It was my first time to Paris and there wasn’t really any good information as to where the expo actually was. If you search online, you won’t be able to find the address of the place, but it’s right above the metro station – Porte de Versailles.

How to get there: There are many ways to get there via metro, bus, taxi. I’ll give you directions how to get there by train.

Leaving from Metro station: Charles de Gaulle Etoile
Destination Metro Stop: Porte de Versailles
Metro lines (mo): green M12

There are 2 options:

Option A:

Take ’1′ line – destination Chateau de Vinciennes
Off at Concorde
Take M12 destination Marie D’Issy
Off at Porte de Versailles

Option B:

Take ’6′ line – destination Nation
Off at Pasteur
Take M12 Destination Mairie D’Issy
Off at Porte de Versailles

Once you are out of the train station, you can’t miss it. It’s the building with all the flags. There will be a huge blue banner that says “Paris Marathon Expo”. Anyways just follow the crowd of other runners. If you are really lost, just ask someone. 99% of the people there understand english. The 2010 marathon expo was in the very last building.

Oh, they also gave us pretty cool plastic tank top look alikes to keep us warm prior to the marathon. Race morning is pretty cold so this helped a bit.

Related Running Tips:

1. Paris Marathon 2010 Pre-Race Info & Registration
2. Paris Marathon 2010
3. Stranded in Paris

The Paris Marathon is quite large, hosting just over 40,000 runners with 8000 of these sports are reserved for travel agencies and other elite runners. So, keep that in mindwhen you look at the runner registration counter ont he front page of the marathon. To get a discounted marathon rate, register before the count gets to 22,000. The Paris Marathon is NOT a lottery based system. It’s first come first served. This marathon sells out in less than 2 months, so book fast.

After registering for the race there is no info package sent to you. There is no confirmation letter or letter to tell you your bib number. Your confirmation is updated on their website and you’ll see your name in their database. Don’t forget you need a doctors’ note to run the marathon.

The Paris Marathon does send out plenty of email reminders leading up to the race day. If you’re a female runner and interested. I received an email from Asics looking for a female representative of the race. Don’t really know how it worked but you could submit yourself to be THE face of female runners for the Paris Marathon. This is your shot at fame!! lol.

Back to the doctor’s note. You can either mail it in or bring it with you to the marathon expo when you pick up your race kit. ALso before you go to the Marathon Expo, it will be handy if you know your runner #. If you didn’t remember to write it down (like me), the information desk can always help you find your bib number.

Related Running Tips:

1. Paris Marathon 2010
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Just going back to the previous note, I know the marathon is sold out for public registration but if you still want to try to get into the marathon there may be a way through travel agencies in your country.   MarathonTours offers gauranteed acceptance if you pay for their travel package and include an extra $195 USD for the marathon.  Here’s their link.   For other countries check out here.

I mapped out the new Paris Marathon 2010 Route. The city is extending their Tramway and required construction on one of the routes of the marathon specifically Boulevard Soult. Here is the new marathon map that I mapped out on mapmyrun. Who said you can’t see Paris in one day.

The marathon starts at the Champs-Élysées and runs by the Place de la Concorde, Louve Museum, Hotel de Ville, Place de la Bastille, Chateau de Vincennes, Notre Dame Cathedral, Orsay Museum, Eiffel Tower, Grand Palais, Trocadero and finishes back at the Champs-Élysées.

Link to the Paris Marathon
PDF version
Google Map Version

Paris Marathon 2010 Elevation Chart

Note:  I mapped out the Paris Marathon according to the street by street directions on their website.  I’m off by 0.4 miles somewhere.

Related Running Tips:

1. Paris Marathon 2010 Pre-Race Info & Registration
2. Paris Marathon Expo
3. Stranded in Paris

They changed the course which was great! I loved the building they had open for the runners so we could wait inside to keep warm.  It was great since I had 3 hours to wait.  I guess Starbucks got sick of 20,000 runners hanging in front of their building and using their washroom.  There were plenty of washrooms in the building with flushing toilets and sinks to wash hands!  A sink with soap and running water is a rare treat.   I wandered the building from 6-8 looking for my brother and his friend and finally found them.  I am so proud of that they completed their 2nd half marathon this year.

The course was well marked at places and where it wasn’t there were volunteers to help guide the way.  The KM markers were visible and placed at every 1 km, the Mile markers were scarce and only popping up every 10 miles.  That left me kind of disoriented for most of the run, I kind of have trouble converting km to m when I’m running.  The cheering stations were practically non existent with amateur bands playing on the side of the road.   I didn’t like that part of the race.  Felt like the race organizers just forgot about us and gave us the bare minimums to complete the race.

Great thanks to all the volunteers handing out water, gatorade and gels.  Thanks to the police who took the brunt of all the complaints, I wouldn’t want to be the ones stuck in traffic today.

I tried to make it a strong finish. I just hate the Queen’s Park ending.  You can never see the ending, meanwhile everyone is shouting it’s just around the corner.  How do you see a corner around a circle??  My brother, his friends and my friend were waiting for me.  I was really happy to see them.  Thanks for coming out!! It was a great feeling to complete another marathon, just not too happy with my time.   hehe But I think it’s a great accomplishment.

Overall the marathon was ok.  I wasn’t impressed with the organization or the logistics.  Even picking up the race kit was in a basement conference room of a hotel.  It was small and I thought very unorganized.  For the price we pay for a marathon (around $80), I expected a little more.  I won’t be running this race again.

Good job everyone and happy running.

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1. Toronto Marathon
2. Week Before the Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon
3. NYC Marathon Spectators

To the Toronto Half and Full Marathoners, it’s going to pretty cold that day.  Bring an old long sleeve shirt / pants to keep you warm while you wait for the race to start.  Once it starts, you can throw it aside after you get warmed up.   I have a water belt but I don’t use it when I run.  There is plenty of water and gatorade stations along the course and reduces the weight that I carry when I run.  I do recommend to bring some gels to keep your energy levels up.

