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Paris Marathon 2018
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I've entered the Paris marathon, my first, and am very glad to have found this forum as I will have an awful LOT of questions!
Steve
23817
Blue Pen
I'm hoping to finish - what I tell everyone
under 4 hours - what I tell myself
3 hours 30 mins - I have no idea if this is possible, ran 20 miles last night which is the furthest I have ever run in 47 years and everyone has told me it's the last 6 miles which are the killer...
The start is wide, but there are parts of the course where it can be narrow and crowded, so you really want to start with people aiming for a similar time to yourself to avoid getting bottled up behind a group of people on a slower pace.
As the race gets closer they will notify you of the start time for each pen. Normally it's about 10/15/20 minutes between each pen starting. The elites will almost be finished by the time the pink pen starts! The faster the pen the quicker between the gaps, as there are fewer runners in those pens, as you go further back the starting times get longer as the Purple/Green/Pink pens etc tend to be very busy so it takes a while for everyone to cross the start line.
Steves_midlifecrisis - Welcome to the thread. It sounds like your training is going well. The last six miles do hurt, but how badly they hurt tends to depend on your pacing. If you go off to fast any time you gain in the early miles you'll lose and then some in the final few miles. Keep an eye on your training times, maybe race a half to help estimate a time, and work out a target time from there.
That said for a first marathon I'd say it's all about completing it. It's a real learning experience, so it's hard to judge pace and fuelling correctly.
I've entered the Lee Vally Velo Park Half on Feb. 24th so I'll see how that goes!
My aim is to finish the marathon, anything else will be a bonus
There are toilets in the pens but nowhere near enough so you can que for ages. Once the pen goes off the toilets are completely free so you can use at your leisure before the next pen comes down. By the time you are done, the next pen comes down and you start with them. And that should be the pen you want to go off with.
Learnt the hard way last year that, running a long, slow marathon, my body needs real food, not just gels. Experimenting with bananas at the moment, as they seem to have them at the water stations in Paris... hoping Rome will be the same. Has anyone tried Tribe energy bars, or similar? Seem expensive, but are they worth it?
Can anyone give any insight as to what kind of nutrition they have on the course and where? The FAQ on the website just says:
"Refreshments will be organised every 5km. You can grab some water, dried fruit, fresh fruit and sugar."
Do they have the same stuff at every 5 km station? Will all of these have food or will some just be water stations? Does sugar mean energy gels or something else? And if so, does anyone know which brands of stuff they have?
Just trying to plan thoroughly ahead so if anyone has done it previously and remembers what they had I'd be very grateful for some insight. Many thanks!
Paris is a bit of an odd one for food at the stations. They don’t have any gels. It’s mostly fruit, beware the orange peel underfoot. The sugar will be exactly that. Sugar!
The water stations also only offer water to drink, apart from one station around mile 19 that has sports drinks.
I always carry my own supply of gels and sports drink at marathons. If you are used to certain brands of gels when training I’d advise sticking to those and bring/carry your own.
I was considering taking my own gels and just using the course stations for water and a banana or two, do they have those?!
I just noticed the Saturday morning "Breakfast Run" advertised on the official site, is anyone else signed up for that? Apparently you have to register (from 15th Feb) but I'll be heading to Paris on my own so I think I'll do it just for a bit of company!
The breakfast run is a nice easy paced run to loosen the legs up for the big day. I've always ran that before the marathon. It's a good way to spend the Saturday morning.
How are people getting on?
http://www.richardrae.de/2018/02/10/gros-gerau-fruhjahrslauf-2018-sub36-pb/
It sounds like the weather in the UK has been pretty crappy recently, we've been quite fortunate here that it's been cold, but not too icy or snowy.
Hi all, training going ok although I am supposed to be running right now and I'm too busy at work. Did 17 miles on Friday which was ok, having a bit of a drop back week this week so will do 10 at the weekend and then up to 18-19 next weekend.
On the medical cert stuff, I asked my cousin who is a doctor if he could sign ours. He said yes but he doesn't have a stamp (he's a surgeon, not a GP). I emailed the paris marathon people and they said if he doesn't have a stamp he just needs to put his first and last name, telephone number and professional doctors number on it.
Just thought might be worth knowing anyway. If you google the general medical register you can find doctors names and reg. numbers in case anyone is going to be naughty and fake it!
I've run my best marathons times off slow LSR training runs and fast short/mid-length runs. The times when I've been fast on my long runs in training I've always performed poorly come race day. A few miles at marathon pace towards the end of a long run is fine. Too many marathon pace long training runs can burn you out come race day.
I also think that 13.1 at half marathon pace doesn't need extra running at marathon pace, just a warm up and dead easy warm down if you want to get up to 17miles.
I'm planning to run a half marathon at just slower than goal marathon pace next weekend, then tack on 8 miles to make it a long and hard run, that seems tough enough to me!
I follow a P&D plan and that has a maximum 14 mile at Marathon pace in an 18 mile long run 5 weeks from race day. I find if I can nail that in training, I can usually manage 26 at the same pace or thereabouts 5 weeks later.
Just downloaded the Marathon app for fun. 52 jours apparentlement !
Doing a half this weekend as a benchmark test - fingers crossed!!
The start at Paris is very wide. You won't have issues finding space in the first few miles, but there are several points on the course where the road narrows and you can get bottled in for a bit.
The best tip for avoiding getting bottled in at Paris is to stay away from any pacer runners. The pacers always have large groups running with them, which can take up most of the width of the road as they all just follow the pacer with the balloon and can be oblivious to everything else around them.
Also just signed up for the breakfast run who else is in and is there anything else worth signing up for??
I'm making a bit of a trip for the marathon spending 5 days in Paris anyone recommend any must do's/ things to see, apart form the main ones