To Paris, With Love: Our Recap of the 2024 Olympic Games

What You Need To Know

Our Time in Paris

We’ve been witnesses to some pretty cool places and events over our last few years at Believe in the Run. The World Athletics Championships at Hayward Field, running the streets of Japan at the Tokyo Marathon, leading group runs with legends from New York to San Francisco. 

Despite the many experiences we’ve been lucky enough to have, there was always one thing that evaded us, mostly because it only happens every four years and usually because it’s on the other side of the world. That event, of course, is the Olympics.

This year, we were able to make it to Paris during the final week of the 2024 Paris Games, and it was a whole mix of feelings and emotions. Gratitude, for sure. Pride in our country’s performance. A sense of unity, a togetherness that brought an almost utopian sense of peace to the heart of Paris. Is that hyperbole? Maybe. But to say it was inspirational to watch the world’s greatest athletes on the biggest stage is probably an understatement. It may have been life-changing. I guess we’ll never know, but the impact was real.

Here’s our journey to France: the people we met, the runners we ran with, the athletes we watched, the places we saw, and the feelings we felt.

Days 1 & 2

We live on the East Coast, so coming from Baltimore wasn’t such a chore, though it was complicated by a flight that was routed through Detroit. Direct flights from Dulles may have been the way to go, in case you’re trying to make a direct flight it to the Paris 2124 Olympics. In any case, we took an overnight flight and arrived at 5:30 a.m. Paris time. 

Unlike pretty much every hotel in the United States, hospitality was on point at the M Social, an art deco style hotel that allowed us to check into our rooms at 8 a.m., which was an absolute lifesaver. After a quick shower/nap combo, we decided to bust off the rust by going out on a 6-mile run to check out our new surroundings.

By the way, may I recommend a shake-off run for any and all travel? It’s a great way to get the blood flowing after spending the past day in coagulation mode. We decided to head down to the pristine waters of the Seine and the shadow of the Eiffel Tower because who doesn’t like weaving in and out of the entirety of the human race represented in a single city? Not knowing which rules apply where (do we pass on the left or the right?), it was a veritable free-for-all, with prayers up to the bike lane gods that one of us wouldn’t get pancaked the moment we hopped into it to pass a group of tourists from Somewhere, Indiana. 

Eventually, we made it back, with a little bit of jogging juice (or adrenaline) topping up our bodies’ batteries. After a quick turnaround, we then got all dolled up for an evening of festivities. 

First up was a walk up the plank of the SS Asics, a pop-up event space aboard a barge on the Seine. The top deck was a space to celebrate the spirit of Paris, where they introduced a few of their athletes taking part in the competition, including their discus star Valarie Allman who took her second gold medal in the Olympic games just two nights before.

We got to chat with her for a bit, and like a benevolent queen that won’t behead her loyal subjects, she allowed us to touch her golden crown, aka the Olympic medal. It was indeed metal, and it was indeed heavy, with a piece of the Eiffel Tower embedded squarely in the center.

From there, it was onto the actual Games, where we got to see the semifinals of beach volleyball, at possibly the most iconic location of the games outside the Stade de France. The arena itself was essentially at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, with a beautiful, 360-degree view. I mean, how can you top that location for a sporting event?

The most surprising thing about the volleyball match was that it was an actual party. I felt like I had been transported back to the MTV Beach House but in sporting form. Between each point, a hype man would do exactly what his title says, getting the crowd into it with a Jock Jams 2024 playlist. Custom crowd cheers came after spikes and blocks (“Monster block, monster block, monster, monster, monster block!”). If a girl sitting on the shoulders of someone wearing a bucket hat would have flashed the news cameras, you would’ve had a hard time convincing me I wasn’t back in the nineties. Anyway, it was awesome, and the thorough lashing that the Brazilian women’s team gave Latvia showed why they would eventually end up as gold medalists. I’m assuming the LA 2028 version will be played on Venice Beach; if you end up attending those games, you won’t want to miss the action.

After that, we headed back to the Seine to eat and drink and catch the starry spectacle of the Eiffel Tower as it was lit up with sparkles at 10:00 p.m. on the dot.

Day 3

On Thursday morning, we got up early, laced up our Asics Superblast 2 and headed over to the hotel where some Asics partners were staying to lead a group run with Deena and Andrew Kastor, possibly the most iconic and friendliest and funniest couple in running (you should probably watch/listen to our interview with them here). 

