by Phil Hewitt
Fortunately we weren't there long. I didn't hear the gun but I heard the roar and soon we were moving forward. People weren't breaking into a run until they got to the start, but all the same things moved reasonably quickly and I was delighted that we were over the line in three minutes, joining the thousands of runners who were already pouring down the Champs-Élysées for that 'difficult' first kilometre.
The 'difficulty' was noted in the official course map, handed out at the registration the day before. Like most of the half a dozen or so 'difficult' sections identified on the route, the difficulty here came from the fact that it was downhill, offering the temptation to set off at too quick a pace and so get into a draining rhythm too soon. I'm not sure that it really was too much of a danger in the event. It was just nice to get going, and it was great to be setting off with Marc. The crush dissipated. The Champs-Élysées, so wide and inviting, soon saw to that, and so we trotted along, bemoaning the awfulness of the organisation so far.
The crowds along the Champs-Élysées were excellent and highly vocal as we continued towards the Jardins des Champs-Élysées, through which we were soon passing. It wasn't long before we reached the first kilometre marker, just before Place de la Concorde, and that was a good feeling. We really were underway now, and I was pleased to see that the first kilometre came up after almost exactly five minutes – all part of the adjustment I was having to make, as this wasn't a marathon in miles; it was my first in kilometres, and that in itself called for a significant amount of new thinking. There weren't 26.2 of them, but the even more bonkers figure of 42.195. There was no point thinking in eight-minute miles when I was suddenly moving in kilometres. I needed to find an equivalent.
Marc had told me about a website you can use to create a wristband printed with the times you need to do each kilometre in for a specific overall finishing time. I'd printed out a wristband for a 3:30 finish. Every kilometre had to be just a few seconds short of five minutes to achieve it.
The downside was that this didn't allow for slowing, but I calculated that if I ran the first half of the marathon with the aim of having five minutes in hand at the midpoint, then I could allow those five minutes to evaporate over the second half and still achieve my aim. Marc had created his own wristband, which took account of last-half slowing and also of a steady start which then accelerated – all far too complicated for me. Mine was the simpler task. I just kept thinking in fives.
The maths was easy, and I started to enjoy my first experience of running in kilometres. Of course there are many more of them stretching ahead than there are miles, but at least they stack up quickly. Somehow you seem to be into your stride much more promptly.
Given the choice between fewer miles that just won't budge and many more kilometres that fall away quickly, the choice is an easy one. Just think in fives, I told myself, quickly slipping into the kind of time-obsessed focus which simply has to be at the core of a decent marathon run. It sounds desperately anal and terribly anoraky, but the point is a simple one: if you want to do a good time, you need to know how you are doing as you go along. There is no alternative. You've got to log times, you've got to calculate possible outcomes, you've got to stay on top of your run. And for me on that sunny morning in Paris, that meant totting up the fives.
But obsessing about time was, of course, no bar to enjoying the sights on a route which was superlative from the start, one which brought home to me, with almost every pace, just how important the quality of a route is when it comes to overall marathon success.
There can be few grander or more splendid boulevards than the Champs-Élysées, with the sights beyond it so perfectly aligned. There is a magnificent neatness to the Parisian thinking which lined up the Arc de Triomphe with the tip of the obelisk which crowns the Place de la Concorde on a straight line, which then travels the entire length of the Tuileries gardens to hit the little Arc de Triomphe dead centre and, just beyond that, meet the pinnacle of the Louvre's great glass pyramid – a straight line which unites grand boulevard with military triumph and links the ultra-modern with the most beautiful of big-city oases.
If you want inspiring, then Paris has got inspiring – and the Paris Marathon, to its eternal credit, was happy to deliver it in spades.
Running round the Place de la Concorde – usually dominated by cars – was great, but Marc and I both took it very wide because the runners were still fairly tightly packed and we were wanting to get ahead. Needlessly we added metres to our overall distance. As Pamela used to tell me, the only thing on a marathon route which is exactly marathon distance is the blue line you are supposed to follow. We were conscious that we had already strayed off it much too much.
More worrying still was the fact that, already, the crowds lining the route were getting sparser. Out in Greenwich in the London Marathon, they can be a little thin, but that's a long way from the centre. This was central Paris right at the start, and as we joined the Rue de Rivoli, running alongside the Tuileries, there were just two people standing in one long section. The rue, with various sights off it, including the Louvre itself, was looking terrific as the sun broke through, but very soon the roadside support was in short supply.
Marc had wanted to reach the 3-km marker in 14 minutes. We reached the second in 10 and then the third in 15, which suited me – though I was starting to be conscious of the need to get some time in hand. It didn't suit Marc at all so I encouraged him to run on. It had been great to start with him, but I didn't want to feel I was holding him back. Suddenly, I was on my own, a relief in the nicest way. I wanted Marc to get the time he wanted. Besides, there was plenty to enjoy.
