April 7-9
We jumped on a morning train from Troyes into Paris. We thought this would be cheaper/easier than bringing the car into the city and trying to find parking. The train in was super easy and cheap and we made it in time to visit Sainte-Chapelle which is a royal chapel within the Palais de la Cité which was the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century. It was commissioned by King Louis IX to house his collection of Passion relics, including Christ’s Crown of Thorns. We didn’t see any relics. But we did see these amazing windows:
I know what you’re thinking:
After this, we headed over to pick up Michael’s bib for the Paris marathon. Oh? You didn’t know he was running? No surprise. Only a few people knew and he spent the better part of the last six months saying he wasn’t going to be running even though he had signed up.
Although still in decent running shape from his Chicago marathon training, we didn’t have a lot of opportunities to run while we were in Africa. After an 18 mile test run about 9 days prior, he decided he was definitely going to do it.
So here we are, carb loading in an Airbnb in Paris on Saturday night:
Now, some of you know this. Some of you don’t. But marathon Sunday is THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR. It is my absolute favorite day. If you have been in New York City for marathon Sunday, you probably know what I’m talking about. If you have watched other marathons, you may have an inkling.
Imagine this scenario: an entire city of people who are busy and cranky and traffic is bad and people don’t know their neighbors or say hi when walking down the street. You work long days, probably weekends too. When you are not working, you are trying to maximize the short amount of time you have with the most fun. But for the most part, you are just tired. But then once a year it is marathon Sunday. In New York, they shut down streets and everyone gathers to cheer on random strangers. If you park yourself on second avenue, in the 70’s or 80’s, you can grab a beer from a local pub and watch for hours. My first five years in New York, I didn’t know a single person running the marathon, but I would stand on the street for five or six hours screaming at the top of my lungs. The runners love it and are energized by it. They write their names on their shirts so you can cheer them on by name. They run 26.2 miles in tutus and costumes. It’s just one day where everyone has a good will type of attitude. Don’t even get me started on those people who run it while pushing a disabled child. Unreal.
What’s not to love about marathon Sunday? It is my favorite.
It’s a little different in Paris for a few reasons. First of all, I didn’t have anyone to cheer with. Not an issue. I can do it solo. Second, I don’t speak French, so screaming my standard phrases was less effective. For your reference: “let’s go!”, “you’re nailing this!”, “keep it up!”, “don’t stop now!”, and the more generic “yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh”.
Michael is ready to go:
And so was I. I was determined to meet up with Michael at three or four locations. Marathon Sunday isn’t the easiest spectator sport. It’s hard work if done properly.
I got to mile 4, ready to start my day. The important thing is knowing that you have to stay on one side of the course. I chose the inside of the Paris marathon route because I could easily jump from 4 to 14 and also there was a subway close to take me towards the end.
I got an espresso and croissant and waited for the runners to come to me at mile 4 which was right at the hospital. There were about five doctors that had come out of the hospital to watch the runners. Otherwise, it was just me… clapping nonstop for about an hour. I got a few “merci”s from random runners and I gave some extra love to anyone who was clearly from the USA, Mexico or South America. Those countries fall into the languages that I speak and the people who I assume get the least amount of support from a French speaking crowd.
Here we have Michael coming up on mile four – he’s nailing it! It turned out that the bad drop was super far away, so he carried it with him to the start and left it with me at four.
So far so good. I headed off to mile 14 for the next viewing. He was still doing great!
The interesting thing that I learned at mile 14 is that Paris does not really block any of the streets or monitor who is crossing. So you can enter the course at almost any time. Apparently there was a church service that had an entire group of people trying to cross the street: wheelchairs, strollers, kids, old people, adults who have zero self awareness. It was crazy. A woman in a stroller walked right out into the elite men runners and knocked right into a runner. I can’t imagine running a marathon competitively and having to worry about random people pushing their baby right into their path. It was awful and you could never get away with that in New York.
Mile 21 – Michael was on the struggle bus. Still doing well, considering, but I knew it wasn’t as well as he would want to be doing. As such, no video or picture from this stop. No way was I going to put the camera in his face at this point.
Mile 25.5 – ok, so they’re basically done, which makes it a great point to watch the runners. Even the runners who are walking often start jogging again since they’re so close. That said, there was a guy who looked really rough that walked right by me. I called him by name and told him to keep going. It was that point that he collapsed in front of me and had to be carried off the course. It was one of those reminders of how stupid it is to push your body to run 26.2 miles.
But here came Michael and he seemed pretty good. I have video of it but it’s terrible because when I saw him I threw my hands up in the air. Here is a screen shot that I pulled from that video.
And then it was over. I hustled down past the finish to meet up with Michael who was tired. Very tired.
But also very pleased to have finished with a great time – 4:18:31. Not as good as his Chicago time, but amazing for having done no training.
After the race we headed back to the AirBNB so Michael could shower and then off to drink some beer and have a nice dinner. I deserved at least that after my strong showing.
My analysis of marathon Sunday, Paris edition: Not exclusively, but for most of the day people either stood in silence as they watched the runners pass or they cheered exclusively when their friends passed. Also, there was no wine or beer or food along the route. Perhaps a glass of wine in these “fans” would have improved their moods. Regardless, it’s still my favorite day and it makes me excited for the next time I’m back in New York for my favorite day of the year.
The toughest part of the day for Michael? Facing these six flights of stairs to get up to our Airbnb.
Or maybe trying to figure out how to eat escargot directly out of the shell:
That was new for us. We’ve always had the snails removed and put in one of those escargot dishes. We were too proud to ask for help, but not too proud to pull up a YouTube tutorial.
The next day we spent the majority of the morning trying to figure out how to get back to our car in Troyes after the train strike shut down every train and there were no buses. It was definitely a fiasco that negated any attempt at saving cash by leaving the car outside the city. Oh well – we got back to the car finally and headed back east to French wine country.