Sunday the 10th of September was the day I ran for La Parisienne, a 100% feminine 7km race raising awareness and funds for Breast Cancer. It had been raining the day before but it was a beautiful morning when I woke up for my first race ever.
I was very excited for this race with no apprehension at all. It is a short distance I cover every time I run so I was sure that I would finish easily, while simultaneously enjoying the view of Paris’ most famous monuments and the support of a thousand musicians playing and dancing all along the race.
We had to meet at 8:20 AM near the village and, when we arrived, Caribbean dancers were already shaking their bodies to very loud music. It was a little too early for me but it was good energy. All sponsor’s booths were open but we did not have much time as we had to quickly line up at our gate for the departure at 9:30. I left my bag and jacket at the cloakroom and there I went.
Only, we didn’t start running before 10:30 (we were 28 419 participants) and for 2 hours I just stood standing in the cold only wearing a t-shirt (note for my future self: bring a jacket to the next race even If you don’t like running with it, it will save you). Because of that mistake I caught a cold that left me exhausted for the next two weeks.
Waiting for the departure – In front of us
Waiting for the departure – Behind us
Then the fun finally came and it was a pretty good feeling running in the car-free streets of the capital.
In the end I did a decent time, not fast enough but people had been warning me so many times about not starting too fast that for the first 4 km I ran very smoothly until I realized I could really speed up for the rest of the race.
This being done, my original plan was to run a 10 km race, so last week I finally found “The One”, both coinciding with my schedule and with an interesting concept: the Royal Race in Versailles. Although I have been living in Paris for the past 17 years I have actually never seen the Versailles Palace or Gardens. Also I absolutely love running in the woods/nature (my training generally takes place in the Bois de Boulogne), so this is the perfect race that will take place in exactly a month on the 5th of November!