I'd lived for a year just outside Paris in 1984, underemployed as a teaching assistant at a huge comprehensive school in Creil. I had oodles of spare time and I used to come into Paris two or three times a week simply to stroll, always finding somewhere new to explore but often coming back to the Rue de Rivoli, always so full of life, always so quintessentially Parisian with its buzz of boutiques and big-capital chic.
And I loved it now as I ran along, slowly feeling my pace increase as the kilometres slipped by. We passed the Hôtel de Ville on our right as we headed eastwards from the city centre towards the Place de la Bastille, by which time it was clear that every other mile was going to be marked. Briefly it threw me, but the kilometres equation was too convenient for me to jump ship. We were so steeped in all things Paris by now that it would have seemed disrespectful to start thinking in miles. Vive la différence, as they say in England.
It has to be said, though, that the distance markers were a disappointment compared to the huge overhead jamboree-type affairs you get in London. In Paris they were just roadside numbers with a little line, awfully easy to miss, but at least they mounted up steadily and it didn't seem long before I reached the 10-km marker – which was finally a marker worth writing home about, a big up-and-over-the-road style celebration which was also the first point at which the microchips in our shoes became effective.
There was the familiar high-pitched peeping sound as thousands of feet flew over, recording thousands of individual times. For those who had registered, it also sent text messages to friends and family. More importantly, for the runners themselves, it brought a genuine sense of progress.
On the refreshments front, things were a bit sparse, but the Place de la Bastille, once we got there, more than made up for it – tables of water bottles interspersed with tables groaning with fresh fruit, big plates of raisins and big bowls of sugar. The Gallic gastronomic approach contrasted sharply with Anglo-Saxon restraint back in London. The French heaped it high.
The fresh fruit was oranges and half-bananas, the bananas still in their skins, which meant that at about half a dozen points along the way you were running through a couple of hundred metres of banana skins. What on earth were they trying to do to us? We could have been the biggest pile-up in history. But I took advantage. I ate four large handfuls of raisins at equidistant points along the way, and they were g
ood – nourishing without being heavy.
It was here that the landscape was about to change dramatically and enjoyably. Soon after the 10-km marker, you approach the Château de Vincennes, a big, brooding, forbidding-looking castle sitting in extensive woods, and those woods – the Bois de Vincennes – would be the route for the next 10 km. Lovely they were too.
I was feeling good. At 7 km I had about a minute and a quarter in hand on my five-minute kilometres. Running through the woods helped me add to it, though by now I was needing a wee. A quick sidestep behind a tree meant a minor setback, but I was relieved – in another sense – to start reclaiming lost time pretty much straightaway.
After 10 km of big city, it was refreshing to be in amongst all the greenery. Time in hand started to increase rapidly over the next few kilometres, helped by gorgeous running conditions. There were just isolated groups of supporters along this stretch, nothing to compare with London, but then this was very different to London – a genuine country run a quarter of the way into a big-city marathon. It felt more like a Sunday morning training run which just happened to be in the company of 30,000 other runners. It was a happy, straightforward trot.
Towards the end we were running along the southern edge of the Bois, heading westwards back towards the city with some attractive town houses on our left. The route at this point was undulating gently, and it was around the 20-km point that I passed a blind runner (coureur non-voyant written on her back), handcuffed to her seeing guide. They'd been doing an impressive pace – and I couldn't help but marvel at the trust she was putting in her companion. To stride out without seeing is bravery indeed.
I hit the half-marathon (21.1k) nearly five minutes ahead of my half-marathon split for New York. And believe me, these things matter. I was ahead of my game and was starting to feel confident, particularly as I was still building up time in hand on the five-minute kilometres I needed to do. After a few more kilometres, I found I was something like six and a half minutes to the good – riches indeed. I really started to believe that I was looking good to crack 3:30.
Quite suddenly, the surroundings had changed again. Within moments, we were back in the familiar Paris street scenes after all those kilometres of woodland. Once again, the streets were lined with shops and bars, everywhere Parisians coolly sipping their cafés, dragging on their Gauloises and wondering what on earth all these sweaty runners were up to. Not too many Parisians were out on the pavements to egg us on. But somehow it didn't matter. Just seeing Paris going about the business of being Paris was incentive enough. The city looked lovely – even if the locals weren't exactly making us the centre of their day.
After this, we were back at the Place de la Bastille and heading down to the Seine for another of the day's great highlights, several kilometres running alongside the river. We came out on the riverbank more or less opposite the Île de la Cité and soon I could see the top of Notre Dame. The sun was out, it was a lovely day, it wasn't too hot and I wasn't feeling tired. The sights along the way did the rest. The course was glorious, and I was having a great time.
