La Grande Course RATP du Grand Paris [1:29:13, 482/4415, 2/81 M5M]
![As I am (slowly) recovering from my hamstring injury of past Xmas, I entered the half-marathon race of the Greater Paris I had booked months ago, as the distance seemed within reach. Not expecting a great time. The route was impractical, from reaching the horse-track of Bois de Vincenne on the very day EU switches to CEST, with train shortages on both RER A and B, to running on bike paths, sidewalks, and canal paved decks, within a dense crowd. With very few Paris highlights beyond the 11th arrondissement City Hall and the finish on [a completely empty] Stade de France. Only perks were the start with a horse pulling a sulky and playing the hare, the cold windless rainless weather, and a pace runner at 1:30, whom I kept in sight for the whole race. Hence rather glad with the outcome. On the way to the train station, far from the official village, I came across a scientology tent offering... massages, a very first for me! As a minor inconvenience, my bib got mixed up with the bib of one of my students, which simply means my second position in the M5M group did not get recorded. Fortunately, she (I) just missed the 10th position on the female scratch podium, which would have deprived the actual 10th runner of her win!](https://i0.wp.com/xianblog.fr/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/granpari25.png?resize=450%2C356&ssl=1)

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This entry was posted on April 3, 2025 at 12:25 am and is filed under pictures, Running with tags arrondissements, Bois de Vincenne, boulevard périphérique, hamstring injury, La Vilette, Paris, recovery, RER, road race, Saint-Denis, sciatic nerve, scientology, sects, Seine, Stade de France. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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