First, let me say that the 2016 Paris Marathon was not my best marathon. My goal pre-race was to BQ (3h 37m) and that’s what the pace band on my wrist spelled out. Although I was within one minute of my target time at the 1/2 marathon mark, by mile 15 I’d come to grips that a BQ was not in the cards and my new goal was to finish in less than 4 hours and not embarrass myself. By mile 21, my new, new goal was to finish before I collapsed into a quivering blob of protoplasm on the side of the road. My point is that this race report might be slightly biased.

The Good:

The Paris Marathon has been on my bucket list ever since I lived in France as an expat seven years ago. I was registered in 2014, but couldn’t run due to an injury. This year the stars finally aligned: I was registered, I was healthy, and I was in Paris at the right time.

It's the largest marathon that I’ve run and the second largest marathon in the world. This year — the 40th anniversary — there were 57,000 entrants, 43,317 starters, and 41,708 finishers.

I thought the race was very well organized. The Expo (which is enormous — bigger than Boston’s, it seemed) was open for three days. I went to the Expo the first day it opened (Thursday) and the crowds were quite manageable. I’ve heard it’s a zoo by Saturday, though, and I believe it. Barriers had already been set up at the entrance of the Salle de Running anticipating long queues just to get into the building.

All races in France require athletes to have a doctor’s written permission to enter. There’s a blank form on the Paris Marathon website which basically says, in French, “It’s no skin off my butt if so-and-so runs a marathon.” I printed the blank, faxed it to my physician who signed it, and faxed it back.

There’s a box on the form for a “doctor’s stamp”. I imagined something like a fancy embossed seal with a caduceus in the middle surrounded by the Latin phrase for “In medical insurance we trust”. My doctor used his rubber ink stamp for his office’s mailing address. (Shrug.)

Once in the Expo I took my medical certificate to the first row of tables where a volunteer accepted it. Neither he nor I said anything about the sad state of medical stamping in the US. He checked off the “medical certificate” box on my entry form and I moved to the next set of tables to collect my bib.

Once I had my bib and runner’s swag I went to find my name on the Wall. Then I wandered the booths.

You can read the rest of the race report at: http://www.graphmyrun.com/blog/paris-marathon-race-report.html