his shoulders. I was directly behind him when all of a sudden I started hearing noises. At first I didn't pay much attention, but it continued, and after a few more seconds I was pretty sure the guy was farting! I looked around at the people to my left and right to see if they'd noticed, but if they had their expressions didn't give it away. Well as if I needed further confirmation, I then started to SMELL it! Meanwhile he's STILL letting 'em rip - it was unbelievable!! Needless to say I was pretty grossed out and managed to find the energy for a little burst of speed that got me past the guy...and thankfully I didn't see or smell him again!

Okay so there you have it, an extremely long post of Paris and marathon stories. Hopefully I haven't bored you, but I really wanted to get some of these memories written down before I forgot them! Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it!

Pictures:
#1 - Catherine, Dan, Carl and I under the Arc de Triomphe just before the start of the race.
#2 - The Eiffel Tower at night, viewed from the top of the Arc de Triomphe - it's lit up like you see here for the first fifteen minutes of every hour, and it's beautiful!
#3 - Unusual but pretty view, looking up at the Eiffel Tower
#4 - The south side of the Notre Dame cathedral - the circular stained glass window is absolutely stunning from the inside!
#5 - Napoleon's casket - now I fully understand where the term "Napoleon complex" came from!