Paris Marathon 2021

OrbuttOrbutt ✭✭✭
Fingers crossed for 2021   :D

This thread has been rolling since 2005-2006 times and renews itself every year. We're a friendly, supportive bunch. Many people keep coming back to run the same marathon and there are always new 'faces' on the thread. So join in, introduce yourself. We've always got lots to talk about and sometimes it even has to do with running and Paris. Welcome

Paris Marathon official website

ASO Challenges website - you need to have an account with ASO to register for the race. I believe it is now Timeto

Medical Certificate

You will need a certificate signed and stamped from your doctor, download the certificate from the Paris Marathon website. http://www.schneiderelectricparismarathon.com/us/registration/medical-certificate

Some doctors do it for free, others a minimum consultancy charge. Take it with you if you have to see the doctor between now and the race.

Travel

Eurostar is a personal favourite to Gare du Nord as you arrive in the centre of Paris. Tickets available begining of October.

EXPO

If possible arrive on the Friday as the Expo is extremely busy on the Saturday. If you must go to the Expo on the Saturday, don’t worry, others have and they survived.

To get to the Expo. GARE DU NORD, take Metro 4 direction Maire de Monterouge, change at MONTPARNASSE, Metro 12 to PORTE DE VERSAILLES.

You will require; ??? 

ID ??? 
Medical Certificate ??? 
Convocation (Confirmation slip, printed off the ASO website, available 2 weeks before the race. ASO will send you an email reminder) 
You will be given your bib, a ticket for the bag drop and 4 safety pins. Also a basic goody bag; plastic bin liner, sponge, water bottle, bumbag….

Saturday Evening

We have our own meet up at a pasta restaurant, numbers are confirmed a couple of weeks before the race.

Race Day

The Arc de Triomphe. Metro station Charles de Gaulle Etoile. RER A. Metro lines 1, 2, 6

Bag drop.

You can take any bag to the drop zone, attach your ticket to the handle. Allow 15 minutes to walk from the Arc to the bag drop and back.

Group Photo.

Our second meeting point, at 8am we have a group photo. Facing the Arc with back to the Champs, we’ll be by the right leg. This gives the fast runners time to get to their pens.

There are limited portaloos in the pens and urinals. Some go in the side streets and even in the pen. It happens, if you get caught short you’ll understand.

Start Area

The Champs Eylsées is in the shade, it can be very cold, bring throw away clothes to discard in the pen. Wait until last minute because there are staggered starts.

The pens are split in two, each pen goes one after the other then one side of the pen, then the other. Last pen leaves just after 10 am.

The Race

The course is fairly flat however start is downhill for 2km, it is easy to get carried away and start too fast. There is a small climb at 32km depending on your race, you’ll either not notice it or it will seem like Everest. Save Energy, not time.

There are makers every kilometre and mile. 

Water stations every 5km. 33cl bottled water. 

There are two sports drink stations one at 28km, this year it was Isostar in small cups.

You start on the Champs Elysées, down to the Concorde, pass the Louvre, around the Bastille, around the Bois de Vincennes back along the Seine, Trocadero and the Eiffel Tower, up to to Roland Garros and the Longchamps race course, around Bois de Boulogne and finishing along avenue Foch with the Arc de Triomphe in the background. The support is great and your own supporters can cheer you on 3-6 occasions along the route. In the two woods (Bois), the support is sparse but generally there is a great atmosphere.

Sunday night

Come to the pub, 3rd meet up, wear your medal with pride. No matter your time, you have earned that medal. Everyone will be sharing their race stories. 
Please say hello, tell us your pen and bib number, perhaps a little about yourselves. If the thread moves on or life gets in the way, doesn’t matter join in when you can.

Comments

  • 3PC03PC0 ✭✭
    CAN I START SHOUTING ?  I LL BE SHOUTING AT EVERY ONE WHEN THEY  ENTER BOIS DE BOULOGNE !!!
  • OrbuttOrbutt ✭✭✭
    Bois de Boulougne aka the Woods of Death.
    Shout away.
    Everyone benefits from a shout
    :)
  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭
    2021! Got to love an optimist. 
  • chamolkchamolk ✭✭✭
    Paris marathon 20xx.

    I'm just glad I didn't book flights /hotel for October and November. Had a right time of it getting easy jet to refund the flights for April
  • Looking forward to it as long as I can get rid of the Plantar Fasciitis and have no more trouble with chondrocalcinosis. 
  • I'd presumed ASO had previously confirmed the 2021 race for April 11th, but looking back over the emails about the April 2020 and October 2020 delays/cancellations, they've never actually said the 2021 race is taking place in April as usual. 

    I reckon the 2021 race will be October 2021 at the earliest, if it goes ahead at all. 
  • OrbuttOrbutt ✭✭✭
    I hadn't noticed that they hadn't specified a date in 2021.
    Certainly makes you think.....
  • Eggyh73Eggyh73 ✭✭✭
    Right now I think it would be sensible to hold off on a date until they are sure the event will go ahead. 
  • chamolkchamolk ✭✭✭
    If past form is anything to go by, it'll be arranged for April, then May, then maybe June
  • PT71PT71 ✭✭✭
    So a date has been released 
    17/10/21
    So who is going?
  • OrbuttOrbutt ✭✭✭
    Hi PT71.
    It’s a No from me.
    I’ve got London 2 weeks before and I’m due to be going on holiday on 16th.
    It’s a shame, I was really looking forward to running Paris again.
    Maybe another year 🙂
  • I'm signed up for 17/10/21. That makes two of us so far... Looks like the hunch I posted about in August was right.

