It’s been 20 minutes. I’m still sat on the floor. It’s 8.50pm. It’s 29°C and we’re all pretty hot. And it doesn’t really look like we’re about to run a marathon.

But, well, here we are!

And I really should correct myself: it actually did look like we were about to run a marathon, if only because of the endless forest of carbon-plated fluorescent shoes I could see from my ankle-high vantage point.

This course was the official marathon course! Yes, that’s right*, without training, I’d achieved the impossible: I had knocked 45 minutes off my marathon PB and had qualified for the Olympics!  (*an outright lie)

Or … through a badly organised time trial against Kipchoge 3 years ago where they ended up having to push 50% of the runners through because they messed things up, I had managed to “qualify” for the mass marathon event of the Paris Olympics, the ‘Marathon Pour Tous’, a nice new idea from the organisers.

The elite men would run at 8am on Saturday. The elite women would run at 8am on Sunday. And, in between, from 9pm onwards on Saturday, so would 20,000 or so people!

Upon “qualifying”, I had initially wondered how on earth they’d organise the race without killing a fair chunk of the field based on August temperatures in Paris (to circle back to the first paragraph: it’s 9pm and still almost 30°C). Then, they announced the course would include a 6km climb (peaking at 14% for 500m) between kilometres 15 and 21 and a 1km climb at 28km (at 16%) and I thought they were actually pretty serious about killing people.

They then announced this evening option which I hadn’t thought of which was actually quite smart: it makes sure the slower runners (who’d only be setting off around 11pm!) finish in the coolest weather of the day and it also doesn’t block the whole town during the day too. They also offered a 10km option for people to drop down to, which I think a lot of people took up!

So anyway, here we were, on the floor. And, as it’s rare enough to deserve to be mentioned, surrounded by toilets too! I did however – and you’re most welcome for the oversharing – for once not need to do my usual hour of queuing repeatedly to poo repeatedly: the good thing about a 9pm race is that I had the whole day to empty my bowels, had an afternoon nap, had “breakfast” at 6pm and was good to go! Huzzah!

Enough of poos and back to running. About 10 minutes before the start, we got shuffled along to the official start line in front of the Hôtel de Ville, at which there was a bit of a light show, the official Olympics theme tune and, after a short countdown, we were off!

As per all races, there was some shoving and pushing and, amongst the crowd, I spotted a fair few friends and Amélie Mauresmo (one of the ‘patrons’ of the race).

What was, however, quickly increasingly obviously different to any other big race was the crowd: wow. It was absolutely out of this world and something I’ve never experienced. Without exaggerating too much, it must have been 3 or 4 people deep for the first 6 or 7km of the race which, with some rough crappy math, is probably not far from 100,000 people along that segment of the route.

I guess everyone got caught up in the “Olympics fun” and it was a nice thing to do in the good weather after a meal but you really had to pinch yourself sometimes to take it in: maybe that’s what it feels like to be a cyclist at the top of Mont Ventoux in the Tour de France, maniacs either side of you clapping and screaming. Just: wow.

Equally wow: the heat. Oof. 29°C with a breeze is hot. 29°C in an urban environment with heat coming back from the tarmac. Sizzle crackle struggle.

The first few kilometres were incredibly scenic too: Place de la Bourse, Place Vendome (staring down at a beautiful sunset too) etc it was stunning and memorable and I did my best to take it in to remember it when I’m old and crippled.

Because of the energy from the crowd and the other runners and the fact that you always start off a little fast, I’d spent the first few kilometres trying to slow myself down. A) because my target time was around 3h25 and I was on 3h10 pace which wasn’t sustainable (ugh don’t the 2h50 PB days seem a long way away!) and B) because I was struggling with the heat. Once I’d finished, I’d look back on these 5km as the hardest of the race.

My hope rested on there being water at the 5km mark: this was flagged as a “rafraichissement” station on the map which they described as cake, fruit etc (which is the last thing one wants after 5km but anyway) but I was praying for water too. And, drum roll: there was. This started pattern for the rest of the race: every 2.5km, I’d be pouring over my head or drinking a couple of cups of water.

