Our coach journey from Charles de Gaulle Airport was mainly taken up by the configuration of our mobile phones. Yes we are very techie people you know. These actions were warranted because over the course of our Parisian stay, we lost each other on more than four or five occasions. The mobiles then became an invaluable source of communication 

It's Saturday night and after collecting our bibs and bar code tags from the Exhibition hall earlier, we descended upon a nearby restaurant that seemed very pleased to accommodate us. We ordered our various dishes and most of us picked the stew type dish that contained plenty of chickpeas. This duly became a topic of conversation for a while. I’ll let you read between the lines! Then after much deliberation, we decided to break the rules and share a bottle of house wine between the five of us. These glasses were savoured for well over an hour 

Its now the big day and an early alarm call to take on board a small breakfast and carry out the necessary ablutions. The first port of call was to deliver our kit bags to the Finish tent then prepare for the start.Fifteen minutes before the start and we are all split up apart from the girls. Phil and I were unable to get anywhere near our allotted mile markers so had to wait on the pavement behind a lot of spectators I might add. For ten minutes it rained tee shirts, black bags, tracksuit tops and loads of sweatshirt tops as runners were unloading their excess baggage. To everyone’s relief the big gun fired and we were off.

As we all raced around the streets of Paris, for the most part in especially imported London drizzle, the atmosphere was electric. There were many supporters lining the route and the occasional band filled the the already noisy air with some colourful music which was enjoyed by both runner and spectator. The girls experienced many highs and lows as expected. Some of the highs were a little funny, as our own Ginni had to pretend that she was some sort of English nurse. Without the uniform of course, she was just happening to be running 26 miles that day and administering first aid to all and sundry. A plaster was needed for some poor French man who needed some TLC to his feet, ahhhh 


Phil’s run may not have been so full of problems but he did experience some cold spells and a lack of some moral if not mental support on his last 10 K.  He did however  manage to do plenty of carbo loading before the race, and consequently did not hit the metaphoric wall.

On the other hand, I ran a rather different race. An inebriated gentleman dressed as a tramp, decided to join the race just in front of me.

We didn’t meet up immediately after the race as planned but had an euphoric meeting a couple of hours later in our hotel room where a little tipple of the bubbly stuff went down a treat. Our previous men’s captain Mike Blake telephoned me at that point and wished us all well and gave his congratulations. I’m sure he only rang me as he knew I would pick up the tab, cheers Mike!  

After a well-earned rest we all limped out for dinner at a very busy and cheerful restaurant where we gorged ourselves on mainly steak and French fries. A friendly English couple were seated adjacent to us The guy being a Liverpudlian was very anxious to find out how Liverpool F C had fared that day. I did try and download some info about the match but, the technology on my most sophisticated Wap mobile said sorry, team unheard of! Alas the waiters did come to the poor fellow’s aid and presented him with their latest newspaper edition of the score. Unknown to our local scouser, they had doctored the newsprint and had our friend very down in the mouth for a few seconds with a result of Liverpool 1 Wycombe Wanderers 8. everyone had a great laugh 

Monday we went on our sight seeing tour. After a hearty breakfast we hit the Metro and headed for a very tall metal structure down by the riverside. Gustave Alexandre Eiffel constructed it over a century ago. He incidentally provided the iron skeleton for the Statue of Liberty. Over the years it has had the macabre attraction of people wanting to commit suicide from jumping off its great heights. A sort of French Beachy Head but with internal lifts! We decided not to show our presence at the top of the Tower as the queues were looking like there may be a Harrods sale on near by. We took a few piccies just to prove that we actually were enjoying ourselves

We then metroed down to the Notre Dame quarter where we were seduced if you like by the outstanding architecture of this special Cathedral, which again is bordered by the Seine. Soaking up the magnificent surroundings and an unkindly drizzle, we made our way to the Latin Quarter for some sustenance .We hit upon a friendly restaurant and after a splendid meal three bottles of wine and a few beers, we all staggered back towards Le undergrounde to negotiate our return journey to collect our baggage from our respective hotels