800GP: we tried it so you don’t have to
It’s not every day that a sprinter gets to have his say here. Let’s face it, at Jolie Foulée the marathon seems more popular than the 60 metres. Truth be told, it’s more popular than the 60 metres, full stop.
So when Lionel asked me to write here, I had to find some common ground between runners with zero cardio and people with teeny-tiny arms. Good timing: on 1 July, the Eight Lines collective held the second edition of its meeting, the 800GP. A particularly well-chosen name, since it offers a single distance: the 800 metres.
To give you a bare minimum of context on my running, I specialise in the 400m. If you’re not one of the half of France who’ve tried to run it in under a minute, basically the 400m is running flat out knowing you’re going to hit a wall. Except at the end, you’re the one who collapses.
When I said I was going to run an 800m, my training partners told me I was mad. Mind you, in a sprint group, a 400-metre runner already counts as a “long-distance” runner.
Some wished me good luck, others wished me all the best with my future endeavours, and the last lot simply asked me “Why?”.
I could have told them they were, after all, looking at the Seine-Saint-Denis indoor 800m runner-up (*1), but I gave them the real reason: “The organisers bung 50 euros to anyone who sets a PB.”
So there I am one Wednesday evening on a rammed RER B at Gare du Nord, heading for the track that, by happy coincidence, saw me run my first ever two laps two years ago.
Can’t wait to see what Eight Lines has cooked up. They usually do pretty cool stuff, but I wonder how that’ll carry over to an athletics meeting, where the conventions seem a bit set in stone.
After a 15-minute walk from the station, I reach the stadium. From the number of gazebos I can see going up in the distance, I realise this is no ordinary competition.
The closer I get, the clearer the picture. Spectators (loads of them, which doesn’t happen every day), a DJ, a massage stand, activities with prizes to win: I’m at the Disneyland of athletics. I fancy a go on Space Mountain, but then I remember I’ve got a bib and a press accreditation to pick up.
I’m welcomed by Eight Lines’ very smiley volunteers. They give me my bib, a T-shirt and a bag with a bottle of water, a fruit pouch, and a drink that’s supposed to buffer the lactate build-up at the end of the race.
When I tell them I also need to pick up an accreditation, their surprised look comes with a “You’re doing both? That’s brave”. That’s when I realise this might not be the best idea of my young career.
I pick up my accreditation along with a second T-shirt just for the media: no doubt about it, we’re among the fashion crowd.
I head off to warm up. To get into character as a middle-distance runner, I set out to do a 15-minute easy run. After 9, my legs let me know it might be best to stop there.
A few minutes later, there I am in the call room with 7 other runners. Honestly, the organisers really did right by us: everything’s perfect. Organised, on time, and we even get a pacer and a wavelight (the moving pace lights). Conditions usually reserved for the very best athletes, when we’re in heat 11 of 24, i.e. the mid-table mush of Paris-region middle distance.
We even get pyrotechnics as we walk out onto the track, and Patrick Montel on commentary. Honestly, Eight Lines, you lot are well up for it.
I do one last straight before taking my place on the start line: I feel absolutely rank. It’s going to be tough, but 50 euros is still 6 kebabs with a drink. (*2)
The gun sets us loose. I go off as if the 800m were a 250. Occupational hazard. At the break, I’m still at the front of the pack and I can’t see the pacer. Same at 150 metres, then at 180. I start thinking something’s gone a bit pear-shaped.
After 200 metres, I finally start to see him in the rear-view mirror. 100 metres later, I can feel my legs getting heavy. Like, really heavy.
A few seconds later, 3 rivals go past me. I’m really suffering and we’re not even halfway: I’m in the shit. My brain switches to intrusive-thoughts mode:
“Legs not great, eh?”
“Kebabs are looking dicey now.”
“Don’t worry, only FOUR-HUNDRED-AND-FIFTY metres to go”
“Right, worst case we just stop here?”
At 450 metres, I check the rear-view mirror again, on the left and with my indicator on this time. I pull up pathetically and watch the rest of the pack sort it out on the run-in. In the end it’s the pacer who wins the heat: I knew he was dodgy.
I couldn’t tell you whether the drink that’s supposed to buffer lactate worked, since I didn’t even have time to go lactic. Either way it was pretty bitter, a bit like me at that point, I’ll admit. (*3)
A handshake or two with my rivals, then back behind the lens. That’s exactly when I bump into someone well known at JF, there to pace one of the heats.
Wandering around the track lets me step back and take in the event: everything you could want from an athletics meeting is there, but there’s something extra. Several things, actually.
The feeling that this is the kind of competition you can bring your mates to, the ones who couldn’t give a toss about athletics, without worrying they’ll be bored stiff for three hours.
Music that finally sounds like what athletes have in their earphones, not the car stereo in a Citroën Picasso.
Race conditions you’d never have dreamed of getting, least of all in Aulnay-Sous-Bois (with all due respect).
Rewards for everyone: 50 euros for a PB whatever your level, and a trophy for every heat winner, from heat no. 1 to heat no. brave-souls.
The sense that maybe this is what the athletics of tomorrow could look like: a sporting event first and foremost, but an event that brings people together, too.
As for me, I leave with no kebab voucher and not even a time to put on my FFA profile, but with the pleasure of having been at the second edition of a meeting that will surely have many more.
Well done and thank you, Eight Lines!
See you soon, and don’t forget to run fast every now and then <3
*1 With a pitiful time, but most runners of any respectable level don’t venture into 4 laps of the track at the Nogent-sur-Oise sports hall (60).
*2 Sorry, oldies, it’s not 2003 any more.
*3 Even if a DNF is apparently OK here, and we appreciate that.
