Keep on Running (16 page)

  And then, at about ten past eight, Marc and I set off. Gently continuing our limbering-up process, we jogged the ten minutes or so to the Arc de Triomphe, joining the crowds of people who had presumably been hanging around for ages. It was a highly civilised way to prepare for a marathon and we both felt relaxed and up for it. It was coolish, but bright, with increasingly big patches of blue in the sky. The weather was improving with every passing minute. Fortunately, it seemed the French weather forecasters had got it exactly right, and we'd be running in ideal conditions.

  Not quite matching the conditions was the organisation. Marc was in the yellow band for those wanting to do 3:15 and I was in the blue band for those aiming at 3:30, but the reality was light years away from the neatly cordoned-off time sections the organisers had promised. It was a scrum. The problem was that the entrances into the time zones were tiny gaps in high barriers right at the back of each section. Rather than slipping in at the back and moving forward within the zone, most people, understandably, were forcing their way along the pavement outside the zone and then clambering over the barriers once they had got as far forward as they could. The zones were fairly tightly packed at the back, but from the mid-section to the front, the crush in each was awful.

  Marc abandoned all hope of entering the yellow section. It was all we could do to get into the blue section, where we stood squeezed shoulder-to-shoulder and genuinely worried. Any significant surge from the back, or anyone toppling, and it could have been nasty. At times, my feet were off the ground. Rather inappropriately, perhaps, I kept thinking about all those Middle Eastern holy sites where hundreds of pilgrims get crushed as a seemingly regular occurrence. Shove tens of thousands of people together in cramped conditions, and disasters do happen. I was getting nervous.

  Making it all the more unpleasant was the fact that plenty of bodies around us were already pretty whiffy. Even worse was the fact that the chap next to me, who probably couldn't have raised his hands above his waist if he had wanted to, was quietly pissing into his water bottle. Scores of other people were doing the same, or peeing straight down onto the road, which was covered in discarded, increasingly wee-soaked plastic ponchos, dished out the day before to keep us warm at the start. It seemed a treacherous combination. The upper-body crush held you rigidly in place while your feet skidded on urine. This really was mankind at his most unappealing. If we could have hopped, we would have been hopping mad. Any serenity had long since gone, replaced by increasing anxiety.

  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 good – 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.