Billed as France’s “first marathon” (of the year that is), the Tecno Globe marathon, run from Cernay-la-Ville (about 40km from Paris) was an opportunity to shake off the excesses of the holidays such as they were (not much in fact).

Also a test for the new system (as outlined in my last post) which consists of actually eating one’s energy bars during the race instead of carrying them around, back home and ready for the next run. The new technique worked well on the 75 km of the Hospitaliers and I figured that it would make running a marathon a cinch!

It did. I ran the best marathon of my life. No wall and a reasonable time of 4hrs 23 minutes – my fastest for five years or so. And around quite a hilly (for a marathon) course with 320 meters of vertical ascent. You can follow my progress on Strava.

All down to eating a 100 or 150 calorie gel every half an hour or so. Magic!

The Tecno Globe/Cernay marathon was well organized with good support from the benevoles and participants that proved sympa.