The weather was beyond pleasant compared to the swamplands of the Mid-Atlantic where we’ve been suffering through our morning “swims” for the past few months. Miles came easy as we chatted with some friends and made our way to the Arc de Triomphe, the real life rendering of one of our achievement levels from this past Summer GRIT. Afterwards, we ran back to our hotel for a total of 9 miles.

It was around this time when Paris began to sink in, the idea of being in this iconic city for this iconic event. Every street seemed to be a backdrop for an Yves Saint Laurent photoshoot or a James Bond car chase scene or the perfect place for a girl named Emily to fall in love. Go this way and there’s the Louvre, go that way and it’s Moulin Rouge, get lost and you may find yourself in a quiet side street, running all alone through the silence of a city built and rebuilt over millennia and centuries, refined and perfected with beauty at every turn.

Stay on the main sidewalks and you’ll have your own audience of café patrons, refreshed on every corner of every block, tables and chairs turned out to see you run and others walk. For a split second, you’re the show, as they sip aperitifs for appetizers and smoke cigarettes for dessert. It’s not a bad way to run or to forget you’re even running; breathing it all in, it’s easy to see how love comes easily in this place. You end up wanting to know all of it, deeply. 

Of course, four days is never enough, so you run how you can and when you can, hoping that it all is enough to remember for a year or a decade or maybe even a lifetime. Speaking of things you’ll remember for a lifetime– that evening it was was off to the Stade de France, the court of kings and queens, the arena of living gods and goddesses in the world of athletics. The crowds were thick as we all migrated en masse to the entrance of the stadium, which was a decent walk from where we were dropped off. For an hour or so beforehand, we found ourselves in the hospitality suite with a bunch of other attendees, where we grabbed some drinks and appetizers (no drinks or food in the stadium, though, which felt weird as an American who loves baseball).

And then we walked through the entrance to our level and there it was: the full field, the wide track, the panorama of the pinnacle of sport laid out before us. I’m still not sure if the track was blue or purple or periwinkle or fuchsia, but I’m damn sure it was beautiful under the lights as the sun split each stadium level on its way down to the ground.

When we arrived at our seats, it was during the medal ceremony for the men’s 3000m steeplechase from the evening before. Beside me were two Moroccan women who were wildly excited, as Soufiane El Bakkali stood at the top of the podium to receive his gold medal, the only one for Morrocoo at the Games. The national anthem was played and they sang loudly as they waved their country’s flag. The pride was immense. It meant something, for real, to see their people, one of them, on the podium. To hear their song, the one they sing at home in their own country, over the speakers in the Stade de France.

I think sometimes, as Americans, we take for granted our superiority on the world stage, and you can apply that sentiment any number of ways. There’s an expectation that we’ll dominate the medal count, at least in the Summer Games. While that’s all well and good for a hearty shout of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”, that standard sets the baseline so high that it’s sometimes hard to appreciate the glory of a gold medal and what it means for a country.

It’s why Pakistan is still losing their mind over Arshad Nadeem, who set an Olympic record and won gold in the javelin throw and became the country’s first ever individual gold medalist. The man has since gathered a cumulative $1 million, free fuel, an apartment, a gold crown, and– bonus– a water buffalo from his father-in-law. I was at the stadium when he broke the record, and there was a reaction to the throw, but it was no louder than your average ninth inning tie game in a regular season baseball game. It should’ve been a bigger deal to everyone, but it wasn’t, probably because the women’s 10,000 meter was about to go off. However, it was the biggest deal to those that mattered– Pakistanis who took immense pride in their country and their athlete.

So let me tell you– the Games were great. That first night, we got to see Sydney McLaughlin shatter her own world record, a race that was laughable in its utter dominance. It looked like a preliminary heat. On Friday night, I strained my voice as Sha’Carri Richardson anchored the gold medal win in the women’s 4×100, further solidifying my pain of knowing I’ll never be the lead singer of a post-hardcore band. 

But if you ever get to experience the Olympic Games, you need to look into the bones of the performances to find the marrow of it all– this deep sense of unity, each country cheering for their own, but each country respecting the others. For the most part, anyway. Instead of dots on a map or borders on a land, the countries are represented for what they are– humans with dreams and the desire to do better and be better and show the best of what we have to offer. What our beautiful bodies and iron minds are capable of doing, whether they’re white or brown or black or tall or short or fast or strong.

It’s something that can be appreciated in any language that’s spoken and everyone seemed to agree on that. While we were in Paris, there was a pervasive peace in the air, like everyone could just let out their collective holding of our breaths. Nothing bad was going to happen here, at least for these two weeks (the triathletes may disagree, but diarrhea and vomiting is temporary, saying you swam in the Seine is forever). The wars were outside, the protests were next week, the elections were somewhere in the halls of parliament, not on the playing field, not along the banks of the Seine, not in the corner cafés buzzing with life, as they should be.

