Friday, March 25, 2011

Jerusalem Half Marathon - WooHoo!

Wew!  It's over - and it was most definately a tough one.  After having run the Marathon in January, I would  have thought nothing could be as hard as that.  Well, this year, the Jerusalem race went to a full Marathon, with of course, a Half and a 10K race.  Not only that, but they changed the course.  I thought the hills were bad last year.... this year I felt like we were running up hill for half the race and down hill for the rest.  In fact, I don't even remember if there was any straight away...


Here is the elevation graph from my Garmin.  I'm serious, no straight aways.

The day started off extremely cold - 8c - with the chance of rain!  I actually felt like I was back in Canada, that's how cold it was!  But I bundled up, and shed layers as needed.


My husband and Daughter in Law


There were 10,000 runners today.  1,500 did the full Marathon and the remaining 8,500 did the Half Marathon and 10k race.  Both my husband and daughter in law did the 10K - their first races ever!

I felt in the two weeks leading up to the race that I was not well rested, and my legs simply felt tired and sluggish.  Unfortunately, that's how I ran today.  From the start I did not feel comfortable with the race.  I planned on a 6:00 pace - but couldn't get anywhere near it do to all the hills.  In fact, by 7km I knew that I could not pull off a PR, and would be happy just to finish close to my previous time. 

Hard.  Simply hard.  The climbs seemed endless and it was so difficult to stay motivated.  I will admit to walking 3 times, each for about 20 seconds, and I had to stretch my legs at 15km.  By the time I came close to the finish, I felt like I did at Tiveria.  I was exhausted.  Thankfully my hubby came out to run in the last 200 meters with me!  Time - 2:18:17 - three minutes slower than last year, oh well!


Crossing the finishing line with my husband

All in all I'm happy that I ran, and mostly that my family joined in and had such fun.  I have another Half Marathon in two weeks, in Tel Aviv, where my son will run his first 10K.  Hopefully I'll be more rested.


Post run glory!

Best,
Jenny









Posted by at

4 comments:

  1. PaulMarch 30, 2011 at 3:23 PM

    Glad you had a fun race! Looks like a pretty lumpy course..no long ups or downs but many of them.

    You don't have to PR in *every* race you know ;)

    Great that you have gotten your family hooked on running too.

    I heard they had some problems with the 3 leaders not following the course properly in that race...ouch...that would knock the wind out of my sails.

    Luckily we don't have the problem of being in the lead ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Running BubbyApril 2, 2011 at 1:41 PM

    True, but I was disappointed that my legs were so tired, especially after all the work I've put in since the first time I ran a Half Marathon.

    And - there's always another race...!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rafi G.April 10, 2011 at 3:57 AM

    so where is the post Tel Aviv post?

    ReplyDelete
  4. PaulJune 7, 2011 at 9:21 AM

    Earth to Bubby...Earth to Bubby, come in Bubby..

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)