Allez!

Just back from Paris, where I spent Sunday morning running the Paris Marathon along with 35,000 others. It was, bizarrely, a really enjoyable experience. Although my time was a bit slower than I'd hoped for (4hr30) and slower than my last marathon in Edinburgh 4 yrs ago, I enjoyed it a lot and have already started thinking about tackling Melbourne in October! It was a nice flat course, beginning with a gentle downhill on the Champs Elysees, taking in a couple of parks to the east and west of the city, running along the side of the Seine at various points and then finishing on the Avenue Foch, just behind the Arc de Triomphe. The crowd was great (lots of cheers of "Allez!", "Bravo!" etc) - except at the end when they were really quiet for some reason (possibly put off by the state of us runners by then!) and there were lots of bands and entertainment around the route, which always gives you a bit of a boost.

Once I'd recovered courtesy of a nice soak in a warm bath and a chicken kebab (!), we enjoyed an evening out in a restaurant called Le Loup Blanc (The White Wolf). On Monday, after taking some Nurofen and applying good old Deep Heat to a very painful left knee, I thought it best to try to walk around a bit. So we took in a few sights including Notre Dame, the Pompidou Centre and a boat trip along the Seine. Bizarre moment of the day was turning up at the Musee d'Arte Moderne to find it looking like the film set from some kind of post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie. Shut to the public, with broken glass and used condoms littered around the grand architecture, it was a strange and sad way to find a beautiful building in the centre of Paris. Monday evening was a meal Aux Trois Petits Cochons, proper French cuisine and a lovely relaxed atmosphere.

A quick zip round the Musee d'Orsay on Tuesday and then home on Eurostar (which is one of the nicest ways to travel I've come across). Back to work today, legs just about fully recovered.

Before...



Champs Elysees



After...