Thom got up super early and went running, with roughly 40,000 other people. The Paris Marathon is a spectacular event, for runner and observer alike, and Ria and I had fun catching up with the runners twice on the route (at 5 km and 23 km) and again at the finish, near the Arc de Triomphe (at 42 km). Thom's time was almost exactly the same as my not-officially-a-brother-in-law Nico's times in 2008 (6 minutes off) and 2007 (1 minute off). Nico's birthday is the same as my father's. (A numerologist specializing in Oedipal complexes would have a field day with our family.)
Thom used to run marathons the way other people would head to the ATM, and even ran several ultramarathons (50 and 100 mile races). But he hadn't run a marathon or even a half marathon for over six years, so finishing this one (with pretty minimal training, given his work schedule) was a bit of a deal for him. He was even able to walk up and down a few dozen flights of stairs in the Paris Metro system as we took the train home.
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