Shanghai Running Magazine Volume 3 | Page 28

Medoc Marathon
by Dave Dudek

M

EDOC – this 5 letter name is infamous in Europe and conjures
up horror and fear in skilled marathoners. This is not for a run for faint
of heart or weak liver and Kenyans
don’t even try and compete.
I first heard about this marathon
whose start/finish is hosted in Pauillac Southern France near Bordeaux
on one of my Wednesday 630am
runs in the French Concession from
my Frog (French) running buddies.
Their vivid description of this unique
marathon convinced me that I had to
add this to my bucket list.
The marathon this year was held
on Saturday 13 September which
was also the 30th anniversary of this

special event. As I now live in Amsterdam I thought this year would be
a great year to join and I had mentioned it to quite a few friends who
15 were more than happy for me to
organize (including 5 from Shanghai). On their website they let about
4,000 people register in separate
attempts ie they tell you 1st open
registration will be in February and
you check each day to see if it opens
up. The 1st registration opened and
sold out so fast I didn’t even have a
chance to register. Then they had a
2nd registration in March and it sold
out and then the 3rd attempt in April I
enlisted friends waiting for it to open
and again sold out in minutes and my
group of 15 had zero entries. After
some research I found you can get
a package deal including overpriced
hotels, bibs and bus to/from the start
from Bordeaux. I was then able to
register my team of 15 (though the
registration was a bit painful – we
even had to get signed by doctor
certificates of health).

had quite a diverse group. This is
a costume run and the theme this
year was “Carnivals of the World” so
trying to save some costs I came up
with a brilliant idea to source group
costumes of the German Cologne
Carnival at the Shanghai South Bund
Spinning Fabric Market. Unfortunately most of the group ordered their
costumes only a week before the run
and when the gweilo went to pick
them up on way to Airport they were
not ready. So the day before the race
in Bordeaux we scrambled and were
lucky to find a costume shop and we
bought a hodge podge of costumes.
On race day morning the bus picked
up our group right in front of the
hotel at 6am. As we boarded the
bus I could see this was going to be
an exceptionally fun day. Everyone

I earlier mentioned this marathon
is not for the faint of heart or weak
liver as this is the world longest wine
tasting in costume party. You are given 6.5 hours to complete 42.195 km
which includes 22 wine stops through
some of the most fabulous châteaux I
have ever seen.
My Mob of 15 included 5 shanghaiers
(all gweilo – well one was mixed ie a
KBC – Kiwi Born Chinese) few Septics, a Honky, a Pogue, a Gaúchos,
a cheesehead , a Springbok, a few
Germans and another Kiwi so we

on the bus was in costume and not
simple cheap ones we had. Aussies
with surf boards, Japanese in Ninja
and Geisha outfits and many other
fantastic outfits. You didn’t see any
stress on these runners they were
here to party.
We lined up as a group with about
12K other ‘runners’ which was a
carnival like atmosphere at the start.
There were Brazilian Girls on stages around the starting row dancing
Samba. I couldn’t believe some of
the costumes; there were Chinese

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© Shanghai Running 2014