It’s the most brutal course in Olympic history. But pain is just a French word for bread

I’m ready, I think. My bumbag is loaded with protein gels, and hydrolite gummies. My race bib is fastened on nice and straight. I’ve hydrated all day, rested, eaten well but not too much.

My nipples are covered in Band-Aids. (You do this because the constant friction of a sweat-heavy shirt – shifting up and down over a matter of hours – will chap them bloody. I saw it once in the New York City Marathon - a guy at the finish, bleeding in two streams down his chest.) I’ve also liberally applied Vaseline to my groin and backside, to prevent chafing, and for that glorious mental image, dear reader, you are most welcome.

Welcome to my world - a combustible mixture of excitement and dread at the starting line of the Marathon Pour Tous, a 42km race organised for 20,024 runners through the streets of Paris, on the penultimate night of the Games, beginning at the stunning Hotel de Ville.

I interviewed some marathon runners about this moment in any race - all moments, in fact - and for Mahamed Mahamed of Great Britain, who finished 57th in the world on this course at the Games (in 2 hours 15 minutes), the start is what he loves most.

“When you’re on the line, you cannot stop it, can’t go backwards, just forward,” he said. “I do as best I can to not think about anything, keep the mind blank.”

We’re off, and crowds five deep on either side are cheering us on. With a house music bassline thumping, people are dancing in the streets. It’s exhilarating and heartening to see people come together in this way, but my ebullience doesn’t last long. Five kilometres in and the humidity is already taking a toll. Even at 10pm the city air is like warm soup.

They ran past the Louvre, too.Credit: Getty Images

I try to distract myself with memories of the Paris I’ve come to know over the past few weeks. There’s the little boulangerie where I bought my first French baguette with a bottle of Perrier, before riding through the streets on an e-bike. There’s the bar where I had a nip of whiskey, toasting to Jim Morrison, because it’s where he used to write himself off. Around that corner is the Picasso Museum, where I went one rainy morning between assignments. (You like The Weeping Woman at the National Gallery of Victoria? There’s an entire room full of her here, portraits devoted to Picasso’s long-time muse, Dora Marr.)

I pass the glass pyramid at the Louvre, and on the other side of the street floats the Olympic flame, suspended in the sky beneath that glowing balloon. Soon to my right is the Grand Palais, where I watched fencers parry and thrust, utterly entranced by the combination of setting and skill. And to the left is Eiffel Tower, where I watched beach volleyball in the sunshine with a cool drink. Oh, to be back in that moment.

The Olympic cauldron and its balloon, suspended above the Paris sky.Credit: AP

We cross the Seine, headed out of the city, and this is where the course gets tough. I’ve been warned that the next 15 kilometres is hilly, and that’s putting it mildly. This route has been described as “the most brutal marathon course in Olympic history”.

Australian runner Pat Tiernan, who finished 24th in 2 hours and 10 minutes, shook his head when I asked for advice in handling the challenge.

“Just survive for 30km. Don’t press it,” he said. “My strategy is to do what I have to do to survive the hills, get to that last 10km, then start racing. Be cautious. You’ll be OK.”

Does he have a survival mantra perhaps?

The sun sets on the beach volleyball competition beneath the Eiffel Tower.Credit: Getty Images

“I like to keep my breathing pattern in check. Keep my shoulders relaxed. Everything from the head down needs to be relaxed and working together.”

Easier said than done.

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It’s midnight in Paris. Have you seen that movie, about a man who time travels to Paris in the 1920s? It’s naff but charming, if you let yourself fall for it. One hundred years ago, in 1924, this was the place to be.

Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald were here. Gertrude Stein. Samuel Beckett. Ernest Hemingway, too, although not for the Olympics, having decamped to Spain for six weeks to get drunk and jump in and out of bullfighting rings.

James Joyce lived here too, having just published Ulysses. He wrote to a friend once about this place: “There is an atmosphere of spiritual effort here. No other city is quite like it. It is a racecourse tension.”

Midnight in Paris, indeed.

I feel my own race course tension now, because this thing I’m attempting is not quite halfway through, and my energy is flagging. You play a little mental game as you tick off the kilometres in any marathon, to make your masochism seem more palatable.

