I’m back from 10 days in Paris. I love Paris! I lived there for nine months in college and it was a very ~formative~ experience for me. Blah blah blah. I actually trained for my first half-marathon while living there. I wish Strava was around back then because it would’ve been cool to see what routes I actually I ran, and what my paces were. I assume I was quite slow because I strictly listened to Adele’s 21 album and those songs don’t inspire fast running. Anyway, I ended up not running that half-marathon because I broke my elbow the day before. So it goes.
I did run a race this time, though! The whole raison d’être of the trip was for my mom to run Paris Versailles “La Grand Classique” (we can’t get over the name), a 10-mile-ish race that goes from the base of the Eiffel Tower to Versailles. When I found out she was planning to go to PARIS to RUN (my two favorite things), I was basically like, “the hell you’re going without me.” So that’s the context of the trip.
If you’re intrigued by the concept of traveling for a race but aren’t ready for a half or full marathon, this is a fun one to plan around. It’s a beautiful course. The first three miles are flat along the Seine, then you turn into a cute little town and have to climb a 500 foot incline. After that, you’re rewarded with a few miles on a gravel forest path before finishing on the very wide Avenue de Paris, which leads straight to Versailles.
I’m quite particular about my routine before a race; it usually involves eating a plain carb-centric dinner the day before and going to bed at 8 pm, but in the spirit of being on vacation, I decided to just run the race at a ~fun~ pace and not give in to all my usual neuroses. (Also, I didn’t have much confidence that I would do well given the elevation. I just wasn’t in the mood.) As such, I ate a gourmet French dinner, complete with cheese course, and stayed out late the night before. I wasn’t going to waste a precious night in Paris being anxious about a FOOTRACE.
Nathan and I ran the race together and then cemented our reputation as extremely loud Americans while we cheered for my mom at the finish line. Afterwards, we went to the only restaurant that had an open table and ate hamburgers with forks and knives because everyone else was and we didn’t want to come off as heathens.
That’s all I’ve got for you today. Perhaps I’ll talk about it more in another newsie but there’s been lots of exciting racing on the professional marathon circuit—Eliud Kipchoge broke his own world record and ran the Berlin Marathon in 2:01:09, and Emily Sisson lowered the American women’s marathon record to 2:18:29. Makes ya feel slow, doesn’t it?
Elaheh