22km!

Today's run was scheduled to be 22km. The route was the Lamed Hey route, out the 10, up the 375 to Tzmet a'Elah, across the 38 back to Bet Shemesh. That is 22km when starting from "the Aviv boxes" in Bet Shemesh.

I was starting, and finishing, in RBS, so the route was only 19km.

I figured it was ok - after Wednesday's "Medium Run" that I cut short from 16km to 14km because my legs felt too tired and heavy to run, I figured that on Friday I would be lucky if I hit 18km.

So out I go, ready to conquer the world, or more likely collapse on a highway somewhere and get run over by a car.

I was expecting that the group would eventually catch up and overtake me, as I had given myself a head start, starting the same time as the group, but starting from RBS. They, however, run much faster than me - even if I am running fast and they are running slow they are much faster than me. But I never saw the group.

So out I go. I actually felt good and felt like I was running strong. At about 3km into the run my GPS watch died (it had said 'low battery" right when I turned it on, so I expected it), so I had no idea of what time it was or my pace.. I could just settle in and enjoy the run without worrying about running at any specific speeds. I knew the distance more or less because I have run this route a hundred times before.

I hit Tzomet Ha'Elah, about 9.5km, and took a brief water break. Then I continued up the 38, conquering the Zachariya mountain. I turned up Tzeelim towards RBS and decided I would extend the run. I ran up through Ramat Shilo and then turned left on Kishon and went out about 1.2km and then back home.

That gave me about 22km, maybe just slightly less.

As I said, this training program gets intense very quickly!