The 2015 Paris Marathon
Marathon # 106
Date: April 12, 2015
My Time: 3:49:47
By Dr. Barefoot Sidy Diallo
I ran in Paris, France, with minimalist shoes my 106th marathon and got a big surprise.
I was expecting my 106th marathon to be another routine race, but it turned out to be a crucial matter of reflection, as I explain in my book Running Barefoot for Human Survival. Excerpts:
“Since I had already participated in the Paris Marathon in 2011, 2013 and 2014, I didn’t expect anything special from its 2015 edition. Then I surprisingly saw on the home stretch an African woman walking slowly on the course towards the finish line. She was carrying a white bucket on her head and a sandwich board around her neck to convey the following messages in French: ‘In Africa, women walk this distance every day for clean water’ and ‘Help us reduce the distance.’ While I was wondering how the woman ended up as a human billboard in 2015 in the streets of the French capital, other runners were applauding and taking souvenir photos.
Moreover, although she obviously didn’t do the race and she was anyway not able to, the headlines in many languages around the world were like ‘Gambian woman walks the Paris Marathon with 45 pounds (20 kg) jug of water on her head.’
For the record, a) I started the race with the second wave at 8:50 a.m. and crossed the finish line in a chip time of 3:49:47; b) according to media reports and footage, the woman started with the last wave; c) we were tens of thousands of runners; d) I later saw her on the home stretch, walking at a speed of about 2 mi/h (3.2 km/h), uncomfortably holding the white jug with both her hands; e) while she would have needed at least 12 hours to walk the distance, she allegedly did the marathon—with the 45-pound bucket of water on her head and the human billboard around her neck—in less than four hours, official time, which would translate into a chip time of about 2:30. So facts didn’t matter, stereotypes did. The fake news fit perfectly the expectations of the haughty folks.
Furthermore, the woman the British organization exhibited in the Paris Marathon, instead of taking her to the London Marathon, is by the way from the unlikeliest country where people would have to walk a marathon for water. For those who are not familiar with her nation, it’s a former British colony in West Africa called The Gambia, and as you can read on Wikipedia, ‘The Gambia is a very small and narrow country whose borders mirror the meandering Gambia River. The Gambia is fewer than 50 km (31 mi) wide at its widest point, with a total area of 11,295 km (4,361 sq. mi). 11.5% of The Gambia’s area is covered by water.’ It’s the geography.
I picked up this postcolonial story, above all, because it highlights our need to reflect on the real purpose of long-distance running and on the diverse perceptions humans may have regarding this ancestral activity. The presence of the woman at the Paris Marathon was intended—so it was stated—‘to show the contrast between the opulence, the beauty of Paris and the poverty of Africa.’ But for a person coming from a village where the inhabitants still must walk a certain distance to bring water home, finding herself amid 50,000 white people running 42 km in the streets of Paris on a Sunday morning without any obvious reason, was likely a frightening moment.
Let’s imagine another scenario for this morning of April 12, 2015. The woman was at the Place de la Concorde, about 500 m (0.3 mi) away from the race start, blindfolded and carrying the bucket on her head, with no information on what would happen. She suddenly heard a gunshot and thousands of ominous footfalls. She managed to remove the blindfold quickly from her eyes and saw over 50,000 Whites chasing a handful of Blacks who were running seemingly for their lives, at a speed of about 20 km/h (12.4 mi/h) in her direction. She would throw the jug right away and embark on a desperate sprint for her survival, shouting in her language: ‘Help! Help!’...”
Running Barefoot for Human Survival is available on Amazon in paperback and e-book format (French edition: Courir pieds nus pour sauver les humains).
Date: April 12, 2015
My Time: 3:49:47
By Dr. Barefoot Sidy Diallo
I ran in Paris, France, with minimalist shoes my 106th marathon and got a big surprise.
I was expecting my 106th marathon to be another routine race, but it turned out to be a crucial matter of reflection, as I explain in my book Running Barefoot for Human Survival. Excerpts:
“Since I had already participated in the Paris Marathon in 2011, 2013 and 2014, I didn’t expect anything special from its 2015 edition. Then I surprisingly saw on the home stretch an African woman walking slowly on the course towards the finish line. She was carrying a white bucket on her head and a sandwich board around her neck to convey the following messages in French: ‘In Africa, women walk this distance every day for clean water’ and ‘Help us reduce the distance.’ While I was wondering how the woman ended up as a human billboard in 2015 in the streets of the French capital, other runners were applauding and taking souvenir photos.
