"Running won't kill you, you'll pass out first!"

Paris Half Marathon – 13.1 Miles

March 8, 2009

This day has been coming for a long time, and rather unfortunately about 5 days before it I came down with a cold! Dreading the run from the moment we reached French soil things only got worse, with only 3 hours sleep I woke up on a damp Sunday morning and headed down to the Metro station.

After arriving and queing (sadly being british was a downful on this one – need to learn how to ‘queue’ like the rest of Europe!) for a long time for one of the 5 toilets the run was just about to begin and off I went. Looking at my garmin data it appears I started off at a reasonable pace and the first couple of miles went by quite smoothly. The run itself I dont think was that well organised and it was at the start and end this appeared most obvious. With cars parked at the side of the roads and people opting to run on the pavement instead of the road it all seemed a little odd. There were also a LOT of runners, more than I have ever run with before and this caused a fair amount of congestion!

Ignoring the first “drink station” at 5km meant I could assess how they would  be from now on – a bit of a nightmare! Water was on offer which was fine alongside pieces of orange and bananas – whoever thought that is a good idea for people to drop on the floor has never tried running on banana skins!

At about 6km I had planned to see my street team (Laura and Claire) who had accompanied me out on this wet morning, lo and behold they were there – with cameras at the ready, no pictures captured in time ;-) I must have been running that quickly!!! I’m sure at the next point in 4km the cameras would be set and ready to go…

I don’t think my body started flailing till about 12km – 7.5miles in. Energy levels fealt low and I just felt myself slowing down further and further. I didnt seem to be able to do anything to speed up.  It was a fighting battle for over 6miles – I didnt want to walk but came close a number of times to it.

2:01 since the start of the run and I was crossing the line – glad to have got round all things considered, slightly upset that it was just over 2 hours but nevermind, hopefully when am at full fitness I should be able to claw back a few minutes.

That’s my first official run of half marathon distance done – back to personal running now up to the big day!

parishalf

Map and photos to follow shortly.

Tags:
Category: Garmin, Long Run, Nike+, Running, Training
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No Responses to “Paris Half Marathon – 13.1 Miles”

  1. The British 10k… says:
    July 14, 2009 at 6:18 am

    [...] done a fair few paid for runs in the last year I thought the Paris half was the poorest organiseduntil now. This event has to come fairly close to it faltering on several places. The event itself [...]

    Reply