Montauban Marathon Review
The great thing about being custodians of a running website is that we get the opportunity to shout out about some of the runs we enter - aren't we lucky peeps.
On 31st March we completed the 12ème Marathon du Montauban which takes place in the beautiful and picturesque town of Montauban which is roughly 55km north of Toulouse in South West France.
The whole running festival weekend can be enjoyed by all the family as they have a number of children's races on the Saturday and is the perfect opportunity to collect your race number (dossard) from the race expo at the same time.
There are a number of events taking place on the Sunday with the marathon leaving at 8.30am, the half marathon at 9am and the 10km race at 9.30am. In addition there are marathon relays also going on, so wherever you are on the course at any given time there's a few people around to keep you company.
As we completed the marathon of course we'll have to focus on that ... it was a two lap (boucles) course on closed roads and nature trails with the race leaving from Avenue du 10ème Dragon and winding it's way north of the town through a quiet area and then reaching what would normally be a busy road through an industrial area and onto an out of town shopping area with a very slight incline on the road between about 6km to 9km but hardly noticeable. It then winds in and around the streets of Montauban taking in the sites of the town centre modern fountain and old architecture of the Office du Tourisme, through the cobbled shopping streets and into the Place Nacionale with it's open air cafes and restaurants.
Leaving the sleepy shopping streets (well it was Sunday in France) if you look left you'd see the stunning Cathedrale Notre Dame de Montauban before descending down down down towards Jardin des Plantes and embarking onto the Tescou riverside path with a good few short and sharp ups and downs thrown into the mix. With a little more road running and back onto another riverside pathway now next to the River Tarn we reached the famous bridges of Montauban, crossing over the first and with 5km to go,we were then weaving our way around the streets on the other bank of the Tarn and finally making our way back over the river on the old bridge towards the start in order to either do it all over again or to make our way to the finish line - oh the relief!
All in all it was a very well organised race, from the collection of the race numbers to the handing out of the goodie bag at the end (which included a litre bottle of locally sourced grape juice, 4 apples, a pair of running socks, a gel belt, a technical t-shirt and the all important finishers medal). There were pacers out running at 3.00, 3.15, 3.30, 3.45, 4.00, 4.30, fuelling stations at every 5km and fabulous support all the way along the course from spectators and runners alike with plenty of 'bon courage' and 'allez' along the route.
We'll definitely be back! Merci Marathon Montauban pour votre gentillesse !
