Watching the Geneva Marathon

We watched, supported and cheered on the runners in the Geneva marathon as they slogged their way up the last kilometer along the Lausanne road on Sunday. I took the big one with me who had lots of questions to ask, "why are these people running? why do they look so tired? where are they running to? what's a finish line?"

I also ran into someone I met on the one occasion I have been running with a group called GVA Runners, a group on the local social network Glocals.com. A slight moment of embarrassment before I poured out five months worth of injuries, illnesses and manic Saturday mornings with the family. Still, what with the weather turning for the better, perhaps I'll be able to make a few more of the sessions.
I have to with good reason, as from the end of the month, despite two knees that seem to think they would be better off holding together someone else's legs (I tend to agree with them) I am running in the Tour du canton de Geneve. Some how I have to be able to run 8km in a week, and then run another 8 or 9 the week after, and for two more weeks. Not sure how this is going to work out, it may be slow progress.
The website for the Geneva Marathon claims it wants to become one of the top 15 marathons in Europe, a quick check of some numbers at marathons around Europe, shows it has a long way to go. There are the really big ones, London, Berlin, Paris, which boast participant numbers of over 30,000 and Rotterdam and Belfast boast more than 20,000 participants. Stockholm, Cologne, Hamburg, Rome, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Madrid, Tallinn and Dublin all claim more than 10,000 marathon runners. Whilst Geneva has around 7,000 people turn out to take part in the four different distances over the weekend of the marathon festival, it has a long way to go before the number of 26 milers catches up with the more intimate marathons such as Brighton, Helsinki and Oslo, where  participation numbers rival Second Division football crowds. A strong element of the popularity of a marathon is a pretty course, and I'm sure, with the lakes and the nice villages and towns of the Geneva canton the marathon scores well on that front.