Russell Gardham had been training for this for the past 4 months. Helen Williams had been training for London, but decided at the last minute to do this instead. Russell writes:
"Helen – 03:29:33 (And from what I can make her position was 90th out of 2,563 SF)
Russ - 03:18:38 (And from what I can make my position was 1317th out of 8,958 SH)
Helen and Russ went out to Paris at the weekend to run their marathons. Helen was a tad late with her entry and her taper was in the form of running 70+ miles in the week prior, so a negative taper there then!!
The race was well organised, with not much negative to say about it, so I shall have to make some stuff up later in the report.
We did our recce the day before like all good runners should do, ie to find out where to leave our stuff, to check how long and far it was from our relevant accommodation, but mostly importantly, to check out where the toilets were. There’s nowt worse than not knowing where to go just before the race.
Race day saw our nerves disappear and our race heads come on. On going to our enclosures, me in the 3.30 and Helen in 3.15, I then proceeded to push my way to the front and find Helen.
We were promised some impressive sights according to all the material I’d read, but it was a case of kicking, punching and pushing your way through the first 5 kms (yes the race was in Kms and not miles). Water stations were every 5Kms and Wine Stations every 35Kms.
The summer made an appearance for the run, and immediately disappeared after the race had concluded.
Support on the way was spectacular, although a bit thin on the ground in places, but in others the crowd had gathered up to cause some bottlenecks, leaving around 10 feet of space to run in.
With the race finished, we collected our T-shirts (apparently the ladies were cut for them – whatever that means) and mine was a regular one, and a medal a piece. Then after what seemed an age, their it was a bottle of water, which I greedily downed mine in one go.
Before finding each other, I ate what seemed like a dozen oranges.
This race is fully recommended by me and around 30,000 others from Paris”.
Excellent racing you two and great report too. What Russ omitted was that this was in fact a massive pb for him. Well done both of you!
"Helen – 03:29:33 (And from what I can make her position was 90th out of 2,563 SF)
Russ - 03:18:38 (And from what I can make my position was 1317th out of 8,958 SH)
Helen and Russ went out to Paris at the weekend to run their marathons. Helen was a tad late with her entry and her taper was in the form of running 70+ miles in the week prior, so a negative taper there then!!
The race was well organised, with not much negative to say about it, so I shall have to make some stuff up later in the report.
We did our recce the day before like all good runners should do, ie to find out where to leave our stuff, to check how long and far it was from our relevant accommodation, but mostly importantly, to check out where the toilets were. There’s nowt worse than not knowing where to go just before the race.
Race day saw our nerves disappear and our race heads come on. On going to our enclosures, me in the 3.30 and Helen in 3.15, I then proceeded to push my way to the front and find Helen.
We were promised some impressive sights according to all the material I’d read, but it was a case of kicking, punching and pushing your way through the first 5 kms (yes the race was in Kms and not miles). Water stations were every 5Kms and Wine Stations every 35Kms.
The summer made an appearance for the run, and immediately disappeared after the race had concluded.
Support on the way was spectacular, although a bit thin on the ground in places, but in others the crowd had gathered up to cause some bottlenecks, leaving around 10 feet of space to run in.
With the race finished, we collected our T-shirts (apparently the ladies were cut for them – whatever that means) and mine was a regular one, and a medal a piece. Then after what seemed an age, their it was a bottle of water, which I greedily downed mine in one go.
Before finding each other, I ate what seemed like a dozen oranges.
This race is fully recommended by me and around 30,000 others from Paris”.
Excellent racing you two and great report too. What Russ omitted was that this was in fact a massive pb for him. Well done both of you!