This was enough to keep going: before I knew there’d be water, I was actually a bit worried about how I’d finish. Hot. But after … I knew it should be OK, I’d just be very wet.

After that first station, the next 10km or so in Paris were pretty “standard” for any Parisian, in that it took us westwards along the Seine towards Boulogne, a route that many have done many a time on training runs (minus the crowd and the huge Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower!).

I was going a little faster than target pace (4’45/km) and hit the 5km mark in 4’38/km average and 10km in 4’40/km so I was about a minute ‘early’ as I went through the 10km marker in 46’27.

After that, the course was very much not what Parisians are used to doing and any advance I had was very quickly cancelled out. Once you crossed the Pont de Sèvres, you hit the hill.

Or should I say hillS.

To prepare for the race, I’d actually done this “out-of-Paris” part of the course 5 or 6 times in the previous few months so knew what to expect. Most people use Heartbreak Hill at the Boston Marathon as the reference point for hell during a marathon: the TV commentators for the elite marathon worked out this was 6x worse. It felt like it. It was relentless.

Though at least I knew what to expect and my legs were slightly prepared (more than they would otherwise have been). Anyone who hadn’t prepared would have been wiped out by this six-kilometre climb. Most was ‘gentle’ but the last 500m or so took you up a 14% climb to the Lafayette and Pershing monument (which is quite famous locally).

It was around then that I felt a nasty blister developing, though I ignored it and ran on. It was nasty, but not as nasty as my two toes after the race! Oof.

I had expected to see more people walking up this slope but, to be honest, most people seemed to have been doing OK (ish). Maybe the noticeable coolness outside of Paris helped (what a blessing when you hit the forested area!).

What unexpectedly drove me nuts mind you was … my alarm going off! We’ve set ourselves “bedtime” alarms to stop us staying up all night watching TV. It never works, but it’s all about intentions. Anyway, I obviously hadn’t though about turning it off so, for 30 minutes of that climb, every 5 minutes, I had my bloody alarm going off in my ears!

Just after the hill, you hit the halfway mark: I went through in 1h43’35 according to the app which was like a minute under “target” but essentially fine – and not bad.

After that, it’s a gentle downhill faux plat for 5 of 6km: I had expected to pick up the pace a bit and get back to 4’45 or so target pace but I stayed stuck at 5’06/km according to the tracker (which, considering I used to run marathons in about 4’06/km previously … feels slow!). Maybe running up massive hills in the middle of the night is tiring after all. I was never planning on smashing a great time but, with the confirmation that my legs were definitely not up for it, I stuck to my other main target: finish and never walk.

As I went past the Château de Versailles, I kept turning my head to take it all in: not only the beauty at night of this somewhat extravagant building, but also the size of the crowd which was huge here too. Not quite Paris-level, but certainly “noisy-and-impressive-level”.

What I was also trying to take in (or at least keep in) was my gels: I was trying a 50/50 approach of Torq (my usual, hyper-sweet (but nice) gels) and Maurten gels, whose consistency I can best describe as akin to eating jelly, in the old “yuck, what is this British food” style) which takes a few chomps rather than a gulp to get down. It’s what all the top athletes take. I think the idea is that it releases (?) hydration more slowly or something like that so it probably helps/works, but it certainly made me feel a little more queezy than usual.

At 28km, you got to one of the most infamous parts of the course: the Pavé de la Côte des Gardes. 700m of climb. Peaks at 16%, most of it at 14%. Rough. There was a decent crowd here, which was either to cheer everyone on or to laugh at everyone’s misery, I don’t think anyone’ll ever know.

Having done this segment a few times, I sort of knew how to approach it:

• the first third is horrifically steep and you think you’ll die BUT you can see the end
• then you get to the end and realise the rest of the climb zigzags to the right and you hadn’t seen it and you’re actually only one third up
• the last third is slightly less steep though still pretty bad but then it’ll be flat for a while then downhill

Anyone who hadn’t prepped for it would have got to the end of the first third and thought they had another 500m at that incline and would have easily given up.

