paris marathon

This morning I got up early to watch the Paris Marathon. I met Rujuta downstairs at about 7:45 and we went to the metro- but when it came it was PACKED, mostly with runners, and the people on board were saying, "pas de place!" (no room!). I've managed to squeeze onto some pretty crowded metros before, but even I could see it would be practically impossible for Ruju and I to fit. So we decided to walk.

Um. I should take more early sunday morning walks. Because Paris is really wonderful that time of day. Practically no cars, the sun was out, it was cold but tolerable, and really peaceful.

So we got to the Champs-Elysees, which was packed... I think someone said around 10,000 people participate? That seems like a lot, but when it started (8:45) the Champs-Elysees had people running by us for several minutes... we watched for a few minutes, then managed to find the other Sweet Briar was there, talked to them while people were still taking off from the Arc de Triomphe, and then Matt, Annie, Clare, and Marisa decided to join in for a bit. So they took off, and people were still running by, and Molly, Rujuta and I decided to go down to the Louvre and wait there for the runners to return from Bois de Vincennes.
It took us about an hour to get to Place de la Concorde because of all the people and blocked off areas, and then we had to wait a long time for the first group of runners to come by (we calculated that in miles it was about 17.5). Once the leaders (a huge group of Kenyans- go figure) ran by, we realized that we were freezing cold. It was about 10:30 at this point, so we decided to go home and warm up.
Overall though, I thought it was really neat to see, and worth getting up for. I don't think my description is very good though...

Map:

Sorry if it's hard to see, I just took it from the marathon website to give you an idea of the route.