Best tip for beginner marathoners is start off slow.  You want a good finish time but running too fast in the first mile will severely impact your endurance and pace for the remaining duration of the marathon.   The worst part would be to slow down in the second half of the marathon.  Run slower in the beginning and gradually increase your pace til you reach a good comfortable and constant pace you can run for about 3 hours.  When you hit the last 3 miles or 5km, you should be going at full speed.

Map of the Toronto Marathon:

http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/canada/on/-toronto/101125491807174616

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If your friends or friends are not running the marathon with you and they want to see you run,  it will be really hard for them to catch you if you don’t give them a specific location and estimated time of arrival.   Trust me, there are tons of people watching the Marathon cheering on their friends, but they are all really happy to cheer you on too.

Create Your Pace Chart

You should create your own pace chart according to your start time.  Write down miles and what time you are estimated to arrive depending on your pace.   See example:

NYC Marathon Miles, Intersection, Closest Subway Station

I’ve compiled a chart and listed the mile markers, closest subway, which side of the road is best to stand on, and the closest intersection to the Marathon course.  It’s important to tell your friends or family all this information including your ETA before sending them off to meet you.    There will be tons of spectators and it’s easier if you can look for them at the same time as they are looking for you.

NYC Marathon Subway Mile

After you complete both charts you can combine them together. Look at your pace chart and match it with where you want your friends/family to meet you. If you have this all planned out before the Marathon, trust me, you will feel less stressed out when you are running. I know the feeling of trying to find your friends along the path and not being able to see them. It gets really discouraging. So be specific and tell your friends/family to get there at least 10-15 minutes early to get a good spot to see you run.

Related Running Tips:

1. NYC Marathon mail
2. Entrance into the NYC Marathon
3. Training for the NYC Marathon

Since the race is so big with so many people running it, there are 3 different start waves with 3 different wave colors.  The wave starts are separated by – Wave 1 is for the elite runners, Wave 2 is by invitation only, and most us get into Wave 3.  The wave colors blue, orange and green are further divided into 6 corrals (A, B, C, D, E, F) and runners are separated according to your estimated marathon completion time that you indicated in your Marathon registration.  Blue is faster than Orange who is faster than Green.  If you have friends who are in different corals you need to go to the corral of the wave of the slower runner.

The race actually has 2 different starts, one on top of the Verrazano Bridge and one is underneath the Bridge in Staten Island.  The best start is on the top of the Verrazano Bridge.  It’s a great view.  Last time I saw military planes, helicopters and fireworks start off the Marathon.

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1. Paris Marathon Expo
2. NYC Marathon Spectators
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There are many different training schedules for marathoners, but the NYRR designed a training schedule for you and it’s posted on their site. The most preferred maraton training schedule is for the first time and experienced runner.

The whole concept of basic marathon training is you build you up a base mileage so that you can run at least 20 miles / week comfortably before you actually start going further with your training.  After a month of building your foundation mileage, you can start increasing your mileage.  You should run at least 10% more than you did the previous week.    Up until a few weeks before the marathon you should start tapering off your runs.    I wouldn’t stress out too much if you can’t follow the schedule to a T, but make sure you put in your run your mileage and peak your mileage to 40 miles a week in September.   From September to November you should slowly decrease your weekly mileage to your base until race day.  Your training run you should never exceed longer than 3 hours.

Below is an example from the NYC Marathon Basic Marathon runner training program.   Find more training runs if you are a First time, Basic, Competitive, and Advanced.

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Here I will share with you the different ways you gain entrance into the NYC Marathon.

The first option is guaranteed entrance. The NYC Marathon is organized by the New York Road Runners Club (NYRR) and if you run a certain number of races with them, you get guaranteed acceptance. So say you want to get accepted into the Marathon for Nov 2010, you must run at least 9 races with them in 2009. Those races must say have a “Q” which means it is a marathon qualifier. This is pretty easy because NYRR organizes races fairly frequently. They have one almost every 2 weeks with a variety of distances and good prices too. Their races only cost $10 – $20 with membership. They also put in a new restriction and that is you must volunteer for 1 race during 2009. I guess all the volunteers became runners.  I ran the NYC Marathon twice when I lived there.

The next option is to apply for the marathon through a lottery system.   The lottery is usually open to the public in April and closes in June of the same marathon year.   In mid-June they pick from all the applicants and finally post the results of their lottery online.  So if you are applying for the NYC Marathon 2010, you would signup for the lottery in April 2010 and the lottery results will be revealed 2 months later.  You can see if you are accepted into the marathon here.  There is a non-refundable deposit of $11 every time you enter into the lottery.  If you get accepted, YAY.  They will charge your visa for the cost of the marathon.  If you don’t get accepted, they won’t charge you or refund you back your deposit.

The third option is related to the second and that is if you got rejected from the lottery 3 times you get automatic acceptance into the lottery.  I know this is true because after I left NYC I never got accepted through the lottery.   They rejected me 3 times.   After I applied for the Marathon the 4th year, I got an email saying that they recognize I was rejected from the marathon 3 times already and have automatic acceptance.  They are really good at keeping track of this information which really impressed me.

Those are all the options to get acceptance into the NYC Marathon before the registration is closed.  But now there are also a couple ways to get entry into the Marathon even after they closed registration.   If you run with one of NYRR’s charities you get guaranteed acceptance.  I’ve never done this before but I believe you have to raise a minimum charity dollar amount before you can run it.

Good luck to all the NYC Marathon Runners running Nov 1, 2009.

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