Which is, unsurprisingly, what a lot of runners were doing. FINALLY, in all my glory, I went from being overtaken by thousands of runners to no longer looking out of place. They’d put a light show of tunnels in the first third (I suspect to encourage people though, amusingly, it probably only reinforced the perception for people who didn’t know the course that this was it in terms of climb, muahaha) and loads of photographers though I doubt I would have come out of any photos looking particularly heroic. 6’45/km might be better than walking, but it’s not quite Olympic champion standard either.

After that, le calme. The flat bit for a kilometre! Still lots of walkers. At least no dead. After that, there was a very steep 3km downhill with the first few hundred meters at 16%: it’s in most ways less difficult than running uphill, but also not the easiest type of running either, especially on tired legs which aren’t “landing”/performing as efficiently as they would when not tired.

Still, much better than going uphill. Also, by the 31km mark, I could now say that I’d beaten Kipchoge who’d dropped out at that mark, ha!

Once at the bottom, it was a 10km of so slog back towards the Invalides and the finish line. It was noticeably warmer again (urban heat dome) and … slower. I’ll blame the heat. Only the heat. Clearly …

While the course was undeniably easier, it was mentally quite a bit harder. Partly because the lack of hilly challenge made it more mundane, partly because, well, you’re 30+ km into a run and probably partly because it was almost midnight.

The course was now broadly a straight-ish line along the Seine towards the Eiffel Tower. I don’t remember much of it, though a few segments (a good 200m long or so) had no street lighting at all which added some entertainment! There were a few other decent light shows too, though some of which definitely wouldn’t have been suitable for epileptic runners.

At the Eiffel Tower, we were now right under these huge rings. Here too, other than the fact I was going so slowly that I actually could take my time to look up at them, I kept really looking around to try to take it in. The crowds were getting a lot busier again, up there with the largest and loudest crowds I’d ever run in.

Mentally however: f*ck me, this is getting hard. I tried to distract myself by thinking back to some of the 80 runs races/adventures over the last decade. Bradislava to Budapest, Sealand, Hadrian’s Wall, my international podium (ha), my marathon PB etc etc It sort of worked, but barely ever in segments of more than 20 seconds at a time. The brain was a little fried!

By 37km, I only had “one parkrun” to go. But these last 5 kilometres were LONG. Considering how “easy/short” 5km actually is, each kilometre here REALLY dragged out. I kept thinking “must be 200m to go now to the next km” only to find out I’d only actually covered 200 metres since the previous one. Ugh.

Finally, the finish line was getting close. We’d joined up with the 10km runners by then so it was quite busy. And NOISY. People slapping the advertising boards to make noise, cheering, shouting etc

As planned, at the 42km mark, Pippa and Maëlie were there: both awake (a start) and both in a good mood (I could probably have assumed Pippa would have been, but it was a little less certain how a 2-year old would react to being woken up at midnight!).

Also as planned, I grabbed Maëlie for the last 200m so she got to experience her first (of many, obviously, no pressure kiddo) Olympic finish line. Now, she’s not a heavy kid at all. But, after 42km, she weighed an absolute metric ton!

Two more twists and turns and we were in front of the Hôtel des Invalides, surrounded by large grandstands and … actually relatively few people. Considering how enormous the support was throughout, this was little quiet. You had to, as a runner, enter a draw to get tickets for your friends and I guess most people only turned up when said-runner was about to turn up so it was a little quieter than expected. i.e. the crowd didn’t go WILD for Maëlie and me, is basically what I’m trying to say.

It was still an incredible place to finish (and Maëlie was all happy and cheering!) and, overall, an incredible experience. And, in many ways, exactly the type of incredible experience to “conclude” the 80 runs with.

80 runs. 55 countries. 2000+km. 11 years. 12+ months out to “annoying” injuries. 1 child. 3 cats. 1 Olympic Games (ha). 80-100 pre-race poos.

It’s taken me quite a long time to do it. It’s taken me quite a long way around the world.

It’s given me unforgettable memories. It’s given me unrecoverable injuries.

It provided me with a good reason to run. It provided me with a good reason to write.

And hopefully given my monster readership of 10+ people something to read while they do their morning poo (I couldn’t not finish without my favourite topic).

Now, all that’s left is the question: what’s next?

Run 80+1 I guess!

Time: 3h37’00 (1,747/17,390)

Fun

😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁

Scenery

Injuries