Paris Semi-Marathon

Shelley, Bobbi, V, Dolores with Paris Semi-Marathon medals

OK, I am sorry it has taken me so long to post about our trip to Paris. I told E that after a fabulous weekend, I came home to a full email box of ...do this and do that and RSVP for this and donate for that and we need volunteers...

Bobbi, Shelley and I had a really wonderful weekend. It is always a risk to travel with friends, especially if you are sharing a room with them. Well, no worries here, all 3 of us have quirks but we seem to travel well together. Bobbi found us a cute little flat in a very convenient neighborhood. We had 2 bedrooms and well stocked kitchen and a cozy living area. As an extra benefit, it had a tub!

The first adventure started at the airport. I do not fly well. I hate airplanes, but I won't let my fear keep me from doing things that I want to do, but I don't like them at all and they cause me quite a bit of anxiety. Well, our plane was delayed due to a technical problem. Well, you can imagine what that does for a person like me. Bobbi said it was a light bulb, yeah, right. Well, they ended up canceling our flight and we had to reschedule on another airlines. We were late getting to Paris, but at least our plane could fly.

On Saturday, we checked out the Expo and picked up our numbers. Then, we headed off to find the Fat Tire Bike Company. We had booked a private bike tour of Paris. This was well worth it. We saw everything there was to see in Paris (although, we didn't go into anything). The bikes were wonderful, the weather was great and the city is beautiful. What a great way to tour. However, Bobbi did get run over. It was quite funny and she was OK. The city was quite crowded.

As I said, we had a great little flat in the middle of wonderful little restauraunts and close to the metro. We found that we do like French red wine and we ate the best cheeseburger that any of us had ever had with dijon mustard that brought tears to our eyes and a burn to our noses. However, nothing beat the eclairs we found one day. That was almost emotional. The people are not the nicest or the most helpful I have encountered. It became quite a joke.

Oh yeah, the race! Bobbi had a PR! She had not even trained much. I would not recommend this run to anyone as a first race. They were not international friendly, nor were they well organized or helpful. That said, we could not have asked for better weather. It must have been low 60s, sunny with just a slight breeze. There were over 17,000 that finished and so we were crowded the whole way. It was really nice to run with no concern for time. Shelley and I ran together and took our time. We chatted until the last 5K and then put our music on for a strong, fast finish. Our friend Dolores also ran. She spent most of the race with Bobbi, until Bobbi had to stop at a cafe to pee. I know that Bobbi will love me for mentioning that, but she has a real tendency for a need to pee during races.

After the race, we found an outdoor cafe for food and a chance to soak up the sun. Our last night in Paris, we took a boat ride down the Seine River and wandered around the Eifel Tower all lit up. The city is beautiful, especially lit up at night. This will be remembered as one of my favorite weekends.

We are off to Prague next weekend and I am feeling a bit of stress. Our weather is going downhill (they are calling for 42 degrees with rain) and I am second guessing myself. In addtion, my knee did not cooperate with me when I ran yesterday. I have been running 40 mile weeks for a while, so hopefully I just need to rest.