It's the Thursday before the marathon in Paris. Actually, we want to go to the marathon fair "Run Experience" to talk to sponsors for "Cap to Kap". Horst just goes to get a baguette. And then breakfast turns out quite differently...
"I think I'll sign up for the marathon," Horst says and smears jam on the baguette.
"Oh. If you run, then I'll run too," I reply, and cut my apple.
"Are we signing up?"
"Let's sign up!"
The decision is easily made. But what should the goal be? We have not done any results-oriented preparation. The remaining two days don't really make that possible any more either. But we are not really only interested in good times.
When we cross Africa, we would like to complete a marathon distance every weekday on average. Then it should also be possible for us to run a marathon from a standing start now, even if it is still a few months until we leave, so a justification for the spontaneous decision is forming.
Is a non-destructive marathon possible?
The plan thus becomes a completely atypical one: Run a marathon from a standing start - and do it as non-destructively as possible. How can such a day be structured so that after the long-distance run there is still energy left for life around it? For organising daily things, for writing and working? How can energy be divided over such a distance so that the same thing could be possible again the next day? Let's try to find answers. Everyone should find their own pace and we imagine we are already on the road; and then we evaluate what this test brings. That becomes our agreement.
So much for the plan. And again everything turns out differently...
The first 10 kilometres
"Paris à vos pieds". The city is at our feet, even if it is cold at 2 degrees Celsius in the morning. From the start on the Champs-Elysee, we head downhill towards Concorde. There, the 230-tonne "Obelisk of Luxor", which is over 30 centuries old, is currently being enclosed in scaffolding: It will be restored over six months to shine again in all its glory for the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024. The route leads past the opera house, back to the Seine.
One sight follows the next and we run together side by side, glad to have got the cold of waiting at the start behind us. The pace is around 6:00 min/ km or 6:20 min/ km, which is above what I would have estimated for myself, but so what? We want to run the first 10 kilometres together. Why not pick up the pace when you can? Allez! With caution, you can always slow down.
The way to the half marathon
Actually, we already wanted to walk separately, but it doesn't happen. We run parallel to the Seine down to the Bastille. Spectators line the route closely to the right and left and cheer us on. The atmosphere is lively, drum groups give us the rhythm. People are having fun. Those who run and those who cheer on the runners. And at the same time everyone knows: we don't know what will happen on the second half, the second half marathon.
A group of firemen line the path and cheer on the runners. A little later, there is a station of paramedics who don't have much to do yet. I wonder what the paramedics are thinking right now, when the first runners are already passing by with heavy legs, and it must be clear to them that they will have someone on their stretcher who is on this course? And yet they are there. And they like doing it. Isn't that perhaps what makes humanity's great achievements possible? That there are always people who want to cross borders and people who support them in doing so? And only together can something special, only in this way can progress come about? Even if, of course, there is always failure along the way...
Slightly uphill, over long straights, we reach the Chateau de Vincennes to do a lap in the park of the same name. The Bastille should be waiting for us for the second time at kilometre 24....
From kilometre 20 to the wall
We are still running together. Still with an average not far from that of the beginning. Straight towards the "wall" that marathon runners like to be announced at kilometre 30. Now we will cross Paris on its "sightseeing route" - down onto the Quai, the promenade closed to cars even in normal use. The passage through the longer tunnel gives rise to psycholdelic feelings. The drumming, the breathing, the sound of the hundreds of pairs of shoes, each one hitting the ground evenly, mix with flashes of colourful light and the sounds of the DJ. Above all, it mixes with the state I am in. There are still a few kilometres to run, the legs are making themselves known. The wall, however, does not open up.
The plan, however, to run as slowly as possible, as slowly as necessary, has dissolved somewhat. We continue to run together. So what the heck...
What happens afterwards...
At some point, kilometre 30 comes with a view of the Eiffel Tower. The route is great, except for the undulations through the subways. Kilometre 34 is a nasty climb up to the Bois de Bologne, the west side forest of Paris', another detour at kilometre 39 past the Fondation Louis Vuitton.
I go through my mantra in my mind: The first 10 kilometres always go smoothly, after 20 kilometres you're already halfway. Then it's only 10 kilometres and you're already at 30. Now it would be really stupid not to run the last 10 kilometres nicely.... Somehow they pass.
And so it is. Suddenly 4:30h appears as the target time.... Suddenly it becomes a time again?
The finish
It's clear now. We run in together. At 4:31:16. The goal of the marathon is reached.
(It's also clear that there was apple on arrival. You can see that in my face).
And the original goal of the launch?
Yes, we ran a marathon from a standing start.
Yes, we still feel good.
No, it may not be the most destruction-free marathon of life.
Yes! But by mistake it will be a personal best!
That's the way it is with plans. First you make some and then something completely different happens.
Tomorrow morning we'll have breakfast again. Let's see what happens...