Paris, France · April
Pacing the Paris Marathon
Flat, with cobbles and tunnels
From the Champs-Elysees out through the Bois de Vincennes, back along the Seine and into the Bois de Boulogne. Gently rolling rather than hilly, with cobbled stretches and a series of riverside tunnels.
Official site: dates and entry
Dates, ballots and entry rules change every year and are not listed here. Check the official site.
How to pace it
The elevation here is mild enough that an even pace plan is realistic. What interrupts it is the surface and the tunnels, not the gradient.
The opening kilometres run down the Champs-Elysees: wide, crowded, and tilted very slightly downhill. It is the classic combination for arriving at 10 km a minute ahead of plan while feeling entirely comfortable, and Paris punishes that later than most courses because the difficulty is back loaded.
The tunnels along the Seine are the distinctive problem, and they are a pacing problem rather than a running one. GPS drops inside them and the watch compensates when it reacquires, so your pace readings are simply wrong for a kilometre or two either side. Runners who react to those numbers make genuine pace errors chasing a figure that was never real. Use the course markers through that whole section and ignore the watch.
Cobbled stretches appear in the older streets. They cost rhythm more than time, and a shorter, quicker stride handles them better than trying to hold your usual one.
Worth knowing
- Tunnels break GPS. Trust the kilometre markers rather than your watch through the riverside sections.
- The downhill start is where the race is most often lost, because it does not feel like effort.
- April in Paris can be warm, and long stretches of the course have little shade.
What the common targets ask for
| Finish | Per km | Per mile |
|---|---|---|
| 3:00:00 | 4:16 | 6:52 |
| 3:30:00 | 4:59 | 8:01 |
| 4:00:00 | 5:41 | 9:09 |
| 4:30:00 | 6:24 | 10:18 |