As far as I remember, the first official race I registered and took part was somewhere in the mid 90s. At the time in Paris, deciding with a friend to join another friend for a 5k cross country race.

First 5K on flat surface in the woods

Cross country race mean trail race, so I started by trail running.

The first race in the woods of Boulogne, West side of Paris, was a disaster. We had to do two loops, one of 2k and one of 3k. I remember to have been distanced immediately by hungry runners, I wasn’t ready…

I did the first loop of 2k, alone, lost my way in the woods and somehow did not find the 3k loop meaning I ended up doing twice 2k, so 4k in total instead of 5k… Hopefull there is no trace of this race, probably a solid 30min for a 18y old man.

Second 5K on not flat surface in the woods

Second attempt, a bit more training, not as serious as my running buddy, and this time somewhere between Paris and Versailles.

I remember the start of the race was going straigh up, breaking your legs immediately. Then a bit of flat and going down before up again and more suffering.

Third one on street

I left my friend at his trail running events. I tried to run a bit with my father and his friends wo were avid runners in 80s to 90s doing marathon regularly. One problem it was impossible for me run and talk in the same times… But I could see that my father and friends had fun.

Eventually I joined my older cousin for a road race outside Paris around the same years. I finished the race but wasn’t sure of what I was doing at the moment.

First 10k races

Fast forward, we are almost 15years later, now leaving in Berlin after some years in Norway. While in Norway and doing my Phd thesis I try to pick up on running again as being outside was always a good thing to do for my brain and discover cross country instead when the first snow flakes arrived, no regret!

But during the summer I was back on track and managed to go running once a week and kept that rythm when I moved to Berlin. Even so I made new friends that were runners as well, I mostly kept running alone.

Thanks to my german classmates and some beers that did follow each course I decided to register again to a race, my first 10k with other people.

In 2010 and 2012 I did two races. Not my best times but that wasn’t really the goal. But learning to deal with pre-race stress, to manage your bladder skills, to catch and drink water at the water stations, these were the challenges!

And cool races, one going through the Berlin zoo (or Tierpark) and another finishing by looping into the Olympia stadium. The beers that follow the races were a delight.

Next

Passing that year of 2012 I’m running once to twice a week. I’m using smarthone to record my runs, I had polar watch to start, I invested in my first watch (pebble and android), tried RunKeeper, nike, something from Nokia… I liked to see where I was going more than the time performance who was poor anyway.

The only time I’m running with someone outside race events it’s during vacation.

In 2014 I have been unemployed for almost a year and running was a necessity to stay sane in the brain. And after a few weeks of two to three runs each week my body was asking for more, or I felt more comfortable doing so. At the time and for some years already I’m only using my bike to travel in the city and sometimes went for bike rides.

Running was a solitary thing for me, but thanks to the running apps I could thumbs up my running buddies spread all over the world.

Running a marathon was at this point of (2012 to 2014) not a goal or a dream, I thought people doing so were insane. I was just happy to go running outside, sweating and exploring around.

But thanks to internet and my spread running buddies we agreed ot register to marathon in 2015, our first. From that I had to organize a bit more seriously my training. In my head it was just about increasing the distance and see… 10K to 16K was not a problem, but more, well I will discover that sooner than later.