So here’s my last post of our Paris weekend.
After Ben had finished the marathon, we staggered back to the hotel room both eagerly recounting our races. Ben sadly didn’t enjoy his and felt very disappointed with his time (despite the huge improvement on his last one). It was hard because I enjoyed mine so much. But I knew I’d feel the same way if I’d have been unhappy with my race. Sometimes it just works out like that. I remember at the Great South I hated the race, but when I met up with Ben afterwards he was absolutely buzzing with how much he loved it.
Anyway, I had the best shower in the world. It was one of those really good power showers and the heat of it was just amazing. I had been fairly cold after the marathon waiting for Ben so this was pure, unadulterated joy.
Afterwards I wrapped myself up in the hotel dressing gown and slippers and enjoyed my first post-marathon apple. No apple will ever taste as good.
Then Ben presented me with the best present ever. A Marathon Talk 26.2 Adidas hoodie.
So soft! I love it. I’ve wanted one for ages but obviously couldn’t get it until I’d run a marathon. I love that he knew that’s what I wanted. What a guy!
That was my outfit going out for late lunch/early dinner that day. I must say walking was a bit of an issue! Everything was 10 seconds behind and I was shattered.
My unhappy post-marathon walking (hobbling?) face
My expectation after the marathon was that I’d be ravenous with hunger. I wasn’t. In fact my stomach was just not happy at all. It coped well with the apple but then really wasn’t up for anything much else. But we had to eat obviously. We kept things simple and went back to the same cafe we’d been to before and we both had a starter (goat’s cheese on toast for me) and I had the same Caesar salad as before.
It tasted very nice but my stomach still wasn’t completely OK. Funny side story, the waitress was only vaguely aware of the marathon and even asked how far it was. Seriously??
We picked up some food from a little corner shop to munch on in the evening (and Ben needed wine – he’d not drunk for four weeks prior to the marathon bless him).
At this point I was so completely fed up with water. I’d been drinking it all damn day I needed something else. I’m not a big drinker (one G&T and I’m anybody’s and post marathon it’s probably not wise for me) so I went for some crazy sparkling chemically-induced ‘fruit’ beverage.
We rented a film from the hotel TV thing (World’s End) and I promptly fell asleep at about 9pm. It was a horrific sleep though trying to get comfy with my very achy legs. And I woke up about 6.30am wide awake. Ben was like a rock next to me. I woke him at 8am out of boredom and sudden onset of RUNGER.
We headed to a lovely little cafe for petit dejeuner. We went for the whole hog.
Plain omelette, croissants, bread and butter, dried meats and coffee. Everything but the croissants disappeared. We were seriously stuffed though until about 3pm.
We then went for an ill-advised walk to the Champs-Élysées and then down to the Tuileries Gardens where we collapsed onto some lovely chairs.
It was lovely and sunny and we kept spotting fellow marathoners wearing their finisher’s shirt and hobbling along like us, struggling with very simple things. Honestly curbs – who invented curbs??
We needed mini breaks like this for every 15 minutes. It was so tiring walking. But also good to keep the legs moving.
We carried on walking to the Louvre. The queue was huge so we decided to move on.
Possible the most stupid thing I’ve ever done – that landing was incredibly painful!!!
We walked up the road we ran along the day before. It brought back so many memories. It was great chatting to Ben and reliving it as we were walking.
We finally got to Notre Dame (after two hours of walking and stopping).
Bit ski-whiff sorry!
After this we decided to trek back. All I had in my mind to keep me going was the thought of a break in one of the parks near the Champs-Élysées for an ice lolly. Honestly we were both fading by this point.
We got there an hour later and enjoyed a lovely ice lolly. Then headed for the next part of our trek back to the hotel with a cake pit stop for lunch.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love cakes. But I’m talking bit old fat slices of Victoria sponge, moist carrot cake, and chunky brownies. OK yes typical British cakes. In my marathon-fogged brain I stared around me in the French Patisserie…their delicate cream cakes and choux pastries I realised weren’t quite going to kick it. Yes I KNOW it’s France and it’s different but I couldn’t help but feel a little bit disappointed (I’m not entirely sure what I expected to be honest!).In the end I went for a rather large meringue and giant cookie. I’m sorry Paris, but British cakes are much more satisfying.
We had an earlyish dinner and another early night. We were absolutely knackered.
The next day we had a bit of time in the morning and early afternoon before flying back. We decided to treat ourselves to breakfast in bed.
I had the omelette, a sweet bread roll thing and a couple of pastries (they were only small honest! :))
Then we headed out for more walking. The legs were feeling more normal (though still fairly stiff and achy).
The day before I’d worn some plimsolls. I think my feet had swollen from the marathon because they were so uncomfortable. So I made the good move of wearing trainers the next day.
All in all, we had a great time in Paris. I must say we went more for the marathon than the sights but I’m glad we got to see them (both running and walking). I’m not sure we would go back as it was fairly expensive and I’m not hugely cultured to appreciate the significance of the different sights.
Now, enough marathon talk! Time to move on…until Berlin gets closer that is 😉
Are you a a fan of ‘cultural’ sights when you go on holiday? Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate them and it was absolutely fantastic to see such epic landmarks like the Eiffel Tower. But I’m not one to spend hours around them. I’m ore a fan of ‘natural’ landmarks – like beautiful mountains, lakes, etc.
Would you ever do a race in a different country?
What would you/did you do post-marathon? I thought I’d eat more than I did. My stomach just didn’t feel right for quite a while.
And then lots of jobs.
We cleared out some drawers of clothes…apparently I was hogging drawers with my mass of clothes…surely not! 😉 In the end we had three bags of clothes to go to charity, a bag of rubbish (stuff that really couldn’t go to charity) and some bottles for the bottle bank. Love a good clear out! We were both really ruthless.
She’s been inspired by Masterchef so it was all very tasty and a bit different (not that her usual meals aren’t nice, it was just more adventurous). *In the posh Masterchef voice* Salmon and cod roasted over a bed of vegetables, all marinated in a delicious orange and parsley dressing, served with pesto stuffed tomatoes and lemon buttered greens. Well I say!
I got a corn on the cob and side salad to go alongside (my mission was not to be defeated. Ben made the mistake of getting garlic bread and mash and couldn’t finish his chicken. Schoolboy error).
But definitely worth it. Though I felt so full for the rest of the day. Dinner really wasn’t an option that evening.
