It was wet and windy for my marathon today, quite a change from the hot weather I’ve had almost all summer in Europe. The Marathon Touraine Loire Valley (yes, English spelling) sounded like a pretty race going through little villages and along the Loire river, starting in the centre of Tours. I found it quite humid at first and I worried about that, and also the road seemed slippery in the wet.
The route took us along small roads and bike tracks (Loire à vélo) through farmland (that means cornfields and other vegetables) - I recall a huge field of bright green spinach leaves - and some light forest. We ran alongside a small river for a while. The highlight at 19 km was running through the grounds of Chateau Villandry, a pretty castle in pretty grounds, although the path was very slippery. Next door to the castle was a nice looking Romanesque church. A lot of the route wasn’t all that exciting, a bit like running the Traralgon Marathon with a castle thrown in and the supporters calling out in French. On the return part we came through several villages, all tiny.
As usual in France the supporters were great, calling out enthusiastically ‘bravo’ and ‘allez Julia’ and never once saying I was almost done. In the villages people leaned out of their windows and stood by their front doors to encourage us.
The aid stations were frequent, mostly with just water, and fruit, raisins and ginger cake (not so nice). They gave us a whole bottle of water each time, which was far too much on such a cool day but would have been wonderful in hot weather.
I tried to keep up a decent pace but the headwind was quite strong at several points. The route was basically flat. We did a sort of rectangular shaped course and on the way back there was a lot of tailwind. Despite that I slowed in the second half, but in the later stages I was passing loads of people. I managed a spurt to the finish line.
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