First color run in Paris

The color run seems to be a pretty well known race throughout the world, but, believe it or not, I had never heard of it. Main reason: it had never taken place in Paris before yesterday! It's a dream event to take cool photos of course... so I did not resist. In the end I selected this one that sums up the event pretty well ;-) Given the amazing number of runners with GoPro cameras, I bet today you can find a zillion video clips of this race on the Net ;-) 

Front runner

Friday and Saturday I spent two exhausting days at a "geek" conference and I must say I did not really feel like touring Paris to take photo yesterday! Fortunately I noticed there was a small running race starting at my local town hall which is just a couple of blocks away from where I live. So I went and took this photo (for once, someone who seems happy to be photographed!). I then looked up on the web yo find out more and discovered that there are dozens of events like that within Paris every year: for women, for notaries(no kidding!), for students... not to forget the marathon of course!

Car war!

In Paris, there is a very sensitive topic: cars! Since their election in 2001 (and reelection in 2007), the mayor of Paris and his team have tried to discourage people from taking/using/owning a car. They reduced the number of parking spaces, added a fair number of one way streets, narrowed a lot of other ones... They are now engaged in a more radical fight: free the Seine banks from cars!  This traffic light on the left for instance, is one of the new addition that aims at slowing down cars and make their journey hell, so that drivers are discouraged to come back... On the left bank they plan to simply close the road and turn it into a pedestrian area. Needless to say all this is highly controversial ;-)

Paris Marathon 2007

Four years ago, I wrote a story for a French magazine about "Managers who run the Marathon" and I've always remembered the interviews I carried out at that time, for some of them were very moving. This morning, I felt the same emotion while I attended - and only attended! - the 2007 Paris Marathon. Also, I remember people telling me how beautiful it is to run in the heart of Paris and, well, I do believe them! I took 1 gigabytes of photos this morning but I selected 40 for you. Here they are...