Marathon was a French farce

Eric Baxter • Published 24 Apr 2010 14:00 0 Comments

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MEDAL: Eric.

THE sun shone brightly on the magnifique Arc de Triomphe as I waited on the crowded Champs-Elysees for the start of the Paris Marathon.

This was the 34th time the race had taken place and my first attempt at it.

The temperature was about 10c (50f) with a chilly east wind as we went downhill across a mile of cobbles towards the Place de la Concorde, past the Louvre and east to the Bois de Vincennes.

A field of 31,845 - including 5,062 Britons - then headed back along the banks of the Seine to the city centre, seeing Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

Sounds wonderful. The reality was frustratingly different because of sloppy course management.

The route was so congested the pace sometimes slowed to crawling. The feeding stations every five kilometres were a nightmare. Runners suddenly cut across your path to get to them, descending on the tables like voracious piranhas, grabbing water, bananas and oranges and then dropping bottles and skins at their feet or throwing them away without regard for other competitors.

This was my 35th marathon around Britain, Europe, America and Canada, and I've never seen such crowded streets - too many participants for a course that was often too narrow - or such selfish behaviour by runners.

A half-empty bottle went flying by my chest. My hand was hit by a tossed orange. I lost count of the times my heels were kicked. The ground had to be scanned frequently and carefully to try to avoid tripping on anything. One guy next to me almost went on his neck.

Large crowds lined the 26.2 miles - measured European-style as 42.2 kilometres - but the organisers did nothing to stop fans getting on to the course (or indeed, causing gridlock mayhem by invading the finish area).

I nearly collided with two giggling women who rushed over the road. An eejit trying to carry a bike across the route was startled when I advised him to get lost, and in the final mile an old geezer jumped in front of me to shout at a runner.

There were a number of slight ascents and descents, as well as several appearances of cobbles, none of which was appreciated by my right knee, which I had strained a couple of weeks earlier.

All in all, I was happy to aim for around five-minute kilometres that would take me across the line in about three hours 30 minutes.

My times began to slip as the race progressed and, as the course twisted into the Bois de Boulogne with 12k to go, I re-set my sights on beating 3-35.

Here the route widened mercifully for a while before narrowing again as I counted down the kilometres to finish 6,258th in 3-34-07 on Avenue Foch near the Arc de Triomphe.

The marathon organisation, unfortunately, was hardly a triumph!

FOR FULL STORY, SEE TODAY'S TELE

This article appeared in Greenock Telegraph 24 Apr 10

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