At 5kms, you say to yourself, “Only seven more of those to go”, and it helps. It helps at 10kms, too: “Only three more of those to go”. But the deception has diminishing returns. When I reach 21 kilometres, the idea that there’s “one more” 21km chunk left is nothing but dispiriting.

Mahamed Mahamed gets me, and he does 180 kilometres a week in training. The guts of the race is just unpleasant. “It’s a different mindset, a different world,” he said. “You don’t know what’s going on. There’s no enjoyment in pain. You’re on fire, but you just have to keep going. You have no choice.”

The home town of Victor Wembanyama.Credit: Eddie Jim

Around 25kms, I pass by the neighbourhood of Les Chesnay, where NBA star Victor Wembanyama grew up. I spent a day here last week, learning about the place that raised “The Extraterrestrial”.

I was sad not to get out to the nearby Palace at Versailles on assignment, where the equestrian was being held, but now I’m experiencing it in a way few others ever will, lit up at night, as glowing and impressive as Olympus itself. And we’ve rounded the corner for home, too.

These hills though, they’re not done with us. The gradient is pure sadism. I try to gallop up one, but my stride won’t respond, and I’m forced to tramp up the hill instead. I’m not alone either - the slope is so severe that the entire field is walking. Running this ramp would be madness, or brilliance, or both. Coming down is easier but also hurts more - the quads shuddering with every footfall.

We’re all on struggle street now, having hit the dreaded wall. Even on the flats, there are as many walkers now as runners. In one two-kilometre stretch I see a half dozen men and women bent over on the guard rails vomiting, emptying a warm bile mix of water and protein gels onto the road.

The professionals just make it look so easy. It’s not.Credit: Getty Images

Poor souls are sitting on their haunches with faraway looks, or laying flat with hands over their face, in denial of where they are and what’s happening to their bodies. Others are hurried away in wheelchairs to waiting ambulances.

There’s a guy holding a sign by the side of the course: “If you collapse, I will pause your Garmin for you.” I want to laugh, but mate, read the road. I prefer the other sign, which kicks me along with a chuckle: “Pain is just a French word for bread.”

The German marathon runner Domenika Mayar, 33, adores running, but is also intimately acquainted with this unique self-inflicted suffering.

“You will have this hard time, ya? And it will always come in a race, ya?” she said. “You will always have this period where you think ‘Why am I doing this?’ and ‘How can I get out of here?’ or ‘Is it better to drop out?’ But you remember there is a point you are over this, and will fly again, ya? Better times to come. Better times to come.”

Matt Ebden and John Peers at Roland-Garros.Credit: AP

Coming back into Paris now, better times seem still so far away.

Roland Garros is to my left, where I watched the most thrilling doubles tennis match I’ve even seen, decided entirely by tiebreakers, Matt Ebden and John Peers winning Australian gold before my eyes. It was one of three golds I was privileged to cover here, along with Jess Fox and then Noemie Fox.

They all strived and succeeded. I guess it’s my turn.

Never has a final 5kms gone on so long, but I’m carrying the words of runner Dakotah Lindwurm, 29, of the USA. “When you’re going for home, you have to draw on what’s inspiring you, the reasons you’re doing this,” she said. “You’ve gotta love it, and have a reason why.”

The reason? It was there to be done, and experienced.

Seeing Jess Fox win gold was a real highlight.Credit: Eddie Jim

And the love? Dorothy Parker once said “I hate writing; I love having written.” I feel the same way about writing, and also about marathon running. I hate running marathons; I love having run this marathon.

The finish is on blue carpet, where I wrote my first story of these games, before they had even really begun, covering the early rounds of the archery at Les Invalides, in the shadow of a 107m high golden dome, under which rests the tomb of Napoleon. This place was established as a hospital and retirement home for France’s war veterans. I could use patching up myself, and a long rest.

I’m a slow runner, and always have been, and my preparation - working 15+ hour days, logging 20,000 steps a day on assignment, when I was meant to be resting and tapering, was far from ideal. I finished the race in just over 5 hours, a bloated result, but as they say: Finishing lines, not finishing times.

Everyone around me wears the same giddy look of exhausted elation and accomplishment. Despite the pain and the breathlessness, I’m glad to be here with them, feeling that winner’s ache and clutching my medal. Google Translate has been my friend these past few weeks, but I don’t need it to sign off from the City of Light. My parting thought, apart from au revoir?

Non, je ne regrette, rien.