    I should have read that email they sent last week a bit closer, I didn't realise it required you to do anything further to sign up but there's a form to fill out on the website before 30/11.
  • PT71PT71 ✭✭✭
    the arseholes have cancelled my entry, claiming i sent them an email on March 1st, I haven't seen anything from them since the email that came in November which i filled in asking to be transferred to this year. Not impressed at all.
  • OrbuttOrbutt ✭✭✭
    That’s shocking. I’ve only ever received a text message with a link to a webpage, which I filled in to cancel but didn’t give me any confirmation.
    I’m half expecting to be told that I’m still running.
    If you fancy a Marathon around the same time, check out Liverpool (although you still may not feel like booking anything just yet)
  • PT71PT71 ✭✭✭
    Orbutt said:
    That’s shocking. I’ve only ever received a text message with a link to a webpage, which I filled in to cancel but didn’t give me any confirmation.
    I’m half expecting to be told that I’m still running.
    If you fancy a Marathon around the same time, check out Liverpool (although you still may not feel like booking anything just yet)
    my guess is they have kicked me out so they can charge me more money to re-enter
    would be interested to know if anyone else had the March email 
  • PT71PT71 ✭✭✭
    So with only 8 weeks to go, is anyone actually running this year? 
  • OrbuttOrbutt ✭✭✭
    Not me. Not actually running at the moment due to a recurring calf injury.
    Are you?
  • PT71PT71 ✭✭✭
    Orbutt said:
    Not me. Not actually running at the moment due to a recurring calf injury.
    Are you?
    Yeah, I'm in
    looking forward to it

  • OrbuttOrbutt ✭✭✭
    Superb. I look forward to hearing how you get on.
    Please post a race report, I love reading how people get on.
  • chamolkchamolk ✭✭✭
    Nope, got my refund some time ago. It was too close to the Dublin marathon for me, but it's now been cancelled. Furthest I'm travelling these days is a flight to Manchester for the half on 10th Oct.

    Good luck to anyone who makes it to Paris
  • PT71 said:
    So with only 8 weeks to go, is anyone actually running this year? 

    With a week to go, seems like it's only me and you this year.

    If the forum wants to carry on its traditional race meet-up, there must be a telephone kiosk somewhere we can squeeze into.
  • So after all the fuss in 2019 about having 50,000 entrants, according to the results yesterday there were just over 15,000 finishers. Seems like most of the regular foreign entrants just stayed home, even more so than Berlin three weeks ago. No wonder the entries stayed open until last week. I wonder how issuing 35,000 refunds affects the event's future.

    Hope your race went well PT71. Mine did, though I wasn't expecting it. Three hours sleep on Friday, then probably eight and a half at least (!) the night before the race. Well off a PB (ten minutes down on Berlin 2019), but still a course best by two minutes (and a 'season best' by 17 minutes, thanks pandemic) for me.

    I have never seen a queue for the Salon du Running like there was at 3:30pm on Saturday afternoon. Pretty sure in past years the longest I've ever waited to get in would have been five minutes, if there was any wait at all - Saturday took just over an hour. I'm sure someone will have posted a clip of the queue on social media, if anyone's interested. It snaked all around the entrance, past the Metro exit, out past the tram stops, all the way around the building, under the Periferque, and around the back of the expositions car Park
    Never heard "Putain..." as much as I have when seeing later attendees come around yet another corner and still not find the end of the queue. Standing in line for an hour is not a great start to a marathon weekend, but if my performance is anything to judge by it made no difference. The expo was no different to past years, other than they gave you a Covid wristband for proving your vaccination (or negative test) status, and the small stands seemed a bit more spaced out. Maybe they'd taken on more space inside the building than usual, maybe there were fewer exhibitors. Literally just picked up my number and left. Probably upwards of 95% of attendees in masks, and certainly higher than that for those working there. I wonder what the figure was for the London marathon expo.

    Also thought the pens and start was far better organised than it usually is, though that might just have been down to the lack of runners. Basically it was the waves as past years, but with the addition of only letting, say, 100 or so runners go off every 30 seconds or so, alternating from the two sides of the Champs Elysees. Really felt sorry for the announcer on the mic having to do a "3, 2, 1... Go!" every 30 seconds for two or three hours.

    Oh, and no names or country codes on the race numbers, so virtually the only cheering from spectators (unless they knew you) was "Allez monsieurs" or "Allez les filles ", etc. Not sure what that was about. A measure to reduce shouting in crowds? Because of the refunds, and saving costs on re-printing numbers? GDPR? No idea.

    All in all a pretty weird weekend. I give it a 7/10. 

    See you in 2023, probably.
  • PT71PT71 ✭✭✭
    Hi
    I got to the expo on Saturday at 12.15 and the que wasn't too bad, when I left the expo the que was massive
    I did have a look around the expo and there were a lot of traders especially in the "nutrition" market.

    As for the run itself it went ok, I wasn't in the best of shape going into the race so had no thoughts of racing it, i was merely there to get round, hopefully in 1 piece. I also slept terribly every night in Paris which is odd as I can normally sleep on a knife edge through a hurricane  :p
    I enjoyed the course for the most part but wasn't impressed with the attitude of the locals who would cross the road right in front of you with bikes, pushchairs etc and then cuss as if i was in the wrong

    I had my name hastily scribbled on my number so got a few calls of Paul but generally nothing of note as previously mentioned.

    It was my 5th marathon and overall an enjoyable experience   
    I was happy with s 4;21 finish considering I felt like withdrawing in the 2 weeks leading up to the event
  • Does anyone know if there is a forum for 2022 Paris Marathon?
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