Fast forward to April 2013. We had moved to Italy and I had pretty much lost my running base. I was starting to run again and had a regular running partner. On a run one day, she suggested we run a marathon while we live in Europe. It sounded like it would be cool, so I agreed. She went right home and did some research and decided Paris would be good. Neither of us had been there and it was the same week as our kids's spring break. We worked at building a base over the summer and the real training started around September or October. I can't even begin to tell you how many miles we put in or how many hours of cross-training we did between Zumba, yoga, and a foam-rolling class. We tried to be smart about our training and not ramp up miles too quickly, but still get in all the training necessary. I think we did pretty good. We had some muscle cramping issues, but no injuries for either of us. I was so thankful to have a running partner, it made long runs much more bearable. I dreaded the 10 miles on the treadmill I had to do when we traveled for swim meets or over Christmas. I am not sure I could have accomplished this on my own.
We left for Paris on a Friday and the race was the following Sunday. I hadn't really felt nervous until Friday morning, then I had a ton of nervous energy. However, once we got to Paris I was good. Saturday night and Sunday (race day) morning I was totally calm. I met Lani and we headed to the corral for the slowest runners, which was good by us. We had no goal other to finish before the 6:00 hours alloted to us. I didn't even care if I was last!
Before we started, with the Arc in the background
Our pace flags
We got to run past all of the major landmarks, starting at the Arc De Triumph, the Louvre, the July pole, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and some beautiful neighborhoods.
Selfie with the July Pole
There were people lining the streets cheering for us like we were celebrities. We even saw some friends from Sig who were in Paris for spring break, knew we were running and took time to watch the marathon! They had bands periodically, which really helped keep me going or boost my energy. There were also all sorts of characters running. In our corral, we had a guy dressed like sponge bob, a guy dressed like a coffee cup, and one dressed like a bear of some sort. At some point we caught up to a dude dressed like Luigi, from Mario Brothers. We kept passing him and then being past by him as we stopped for water and oranges. It became our mission to beat him, but towards the end it didn't look promising. We slowed down a lot at the end.
and we did beat him!
We hadn't seen them since the beginning,
But we beat them too!
I won't lie, it hurt. At about mile 16, I was talking about doing another marathon, if it was in a cool location. By mile 20, it was a different story! We had done 20 miles for our longest training run, and 6.2 is A LOT of miles after 20!
But we stuck it out and ran across the finish line! It was an awesome experience and an accomplishment I never thought I would achieve.
(Notice it says 4h30 for my corral. That was the slowest option for registration, not a
realistic goal!)
Thankfully, the recovery was not too bad. I was sure to stretch and roll and I was walking up and down stairs and around Paris with little soreness the next day. After swearing to my family that I was retired, a couple of days after the race I now think I might do it again. Of course it would have to be a cool location and the stars would have to align just right, but it is a possibility.
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