Paris, Before Paris Wakes

Paris belongs to the runner until about eight.

Paris keeps late hours, which is the runner's luck. At six the quays are empty and the gutters are running. The street cleaners start their first shift and open the valves at the curb, and water slides along the stone toward the drains. It is not drinking water. It comes through a second network, nearly 1,700 kilometers of pipe, fed mostly by the Ourcq canal.

From November through February the sun comes up after half past seven, and the first kilometers are dark. The law puts monument lights out by one in the morning, so the pyramid in the Louvre courtyard is dark too. What light there is comes from the street lamps. The reflective tape on our running shorts catches each one in turn and lets it go.

THE CLASSIC

TRUE TRIBE runs from 5 rue Étienne Marcel, in the 1st arrondissement. This is the loop we run. Drop past the Louvre to the river at the Pont des Arts, the first iron bridge in Paris, and run the lower quays east, under the bridges, past the barges.

These banks were expressways for decades. Long stretches are car-free parkland now, the Left Bank since 2013, the Right Bank since 2016.

Cross by the tip of the Île Saint-Louis and come back west along the Left Bank, Notre-Dame assembling itself in the early light. Where the old cobbles survive, they are wide-set and uneven. Watch your feet. The Seine runs thirteen kilometers through Paris. This loop covers a good stretch of them, on both banks.

At the Place de la Concorde, cross again and finish through the Tuileries, gravel crunching, if the gates are open. They open at seven from April to October, half past seven otherwise. Before then, take the rue de Rivoli arcades. Be at a café before the first tour group has found its umbrella. About nine kilometers, and flat the whole way.

THE VARIATIONS

Montmartre is the hill, the butte on the city's northern edge. At seven the staircases are yours. They are interval training, and at the top the parvis in front of Sacré-Cœur is empty, with the whole city below.

The Canal Saint-Martin in the 10th runs north under iron footbridges, nine locks between you and the edge of the city, the water black and still at six and the bridges lit. Follow it for distance. The Bois de Boulogne, at the western edge, stays open all night. At first light the lake steams and the rowing boats are still tied up.

The boulangeries are sliding out the first trays. For most of the last century, French law said a hired baker could not start before four in the morning. Every route ends the same way, at a counter, standing, with whatever came out of the oven while you were on the quays.