After a while, still on the north bank of the Seine, we came into what the official course map calls 'les quatre tunnels de la voie Georges-Pompidou', another of the stretches which the map identifies as a danger spot. It certainly was for Princess Diana. The tunnel by the Pont de l'Alma was the one in which she was fatally injured, and it felt strange – though not disrespectful – to be running through it. It looked so familiar from all the pictures.
The tunnels were effectively underpasses, dipping under the main routes which headed north-south across the river as we headed generally east-west. I'd expected the four tunnels to look the same, but each was subtly different in character, not least for the fact that by now the crowds – at last – were building all the time. The tunnels took us towards the 30-km marker, and the map had warned us to take them carefully and certainly not to accelerate on the descents. In the event, they were fine. It was good to know that there were four and good to count them off, especially as I could feel the atmosphere rising as we emerged from each into the sunshine. This was one of the places where the atmosphere was at its best, helped in my case by knowing that Marc's family were waiting for us around the 30-km marker.
All the while – and if you are a runner, you will know that you simply have to do this – I was comparing my time to my New York time six months before. In New York I reached the 15-mile marker in 2:01. In Paris, I passed the 16-mile marker in 2:02, a mile more in just a minute more. When you can log such facts as you run along, it's impossible to overestimate just how much they can help you. Success breeds success on a marathon route. If you can prove to yourself that you are doing well, then invariably you will do even better. I was feeling good. At 20 miles, I was eight minutes ahead of my New York time – and I am sure that keeping a close eye on comparative times had a lot to do with it. Over marathon distance, you've got to cling to anything that will sustain your pace.
Around the 30-km marker there were some fine views of the Eiffel Tower, and there I grabbed a power gel sachet (fortunately vanilla, a flavour I liked). It was the first I had seen of the gels, though there had been plenty of discarded sachets on the road at various points. I don't know how I missed them. I had started out with a bottle of sports drink that I had made up, but after that I was solely on water and started to worry that I wasn't replacing salts. I sucked on the power gel occasionally over the next few miles, always being careful to wash it down with fluid. I am sure it made a difference.
Eventually the race turned away from the river and up towards the Bois de Boulogne, and here it was great to see the kilometres creeping into the mid-30s. By the time I reached 34 km I was thinking in terms of a run from Wickham roundabout to home, just 5 miles remaining, perfectly manageable, nothing you would get too excited about. It was all about reducing that deficit to manageable proportions and until about 35 km, those kilometre markers had come up pretty nicely.
But it was here that tiredness started to kick in and take hold. I think 36 was OK and perhaps also 37, but thereafter I was struggling. Maybe it was the lack of salts earlier on. I kept thinking: only another couple of kilometres and then it will be the 40-km marker and I will be virtually there, with just two more to go. But in those final five or so kilometres, it felt that each kilometre was at least a mile. And this was where I was lucky to have maintained my time in hand.
Those minutes in hand gave me exactly the cushion I needed – just! I was haemorrhaging nearly a minute a kilometre at this point, and it was a huge struggle. The difficulty was that the Bois de Boulogne was vaguely pleasant but completely uninteresting, with nobody there to watch – a very flat final stretch, flat in height but also flat in atmosphere, which probably accounted for much of the discomfort I felt.
There just wasn't any buzz. And worst of all, it felt as if the organisers had fallen short on the overall distance they needed and so decided to make it up any old how in the Bois. There was one point where you ran around a lake, which wouldn't have been so bad if you hadn't been able to see runners much further ahead, already on the other side. All a bit dispiriting.
The atmosphere was zero. There were a few people around in the Bois but they were just doing their usual Sunday-morning thing. There were even a few joggers going past us in the opposite direction. I couldn't help wondering if they felt they were missing out on something.
And so the Bois seemed to go on forever. One little delight, though, came out of the blue – a stall, at around 40 km, advertising the Marathon de Vannes, at which they were offering wine and what looked like cider, plus cheese, brioches and all sorts of food. I doubt there were many takers. For some reason a swig of cider and a lump of cheese really didn't seem too good an idea at this point. But the bizarreness of it – as surreal as the stretches of banana skins – did at least elicit a weary chuckle. They certainly do things differently in France.
The chuckle was just about all I could manage by now. A degree o
f disorientation was starting to creep in. I was trying to work out the miles and kilometres remaining but it was all just too much to think about. I was chasing thoughts but incapable of grasping them, a really curious sensation. I could feel myself starting to get confused and my thoughts on time in hand, so clear previously, were now all over the place. Suddenly I just couldn't do the maths any more.
This blasted Bois de Boulogne, a place I'd hoped was going to be a lovely little marathon pre-finale, a chance to take stock and catch my breath before the flourish of the finish, never seemed to end. I was hating it. I'd entered a zone where I simply couldn't picture my way to the finishing line. We were running around all over the place. The distance was stacking up, but there was not the slightest hint that we were ever going to leave the Bois, and I knew that this wasn't where the finish lay.
