I scraped in under 4h30 in 4h29:59 for the Schneider Electric Marathon de Paris last Sunday. If I am honest, I had hoped for a better time, but this is still 2 min 39 quicker than my previous marathon attempt.
All in, it was a great run. Paris is obviously a beautiful city to run in: the race starts on on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, passes the Place de la Concorde, Jardin des Tuileries and Louvre before heading out to large park and past the Château de Vincennes. It then comes back up the Seine with a view of the Cathédral Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower before finishing on Avenue Foch. It was beautiful sunny day, possibly warmer than it needed to be, and the spectators were out in full swing together with cheer leading studs, the fire department spraying runners with fire hoses to cool us down, and an assortment of bands (I will never forget the band playing "sitting on the dock of the bay", accompanied by a sousaphone!)
I definitely ran a smarter race, watching my pace from the outset, rather than setting off to quickly like I'd done the previous time. That got me to a PB at 30km, and of course the PB for the full distance. The first 25km were an absolute pleasure to run, but by the time I met my wife and daughter, who had come to watch, at km 29, I was starting to feel the distance. However, I kept it together for a while yet, all the way to 34 km, after which my lap times started to drop off. The worst kms were into the 8min/km ranges and reflected the two relatively short walks I took. All in all a much better run, and so I was really surprised that I'd only been just over 2 mins quicker.
I also noticed that I consumed only 5 out of the 8 gels I'd anticipated, although I did also consume a half banana which they were handing out on the course. That said, I did not feel under-fueled. I did feel slight under-watered in the final 5km. I normally drink quite a lot and it was quite warm by then.
My recovery also took a little longer than anticipated, and I suffered from reasonable DOMS on Monday and Tuesday, subsiding on Wednesday and Thursday. This has resulted in some lower back pain - a recurring problem for me. I took quite a lot of multivitamins leading up to and after the race, and this time was able to avoid getting ill the week after the race. It was the tops of my quads that hurt during the last 10km of the race. The fact that this is a new pain is something I take as a sign that the parts of my legs that have hurt in previous races have now become stronger - i.e. a good sign.
It's now only a few weeks to my first ultra. I still have a few long runs to fit in, including a few back-to-backs, and then I will put myself to the test.
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