Honey, need anything from Rehovot?

Today we ran to Rehovot.

I have found, about 20% of the difficulty of running is physical, and 80% of it is mental. The physical hurdles are the easy ones to overcome. it is the mental ones that are hard. Today's run was easy compared to last weeks, even though it was only slightly longer. The mental block of running over 20km had already been shattered last week, the mental block of running to another city had already been shattered last week, and physically the run was mostly flat with only a few uphills.

The Rehovot run was originally scheduled just for the advanced runners with the run planned for 34km. The novice runners would have a shorter run locally. I decided I wanted to run Rehovot, but 34km is still beyond my abilities.So I looked over the route and decided to start my run at President's Forest, which is just a bit after Tzomet Shimshon. That knocked about 8km off the run, and would make my run to Rehovot a 26km run.

I scheduled to start the run on my own, before the main group of runners would arrive at President's Forest. I figured they would overtake me pretty quickly, because they run much faster than I do. We were scheduled to make a pit stop at the gas station by Tzomet Nachshon, then by the gas station at Mazkeret Batya.

My wife dropped me off at president's Forest at 6:50am, and I started my run. I did not see anybody until Tzomet Nachshon, when I saw a fellow novice runner who had decided to start his run from there (which would make for an 18km run). I skipped the stop at Nachshon, and continued running.

The terrain was beautiful, as so far it has been on all runs. This run was completely on the road. The course was mostly flat, with a few uhills and downhills, but I flew (for me) ata very good pace all the way to the pit stop of Mazkeret Batya. That was 18km for me. Stopping is always difficult and running again after a stop is difficult. The muscles have tightened and the joints have downtime to get sore.

We got our drinks and pulled out. As we pulled out of Mazkeret Batya, we saw other runners for the first time pulling into Mazkeret Batya.

We ran from Mazkeret Batya through the major shopping center of Tzomet Bilu. At the entrance to Rehovot, other runners first started passing us. Running in Rehovot was tough. There are pedestrians in the way, lots of traffic, traffic lights at intersections that cause delays, and it suddenly got hot as we were running in the sun at that ppoint. So in Rehovot I slowed down. The last 2 or 3km got a bit difficult. As I got stuck at a traffic light, I was feeling very dry. I ran into a kiosk and bought a bottle of water. That helped and I sped up a bit after that.

I finished the run slowly, as we completed the course on the front lawn of the Weizzman Institute. After a short rest, we went down the block to Aroma for an Ice Shoko, and then got a taxi home.

Final numbers were 26km at an average pace of 5:48/km with total running time of 2:31hr (I really get a kick out of this GPS watch!).

I am not nearly as sore as after the Jerusalem run, and my knees don't hurt at all. My calves are sore and tight, but not nearly as bad as last time.