Day 4

On Friday morning, the community vibes came out in full force, as we co-hosted a group run with Citius Mag and Kofuzi from the grounds of the Louvre. Apparently 7:30 a.m. is absurdly early for Parisians, so there were very few people in front of the Louvre Pyramid when we arrived. By the time all of our people assembled, the crowd had swelled to well over a hundred.

Again, the weather was beautiful as we once again headed down to the much-less-crowded sidewalk along the Seine. It was a great group of people from all over the world, some in town for the Olympics, others who resided in the city, while still others were there for the Marathon Pour Tous, to be held the following evening. We also had some special guests show up unexpectedly, including Peloton instructor Becs Gentry and former Olympian Aisha Praught-Leer, as well as some of our favorite industry friends like Floriano from Diadora and Massimo from Tracksmith. Of course, the legendary Deena Kastor was on hand as well.

It’s hard to top that kind of morning, so of course we could not. Nevertheless, we tried our best that evening as we once again made our way to the stadium for the evening’s athletics events. Again, I already mentioned some of the legendary performances that evening, including the relay that spawned the Sha’Carri side eye, as well as the Olympic record javelin throw. For the women’s 10,000m race, Kofuzi and I made our way down to the lower level by the finish, just in case there were some finishing fireworks. There weren’t, and the American women finished off the podium, but it was still cool to see from that perspective. Plus, we were there for the pins anyway, at Kofuzi had discovered the lower level was a hot zone for pin trading.

So yes, pin trading. I forgot to mention that during this entire week, I had somehow found myself in the wacky world of Olympic pin trading/collecting, which I fully dove into. What started out as a meager collection of mediocre pins eventually blossomed into a respectable starter collection, as I swapped and bargained and bought a variety of Olympic adornments, from team pins of USA, Great Britain, and Jamaica, to commemorative pins from countries like South Korea, Brazil, and Slovakia, obtained by visiting their houses. It was a fun little sidequest that resulted in some nice souvenirs and confirmed my suspicions that someday, under the full moon of old age, I’ll turn into an avid birdwatcher and/or serious metal detectorist.

Our lack of sleep was catching up to us, but only one more day to push through and get this thing across the finish line. We’ll sleep when we’re home.

Day 5

This was our final day in Paris and we made the most of it. The morning was spent at the Asics marathon watch party at a local restaurant, which was on the route in the beginning miles of the men’s race. Of course, there were less than 100 runners in the race, so the total “live viewing” portion was about 10 seconds. Yeah, they’re pretty fast. You probably know how the race turned out, and while none of the Americans secured a podium spot, they did finish in the top 10, with Asics athlete Clayton Young pulling into ninth place right behind his best friend and training partner Conner Mantz. 

After the race we had some free time and set out on our separate ways to explore paris. Most of us went on a run through the city, checking out the different sights and sounds and smells all around us. Myself and Kofuzi finally made it to the Park of Nations at Villette Park, where a good number of countries had their houses for the Games. Since it was the final day and it was a Saturday, the place was pretty packed, so we ended up just checking out the Mongolian and Slovakian houses, both of which were pretty fun and interesting. The real attraction was the official Olympics Collectors’ center, where we were able to buy and trade pins. We topped off our collection before hopping back on the metro and meeting the rest of the gang at the hotel.

That evening, we wrapped up our week with a dinner at Pink Mamma, a popular Italian restaurant that’s having a moment, where tables are in high demand. We were seated on the top floor of the three-story establishment, a glass-enclosed and sunlit level that felt like part greenhouse, part apiary. The food and drinks were top tier, but the company was even better. After dinner, we made it to the basement at the bottom of the triangle-spiral staircase, where a speakeasy awaited behind a plain-looking freezer door. After a few more libations, we exited into the Paris night and walked the twenty minutes back to our hotel, dodging the urge to smoke a cigarette every step of the way. Somehow, we endured. 

We made it back a bit after midnight, and after 6 hours of sleep, it was up again to catch our flight home.

It was a whirlwind of a week with experiences layered on top of one another, all with unique flavors and consistencies, a tsunami of umami for all the senses. The unification of cultures and languages, the pinnacle of competition within sport, backdropped by one of the most beautiful cities on earth. It was intoxicating and reverential and something that will be hard to replicate. I guess we’ll find out in four years.

Los Angeles, you’ve got a lot to live up to.