A couple months before arriving in Paris, I started looking for a running group on Meetup.com since we’d be here for a good chunk of time. There were two, and one of them took August off for vacation, so Let’s Run Paris was the winner. Like I said in my last post, I’m pretty shy in these types of situations, but I knew if I didn’t go I’d regret it, so off I went on Saturday morning. Jeremy and I left the house super early to make sure we wouldn’t be late for the meeting near the Jardin du Luxembourg. The only other time I’ve been to the gardens it was packed with tourists, so it was a nice change when there were barely any people there so early in the morning. I took it as an opportunity to take some pictures…

 

 

 

After we killed some time, I headed over to the café to meet the group. Everyone was so nice, and everybody spoke English. I talked to a few people who had moved to Paris from America, and after everyone arrived, it seemed like the majority of people there were expats. This also could have to do with the timing; lots of Parisians take August off for vacation. We took a group picture, and then were split up in pacing groups. I had to figure out which group I should run with; the options were 5 min/km, 6 min/km, or 7 min/km, which equals roughly 8 min/mile, 9:40 min/mile, and 11:20 min/mile. I’m in the middle of the latter two groups, but I went with the 6 min/km group, knowing that I could fall back to the slower group if needed. The plan was to do 15K (9.3 miles), running along the Seine, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, and more. The pacing group I went with ended up being really big (probably about 25 people?) and we had to stop at a lot of stoplights, but I didn’t mind since it was nice to catch my breath. It was a great way to see the city, it was free, I met some nice people, and I felt great at the end of the run. Success!

Here are some pictures I took along the way:

And here are some from the Let’s Run Paris Facebook page:

 

I had such a good run that I decided to join the group on Monday evening for 10K in a different part of the city. I went with the same 6 min/km pace group, and we ended up going a lot faster than we had on Saturday. I felt great though, running with the group made me run faster and push myself more than I ever do, and it made me realize that I haven’t lost as much fitness as I thought these past six months. I heard that the course was going to be really hilly and I knew I needed to practice those for the Dingle Half coming up, so I was looking forward to that. There were some steep inclines, but it didn’t feel bad to me at all, which gave me some more confidence.

There were 27 of us in the pacing group this time, and our huge group ran by countless cafés where people were eating and drinking outside and it was funny to see everyone’s reactions as we barreled down the small sidewalks. We even got a bistro waiter in the middle of taking an order to run with us for half a block. Most people looked at us like we were crazy, but we also got some nice “Allons-y!” (“Lets go!”) shouts as well. I saw some new neighborhoods and some really pretty sunset views from Parc des Buttes Chaumont, but I didn’t stop to take any pictures.

From the group’s Facebook page:

This Saturday, the plan is to run 21K (about 13 miles) and I’m a little unsure about it since that would be upping my mileage fairly quickly… but maybe if I join the slower pace group it wouldn’t be as bad. If anyone thinks it would be a big mistake, please let me know!