Paris, marathon, bed

Sorry that I’ve been out of touch for so long.  As you may or may not remember, I headed down to Paris the day after my birthday.  I went to stay with my friend from college, David, and his fiancee Virginia, to soak up springtime in Paris and to eat my weight in pastries.  Oh, yeah - and to run the Paris marathon on Sunday the 5th. 

Paris was lovely, and it was particularly nice to get to explore from a non-touristy area.  David and Virginia live in the 19th arrondissement, which is not far from the base of Montmartre, but still doesn’t have much by way of tourists in it.  I got to wander down the Canal St. Martin; I wasn’t even aware that Paris had a canal!  I didn’t take many photos, but I did do a number of drawings, in an attempt to de-rust my abilities.  I’m pretty pleased with a couple of them.  I’ll post pictures of them (along with my other pictures) on my Flickr account in the next few days.  I also went out to Laon, the town where I spent my first year in France, and had a nice little wander around there.  I had forgotten just how much I liked it.  :-)

The marathon started at 8:45 a.m. on Sunday.  It passed many of the major sights of Paris - the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, the Place de la Bastille, the Bois de Boulogne, the Seine, the Eiffel Tower - but I have to admit that, other than the starting sight of the Arc de Triomphe, most of them were lost on me.  Too tired/focused.  I crossed the finish line 6 hours and 1 minute after I started; given that I didn’t train at all, I am quite content with my time.  Angus, whose first marathon it was, and who did train, finished in an amazing 4 hours and 30 minutes - I am so proud of him! 

After the marathon, we were both tired and a bit stiff - my back, in particular, was fairly stiff.  Still, we had a good evening meal and went to bed.  The real fun started the next morning, when it transpired that my stiff back had turned into something else altogether.  I could not get myself out of bed, or even into a sitting position, and when Angus tried to help me do so, I actually fainted from the pain.  Not fun, particularly when we were supposed to be on an 11 a.m. train back to England.  We ended up having to change our tickets, an expensive exercise, and I spent the whole of Monday and most of Tuesday in bed, trying to find a comfortable position (of which there wasn’t really any).  I have been hopped up on OTC muscle relaxants, ibuprofen and paracetemol for a few days - in fact, as I write this (from Gloucester) my back is twinging again, so I think I’ll keep this short and go search out another of the magic pills. 

Tuesday was leaps and bounds better than Monday, and yesterday was leaps and bounds better again.  I was in good enough shape to be able to sit - just - on the necessary trains to carry me from Paris to Gloucester, and even to be able to hobble home from the train station.  Today I am taking it easy, lying on the couch downstairs with a hot water bottle (whoever invented those things should be knighted, or possibly sainted) and watching movies.  Angus has been an angel, giving me back massages and helping me to try and stretch my back some, waiting on me hand and foot, and just in general reaffirming what I already knew - that he is the most wonderful man in the world.  :-)

Just to reassure everyone, I am fine.  Honestly, I feel almost annoyed that such a “little” thing as, probably, a strained back muscle and a pulled tendon (there are two distinct epicentres to the pain in my back) could be so horribly debilitating.  If I’m going to do something as melodramatic as fainting from pain, some stupid part of me wants it to have been from something a little more substantial than “just” a pulled muscle.  NOT that I’m not glad it wasn’t worse, though! 

Basically, I brought it on myself.  At about mile 5 of the marathon, my back started aching.  It had been stiff that morning anyway - as it had been every morning that I was in Paris - because the futon on which I was sleeping was not the best for my back.  But if I kept myself upright, the ache was manageable, and I wasn’t going to let something stupid like a little backache stop me from finishing my third marathon!  What did my back take me for - a sissy?  Then, in about the last eight miles or so, I was babying my left leg, which was threatening to throw a hissy fit and cramp up.  It was stupid of me - limping, even slightly, always means that something else in the body tenses up to make up for it.  Anyway, to my mind, it was really a combination of those two things and my own bloody-minded determination to finish the damn marathon that laid me so very low on Monday.

BUT… I finished my third marathon!  ::grin::  And now I’m safely back in Gloucester, and, although I don’t intend to do another marathon for a few years, I am considering doing another one early in my next decade of life.  Grad school first, but then… well, I’ve now finished one marathon for each decade that I’ve been alive so far.  Why not another one each succeeding decade?  I WILL train for the next one, though.  Even if it doesn’t improve my time greatly, it certainly improves my recovery period!  :-)