Moreover, although she obviously didn’t do the race and she was anyway not able to, the headlines in many languages around the world were like ‘Gambian woman walks the Paris Marathon with 45 pounds (20 kg) jug of water on her head.’
For the record, a) I started the race with the second wave at 8:50 a.m. and crossed the finish line in a chip time of 3:49:47; b) according to media reports and footage, the woman started with the last wave; c) we were tens of thousands of runners; d) I later saw her on the home stretch, walking at a speed of about 2 mi/h (3.2 km/h), uncomfortably holding the white jug with both her hands; e) while she would have needed at least 12 hours to walk the distance, she allegedly did the marathon—with the 45-pound bucket of water on her head and the human billboard around her neck—in less than four hours, official time, which would translate into a chip time of about 2:30. So facts didn’t matter, stereotypes did. The fake news fit perfectly the expectations of the haughty folks.
Furthermore, the woman the British organization exhibited in the Paris Marathon, instead of taking her to the London Marathon, is by the way from the unlikeliest country where people would have to walk a marathon for water. For those who are not familiar with her nation, it’s a former British colony in West Africa called The Gambia, and as you can read on Wikipedia, ‘The Gambia is a very small and narrow country whose borders mirror the meandering Gambia River. The Gambia is fewer than 50 km (31 mi) wide at its widest point, with a total area of 11,295 km (4,361 sq. mi). 11.5% of The Gambia’s area is covered by water.’ It’s the geography.
I picked up this postcolonial story, above all, because it highlights our need to reflect on the real purpose of long-distance running and on the diverse perceptions humans may have regarding this ancestral activity. The presence of the woman at the Paris Marathon was intended—so it was stated—‘to show the contrast between the opulence, the beauty of Paris and the poverty of Africa.’ But for a person coming from a village where the inhabitants still must walk a certain distance to bring water home, finding herself amid 50,000 white people running 42 km in the streets of Paris on a Sunday morning without any obvious reason, was likely a frightening moment.
Let’s imagine another scenario for this morning of April 12, 2015. The woman was at the Place de la Concorde, about 500 m (0.3 mi) away from the race start, blindfolded and carrying the bucket on her head, with no information on what would happen. She suddenly heard a gunshot and thousands of ominous footfalls. She managed to remove the blindfold quickly from her eyes and saw over 50,000 Whites chasing a handful of Blacks who were running seemingly for their lives, at a speed of about 20 km/h (12.4 mi/h) in her direction. She would throw the jug right away and embark on a desperate sprint for her survival, shouting in her language: ‘Help! Help!’...”
Running Barefoot for Human Survival is available on Amazon in paperback and e-book format (French edition: Courir pieds nus pour sauver les humains).
Dr. Sidy Diallo ran in France with minimalist shoes his 106th marathon and got a big surprise: he finished the race with a Gambian woman who allegedly “did the Paris Marathon with a 20 kg jug of water on her head.”
Dr. Sidy Diallo’s 2015 Paris Marathon Certificate
Dr. Sidy Diallo did the 2015 Paris Marathon
The Gambian woman who allegedly did the 2025 Paris Marathon with a 20 kg jug of water on her head.
Map and Presentation of The Gambia by the World Atlas: “The Gambia is a very small and narrow country whose borders seem to follow the path of the meandering Gambia River, and at less than 30 miles wide at its widest point, nearly 10% of the country’s land area is covered by water. The Gambia River itself is one of Africa’s major rivers. It stretches 1,130 km (700 miles) from northwestern Guinea to the Atlantic Ocean at the city of Banjul. The remainder of Gambia’s terrain is a grassy flood plain.”
Map and Presentation of The Gambia by the World Atlas
Gambian woman walking in the Paris Marathon with 45 pounds jerrycan of water on her head
Femme gambienne marchant au Marathon de Paris avec un bidon d'eau de 20 kg sur la tête
Femme gambienne marchant au Marathon de Paris avec un bidon d'eau de 20 kg sur la tête
Gambian woman walking in the Paris Marathon with 20 kg jug of water on her head