Paris 2024 promised to revolutionise the Olympic and Paralympic Games experience for the general public. Many people shared a dream that is now a reality: with the Paris 2024 Mass Participation Marathon, amateur athletes will be able to run the same route as the Olympic marathon, by night, enabling as many people as possible to follow in the footsteps of outstanding athletes. This will be an extraordinary experience, on a unique and original route, celebrating the heritage and history of the Paris region and the whole of France.
Providing people in France with an outstanding Games experience has always been Paris 2024’s ambition.
The Mass Participation Marathon sets out this promise by offering opportunities for as many people as possible to get close to the heart of the Games adventure, following in the footsteps of the Olympic athletes, on the same route as the Olympic marathon event. For the first time in history, running events open to the general public will be organised, with a full marathon and also a 10km race. They will be run at night, ensuring the best running conditions for all runners. Like the Olympic Games in general, the Mass Participation Marathon is committed to ensuring gender parity, with Paris 2024 looking to award the same number of race entries to both men and women.
The Marathon Pour Tous will be an unforgettable experience for every participant. From the evening start, on the same route and on the same day as the men’s Olympic event, a few hours before the women’s event, to the entertainment alongside the route and the presence of numerous athletes and personalities who will come to experience the event alongside the participants… everything will come together to forge the memories of a lifetime!
Athletes and celebrities will be taking their places in each starting wave, alongside the participants, to liven up the warm-up and create an atmosphere of excitement all the way to the finish line.
For the duration of the Marathon Pour Tous, runners will be provided with an extra musical incentive. Along the route, in every city crossed by the runners, numerous music groups and their different tunes will accompany the pack of runners as the kilometres and difficulties of the route progress.
At kilometre 7, we get down to the nitty-gritty: this is where the Supporters’ Square will be located, where the crème de la crème of French supporters will be cheering on runners. Just what you need to get your Marathon off to a good start. Kilometre 7 is a strategic point, as it marks the separation between the marathon and 10km courses.
A special zone, made up of rings that will form a hundred metre-long light tunnel, will be a source of motivation for the runners. As they approach the final climb of the route at kilometre 28, before taking on the infamous kilometer 30 marathon wall, they will find the visual energy boost they need to overcome the final difficulties of the course!
At kilometre 38, the emotions of the feat begin to assail the runners as they enter the final kilometres of the race. This is where families and supporters will gather, in a dedicated area where they will be able to cheer on their runner in the final kilometres: a podium will be set up, and a DJ will bring the area to life to provide the runners with the loudest cheers.
At the finish line, the runners will be welcomed at the Esplanade des Invalides, which will be transformed by a sound and light show to give the runners a fitting welcome at the conclusion of their feat.
Other areas along the route will be activated by Orange, official partner of the Marathon Pour Tous who will be putting in place a host of activities to further encourage, inspire and motivates participants in the Marathon Pour Tous, and also by our technical partner Bridgestone.
LESS
Beautiful course, poor logistics
The race was free if you were lucky enough to get a spot. You, obviously, had to pay for your travel and stay in Paris but it's an easy city … MORE
The race was free if you were lucky enough to get a spot. You, obviously, had to pay for your travel and stay in Paris but it’s an easy city to get to and get around in.
Packet pickup was in a park near the Eiffel Tower and was pretty straight-forward: show your QR code and your passport, get your bib and entry bracelet. The race instructions mentioned that you could drop a bag but didn’t indicate what type of bag it could be. I went back the 2nd day to ask- any bag at all as long as it was smaller than 20 liters.
The race-day logistics of this race were terrible. After dropping off bags, we had to walk about a mile to the start line. This wasn’t bad considering there were 20,024 participants in the event. While they checked any bags coming through (like camel packs) at the entry from the bag drop-off to that starting corrals, I don’t think there were any checkpoints from any other direction getting to the start line. Regular pedestrians were walking “against the grain” among us- some with bikes, and some people were actually walking back to find friends in the crowd. I’m glad I was alone because if I got disconnected from someone: vaya con dios. I’ll see you back at the hotel. It made me mad because people were trampling flower beds to get through the crowds – but if the organizers would have had closed off the area and properly controlled the flow of traffic, this could have been avoided.
I thought it was funny- they were playing my kind of music (DMX, Black Eyed Peas, etc.) in the start area…but not the radio edits. So all the bad words/non-PC words were flying. So I’m all hyped up but trying to keep it cool. I wanted to do this by heart rate but it was exciting and the temperature at the start of the race was 79°F (but only 60% humidity- living in Florida and training in the summer, 60% barely registers for me, but it was still warm and I saw a few people vomiting on the course or after we crossed the finish line.)
