The Paris Marathon is the unofficial number 7 in the world after the “big six” of London, Berlin, Chicago, Boston, New York and Tokyo. With a start line along the Champs Élysées it’s certainly a marvellous location if you want to tick a foreign marathon off your “bucket list”. Applying in October for the April race I got in straight in too. No ballot for this event! So those Paris marathon tips? Here they are with a few coming from my dad Roger who’s run over 895 marathons:
1, Choose Paris in the first place!
It’s great having the start and finish areas for the Paris Marathon just a few 100m apart. There are two big beautiful parks enroute. A long flat stretch along the River Seine plus a fairly chilled out atmosphere too!
2, Get a nice hotel near the start
We didn’t have to leave our Champs Elysées hotel until 08:45, to be in my pen for 08:55, for my 09:20 start. That compares with getting up at 5am for the New York City marathon! We chose the Hotel Belmont just south of the Champs Élysées and that suited us perfectly.
