La Parisienne!!

Today was my first race in Paris -- a 6K run around the foot of Le Tour Eiffel to support breast cancer research. I had so much fun! The weather was sunny and crisp and it was my first time running an all-female race. I noted a few things:

- The race was supposed to start at 10:00 a.m. -- very unusual for me given that most Bay Area races start at around 7 a.m. It felt great to sleep in and not wake up in the dark to get ready.
- All the race information, announcements, pre-race festivities were entirely in French, so I was in the dark quite a bit. It felt a little disconcerting and lonely standing in a crowd of 7900 where everyone seemed to understand what was happening, but it made me really really want to take my French lessons more seriously. I know so little....
- The race actually started at around 10:20 a.m. We were mostly gathered at the starting line at 10:00 a.m., but neither the announcer or any of the runners seemed to be in a rush for the race to start. After several minutes of announcements, cheering, more announcements, and a moment of silence (I wish I knew what or who for!), we were off!
- There were bagpipers playing a short distance from the starting line... I loved that!

- It was very difficult to run for at least the first kilometer and a half. The streets are narrow and the crowd was dense. There were many many people out on the sidewalks, on bridges, on the streets, cheering for the runners! I noticed it was primarily men cheering with their children, "Allez Maman!"
- I didn't pay attention to water stations along the way, but apparently they were handing out *bottles* of water! The Bay-Area-ite in me thought it was wasteful and dangerous...there were almost entirely full bottles of water rolling around along the path. I had visions of me tripping on a water bottle, falling, and skinning my knees on the pavement.
I spotted David and Emmett near the finish line -- my time was 36:32. On our way out, each runner was handed a medal and a rose.

Afterward, the three of us had a light lunch nearby at La Terrasse near the Ecole Militaire. Emmett got to sample some watered down soupe de l'oignon.