{"id":10303,"date":"2014-09-14T07:55:32","date_gmt":"2014-09-14T07:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=10303"},"modified":"2014-09-15T13:37:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-15T13:37:22","slug":"the-marathon-du-medoc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/bordeaux\/the-marathon-du-medoc","title":{"rendered":"The Marathon du M\u00e9doc"},"content":{"rendered":"

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So I ran the Marathon du M\u00e9doc yesterday for the second year<\/a>. it was the 30th anniversary of the race, so even more than usual there was a party atmosphere. There were also more runners – over 10 000.
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It was a hot sunny day. Great for the vines, which need just another week of this weather for 2014 to be a very interesting vintage, even after the coolest August for 50 years. But the heat made running hard, even though it made for a visually spectacular scene.<\/p>\n

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I ran the first half with Christian Seely, who is great company. He then stopped and I carried on alone. I stopped for wine several times, and it was very enjoyable.
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How did I do? Unlike last year, which was painful, this year I had no pain. I came 2741 out of 10196 runners, which is better than last year. I was slow, but it was very warm and there were lots of wine stops, and congestion at the start cost around 25 minutes. It was tremendous fun. I was 808 out of 2380 in my age group – my time was (cringe) 5.27 – I was very lazy because I had lots left in my tank at the end and sprinted the last stretch! Then I had a 20 minute walk back to Pichon, where we had lunch with wine, port and Sauternes, which was most splendid. A short film is posted below these pictures.
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And a short film:<\/p>\n