Marathon Training Season is here!

Here is the inspiring email from our running coach Chaim to kick off and inspire the runners for the new marathon season...

My fellow runners:

Start your engines and brace yourselves for a thrilling ride on the cutting edge of middle aged sanity. Marathon Season is, at long last, upon us. Over the next 123 days, we will transform ourselves into razor sharp, precision tuned, running machines. We will eat, sleep and train like professional athletes. We will ignore our spouses and children, shirk our responsibilities at work (just kidding) and focus on our goal with a ferocity and intensity that we never dreamed possible. When it is all over, you will be leaner, fitter and faster than you were in high school. You will have formed extraordinary bonds with your clubmates, the kind of bonds worthy of fraternity brothers. Your love for this glorious land, your vitality, your zest for experience will all jump immeasurably. In short, my friends, you will be real marathon runners. If any of you are asking yourselves why you should make such a supreme sacrifice merely to be able to cover the objectively absurd distance of 42,195 meters a few minutes faster, let me assure you that you are missing the point. Marathon day is merely the icing on the cake, the culmination of an 18 week process which, done properly, can transform you dramatically and forever alter you perception about the scope of what you might achieve in any arena of your life.

Yes, there will be difficult moments along the way. There will be setbacks and frustrations and aches and pains. There will be times when you will ask yourself whether it is really worth all the effort. In response, I can only offer the soaring experience of those who have come before you and have never looked back. Stay the course and you have my solemn promise that you will never regret it.

If you are inclinced to run, or want to give it a try, the BS Running Club is amazing.

Run #1 of the new marathon training season

I know I lapsed a bit and did not write about my last few runs, including a midnight run a few weeks ago from Bet Shemesh to the Kotel. That was a 40km run, at midnight, with no sleep, and without training for the distance of just under a marathon.. As well, this Friday we ran the last run of our trail series.

But Marathon Training season has officially begun. Tonight was the first run of the season. It seems weird to start the season on a Saturday night, considering Saturday night runs are always recovery runs. What are we recovering from tonight?

Regardless, I ran tonights run as part of a new Saturday night group of runners from the neighborhood. Running with a group always makes it easier and more fun.

It was kind of open-ended tonight. The schedule called for 10-12km, butthis group only planned on doing 6-8km. They added at the end to get it up to 10 for those who wanted. I dropped out after 8.5. By then we were passing my house. To go all the way around, would have required me to do another 4-5km, not just another 2km, and I had just run about 11km on Friday, along with a serious need for some lavatorial relief, so I took the first run easy and cut it short at 8.5 km.

the run was from Dolev-Dolev in RBS, down to the 10 and out to the 375. And back. and then around the RBS perimeter.

It was nice to see some new guys running. That is always inspiring.

And yes, I am still the slowest guy in the group (at least of semi-regular runners...). I don't expect that to change in the near future...

I am remaining open-minded about whether or not I will train for and run the marathon in January. That challenge is already behind me, so I am not sure I will be able to stay motivated for it. It takes a lot physically and even more so mentally. For now I am training and we shall see how it goes. I know that to do this you really have to commit yourself.