This French Marathon Serves Wine, Cheese & Oysters

Just outside Bordeaux this weekend, runners will be going the distance—and getting sloshed along the way

In two days, Le Marathon du Médoc will take place near Bordeaux, France. If the words marathon and France bring to mind images of wine-drinking Parisians lighting cigarettes while in a perpetual state of ennui, jumbled with the disparate images of sneakers and shorts-laden runners effortlessly striding up a hill, you're not alone.

Leave it to the French to figure out how to have it both ways—or to have it all, really.

Saturday's marathon will include tastings en route—and, yes, that includes wine. The New York Post sums it up well: "It's the only marathon where you can pull a cork as well as a muscle."

The 8,500-plus runners from 71 countries, who typically dress up in something fun for the occasion, will run from chateau to chateau for 26.2 miles, stopping for wine tastings along the way. Around the 22nd mile, they will run right into a verifiable feast. Think entrecôte steaks, cheese and ice cream. There will be also be oysters.

This is also the first year marathoners will be treated to breakfast, which will be handed out near the beginning, around the two-mile mark.

It's no wonder this marathon, now in its 32nd year, is known as the "longest, slowest and tastiest marathon" in the world. Sounds like our kind of race.