We were just a little more than a mile into the race, finding our pace and all of a sudden, we came to a halt. 🤔 bottle neck. We all know how much I loooove the strollers and the 18 people that have to crowd around them on marathon courses. That’s what it was: the course narrowed and too many people were trying to make this turn, including one of these stroller packs.
💧The first 2 water stations were not great- I don’t think they understood just how many people 20,000 is. This is the course for the Olympians so- what?- 100 runners at most? I thought that they had gotten better as we progressed but after the first 2, I knew I’d be walking through them so maybe that made the difference in my perception. I always carry a bottle, what I bring is a supplement to what the course offers. The stops were supposed to be once every 5k but they were more frequent than that. There were no electrolyte drinks or energy gels on the course but they did have “feed stations” along the way with various fruit treats and crackers. The fruit things were great but by mile 20, I really needed something salty- I dropped mine on the course and the only electrolytes I had were getting diluted more and more in the bottle I brought with me.
The course was beautiful and it ran by a lot of beautiful buildings and structures. The race was run at night and seeing Paris illuminated like that “all to ourselves” was pretty remarkable.
I wore a USA sports bra and it was a hit! “Ah! USA! Aller, aller, aller!” “Estas Unis! Aller aller!” “Go USA!” 🇺🇸 I must have heard it in every language. I loved it. The crowds were great!
…and the hills… I ran what I could, and I feel like I did far better on them than I normally do- my mom and I walked 14 miles the day before– 7 inside the Louvre alone (mom did 6 but I had to use the bathroom so I got an extra mile going there and back). Walking is not the same as running, and my dogs were barking when we got back to the hotel that night (That’s a euphemism for “my feet really hurt”). When I put my Newtons on to get ready for the race, I said “man, I’ve missed you.” They felt so good. But by mile 22, all that walking from the day before really started to kick in. My feet were hurting again any time the course was flat. Even downhills were starting to hurt and I was looking forward to running uphill again.
At about mile 24, the 10k people were running alongside us- separated by those metal fences they use at festivals and concerts. In the last .75 miles they decided to put down some pink, 8″ high parking cones to keep us separated. Yeah- that’ll work. Everyone was kicking these things all over the place and what was worse was that we were 4-ish hour marathoners. Pretty decent pace 9-9:30 minutes per mile now, all of a sudden, we had thousands of slower-paced 10k-ers merged in with us. (There were 20,000 people in each race.) Boy, did I hate that. You know how it is when you sort of find your pack, your groove, etc. and then people cross the street in front of you in a regular race? Imagine dozens of people hopping in front of you when you’re trying to get that finish-line push in. It really threw off my pace and my stride.
We crossed the finish line and got our medals. They could have handed out the medals a little further back because you almost had to slam your breaks as soon as you crossed the line — whereas Olympians may cross the line 1 (maybe 2) at a time, now we had a steady stream of dozens crossing every second. I thought the 10k people got the same medal as we did but once I got home, I saw that in teeny-tiny print on the lanyard, it says 42.195 km and minute engraving on the medal, also reading 42.195. (a different plating color or lanyard color would have been nice– or a smaller medal…something to obviously differentiate the two.)
Post-race:
The exit area was more chaotic than the entrance. There were no signs or people to direct us. I walked out and saw that I was supposed to go a different direction to get food and my bag. There were just people (and those rental bikes that stop when they run out of time) everywhere. I thought “there is going to be a human crush here and I’m gonna end up on one of those ‘what went wrong’ shows.” Fences and gates lined the street with thousands of people just pushing against each other. I asked a guy with a Paris 2024 volunteer shirt “Où est la Quai D’Orsay?” (where is the Quai D’Orsay- that’s where the bags were) and he responded in English “I didn’t volunteer for this event.” Pardon me for assuming you would know this area, being a street in Paris. (Tons of Olympics venues were around us so I really thought Parisiennes (especially those who volunteered at any event) would know the street names around here.) Some sort of signage, iconography, or volunteers to show us where to go would have been helpful. I figured out that I went the wrong way when I got pressed against the fence and saw saw food tables on the other side. Somehow, I managed to get back, got into the food area and found my bag thereafter.
So- yeah- I don’t think these people had a race director.
It was a beautiful run and an unforgettable experience. I about cried when I saw 4:08 was my finish time, but those long downhills saved me. I went into this expecting 4:15- 4:30 because I knew I’d take pictures and walk that monster hill.
That’s it. I don’t think I left anything out.
Oh- we got free race photos.
If they do this in LA, I won’t do it. Not because I didn’t enjoy it- I just don’t like LA. Maybe Brisbane in 2032. I’ve never been to Australia 🇦🇺