I made it back alive!

Why I am doing this, How I decided to do this, How the training program was developed?

these questions will all be answered soon.

For now, this is what I did for my first training run.

I need to get into shape to start training for the marathon. That means start running now.

My run consisted of 44 minutes, broken down into 11 segments of 4 minutes. Each segment was to consist of 2.5 minutes of fast walking and 1.5 minutes of running. As time goes on and my body gets into shape, I will decrease the time spent walkign and increase the time spent running.

This is the plan as put together by my buddy Chaim Wizman from the BS Running Club.

I finally got myself off my tuches and did it! So I went out at just after 5am today. I started off keeping to the 4 minutes segments.
At about 20 minutes or so, I made my first mistake. I went to Nahal Tze'elim.

The top of Tze'elim is downhill, so I suspected it was a bad idea, but it levels out pretty soon after. So I figured there would be one bad part (coming back) but most of it would be ok. I did not realize that even the leveled out part is really downhill, but on a slight incline. Even that slight incline makes the run difficult.

Going downhill was great. The problem was coming back. I nearly died on the way back. My heart nearly burst out through my chest.

I stopped the running part and finished the uphill with just walking (kind of fast).

I still had some time on the meter, so I continued the run-walk, with mostly walking, as I was pooped by then. My legs had officially turned to jelly by now. I did continue to run, but not for 1.5 minutes at a time.

But I made it back at just under 44 minutes and I lived to tell the story.