Bret

Paris Marathon

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Location:

Milton,GA,USA

Member Since:

Jul 27, 2010

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Other

Running Accomplishments:

PR's -

Mile - 4:38    (High School)

2 Mile - 10:12 (High School) 

3 mile - 15:51 (High School)

10k - 35:19 (High School)

Marathon - 2:59 marathon (London -2013)

Half marathon - 1:25:18 (Deseret News 2013)

Completed all 6 of the World Marathon Majors 2024

Completed each of the 5 majors (NY, Chicago, Boston, London & Berlin) at least twice.

8 x Boston Marathon (1999, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2014, 2020 (virtual due to covid) 2021, 2022)

13 x NYC Marathon (1997, 1998, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023)

 

 

Short-Term Running Goals:

Sub 3 hour marathon

Long-Term Running Goals:

Continue to enjoy running and racing as long as my body permits me.  

Personal:

Old guy - (grandfather even) been running for 40+ years.  

Favorite Blogs:

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Miles:This week: 21.75 Month: 111.20 Year: 380.05
Race: Paris Marathon (26.2 Miles) 03:11:14
Easy MilesMarathon Pace MilesThreshold MilesVO2 Max MilesTotal Distance
0.0026.200.000.0026.20

AM - Paris time - I had a decent effort of execution on a race plan, but the time did not translate.  I kind of expected that, because in the weeks leading up to the race I noticed my HR when at MRP was a good bit higher than I can comfortably cover the distance.   My early training was delayed because of an injury - I think I could have used another month of training to realistically have been ready. 

In my race plan, I just decided to cap my effort at my highest aerobic HR and hope that it would translate to my goal pace per mile.  I have done that in my last 4 races - and I have come pretty close to my goal time in each race.  Unfortunately, that did not happen today.  However I executed the race plan perfectly (with a couple of exceptions (water stops) - will discuss below) - but the time was just not what had hoped it would be.  Ended up hitting nearly every mile at between 7:05 and 7:10 for most of the race and was strong enough to finish with 7:02's for the last two miles. 

Paris is a difficult race in some respects.  The course in on very old roads, many of which are cobblestone.  Also, there are lots of turns and three tunnels with sharp ups and downs going in and coming out of them.  It was quite windy today too, with gusts in the 25 mph range and seemingly in every direction.  In addition, there are only water stops every 5k and no gatorade at all.  They have one station at mile 21 for Powerade.  They don't hand out cups of water, instead they are small platic bottles with lids.  You have to open the bottles in some cases.  And, they are only on one side of the street.

I missed the first 5k water stop as I was on the wrong side of the street and could not navigate through the runners to get to it.  At the 15k stop, I decided to use a gel and to put an electrolite tablet in the water bottle.  Not easy to do whilst running with gloves on.  So, I ended up stopping and refueling that way - which cost me about 45 secs of time.  I did that 4 different times on the course - so my overall time was a bit inflated because of that. 

In any event, the rest of the race went reasonably well - but I just never felt like I was a groove or comfortable the whole race.  In addition, just knowing I was slower than planned for most of the race was a bit of a negative mental thing I kept reliving at each mile split.

The race itself is pretty cool with beautiful scenery and essentially every major sight/monument is seen during the course of the race.  I also began to like the kilometer markers - even though there are 42 of them, they go by much faster than the mile markers (which they only sporadically mark in the race).

I would recommend it as a fun race - but probably not one to do if you want to PR - of course today I understand there was a course record of 2:05:11 - so what do I know.

Anyway - that's the report.  Heading out now for some lunch at a quaint cafe.

Au revior.

 

Comments
From Steve on Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 14:36:23 from 66.87.124.2

Nice race, Brew, wished I was there

From dugco on Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 16:16:25 from 68.35.221.180

Sounds like you had plenty of good with the bit of bad - nice job, congrats!

From Jon on Sun, Apr 15, 2012 at 20:42:37 from 74.177.96.130

You did a marathon in Paris and sounds like had a good time. Awesome. Congrats on the finish.

From Bret on Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 12:02:23 from 96.45.118.12

Thanks gents - looking at the results from Boston today - I am really glad I ended up here instead this year.

From allie on Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 16:37:46 from 174.23.152.106

this sounds like a fun and beautiful marathon. congrats on your race!

From Rob Murphy on Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 20:24:56 from 173.166.7.18

You beat me!

From Bret on Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 01:16:36 from 96.45.118.12

Heh...Rob - only because it was probably 35 degrees colder in Paris than Boston!

From jtshad on Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 04:03:21 from 12.189.157.238

Nice and consistent pace, great race. Changes like the water stops can affect your plan and performance. Nicely run in the wind.

Enjoy the rest of your Paris trip!

From Rob Murphy on Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 05:33:51 from 173.166.7.18

I "ran" part of the way yesterday with a guy from France. I told him that he could have run the Paris Marathon and he rolled his eyes and said "don't remind me"!

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