Runner's Guide To Israel: Burma Road and Nachshon Nature Reserve

This morning was the last run of the off-season. Friday off-season runs are almost always trails, often trails that the group has never before run. The group scheduled a casual 14km run on Burma Road.

1. When the group says "casual" or "easy" or anything of the sort, I know I am in trouble. i always expect it to really be a slower pace than they usually run, but it never is. With me being much slower than almost everyone else, I often get left in their dust.
2. I have run Burma Road before, and know it is a beautiful run, and doable in my Vibram barefoot shoes.

So, I decided to join the group for this last trail run of the off-season. And it was really nice.

The group really did run a semi-casual pace, and they stopped at frequent enough stops to let the laggers like me catch up.

And, it was only partially Burma Road. We started off on Burma Road, and then hooked into the Nachal Nachshon Nature Reserve. Burma Road was as beautiful and pleasant as always, but the Nachshon Nature Reserve was really stunning. We ran through vineyards, crossed a soft-dirt field that had just been freshly turned, along a field of grass, and sheer beauty of nature and the Land of Israel. We also ran by a couple people who were using the vast empty space to fly a remote controlled airplane. They had the plane about 150 or 200 meters up in the air.

The run started northward, turned east and then we ran parallel to Highway 1 for a bit. Then we looped around back to Burma Road and back to Al Derech Burma store to shower and daven.

Runner's Guide To Israel: Beit Natif

I have fallen behind on my writing here. Today i did not run, but I have run four days straight until today.

On Friday we had a small group running out shooting for about 14km. The main group was going to be running a 22km run through the Dolev Nature Reserve to Bar Giyora. Just last week I had gone on a jeep tour of the nature reserve and I saw that it would be impossible for me to run these trails. The trails in Dolve Nature Reserve are very rocky and difficult, besides for the difficulty of the long mountain climb, the steepness and the general terrain.

So our small group ran out to Kibbutz Lamed Hey. From there we went in to the entrance of the kibbutz and followed the path around the back. That took us in to the Beit Natif Nature Reserve. Beit Natif is a mountain range outside of Bet Shemesh with beautiful trails and terrain. Parts were rocky, parts were soft, and overall it was beautiful.

We started off running through a vineyard. Much of the run through Beit Natif was uphill, as we were climbing from the very bottom, from the kibbutz, and crossing over the top to get back to Bet Shemesh. After the vineyard, we hooked onto a trail that was part of the Shvil Yisrael trail - the cross-country Israel trail. We ran along that for a bit, until it continued too far south, while we had to be turning eastward at that point. We followed some other trails up, eventually forcing us to stop running. We knew which way we had to go, but we did not necessarily know which trail would take us there. We basically hiked for a bit climbing from trail to trail until we found the main trail that took us back to the top of Beit Natif.

Along the way we found a well, an ancient olive press, an ancient cell phone tower, and more. The path then took us down past the area where the new nighborhood of Bet Shemesh is being built, just below tel Yarmout. and that brought us back to RBS.

the total run, not including the hiking, was probably about 16km, though that is an estimate. None of us were wearing a GPS watch.

Serious Trail Barefoot Running

This past Friday we went out on the trails of Park Brittania. I have run through Park Brittania many times before, but always on the main paths, not the trails. This run was going to be a mostly trail run, anywhere from 13km to 16km.

The trails in Park Brittania, I quickly found out, are very hard trail, extremely rocky. Making the rugged terrain even more difficult is the constant fluctuating between ups and downs - we were going uphill, then downhill, then back up, then down, etc. you get the point. So it was not just the difficulty of the rocks and the feet, but the concentration of running on the rocks to avoid pain and injury along with the frequency of changing style from ups to downs and back.

Far more difficult than running barefoot on rocks is running barefoot on rocks when running uphill, constantly looking for good footing. And even more difficult than that is running on rocks downhill, as you try to avoid going too fast, as you are sure to misstep and hurt yourself on a stray rock.

I must say, this run was a lot of work. I was wiped out by about 12km, but had to keep going. It was a great run, until I tired from the over-concentration. After that it was mostly a struggle.

The other runners were amazed that I was able to do it at all, considering how rcky it was. My feet are mostly ok with it now, considering that I have run numerous trails and my feet are fairly well-conditioned for it by now. I still have to be careful, and my heel came out a little bit sore from some obvious missteps, but overall it was pretty good and mostly painless.

Running trails in Vibrams FiveFingers is very doable. It takes some effort, and a lot of practice building up the foot. Start out on soft trails, and move up carefully to more difficult trails. Your feet will adjust their abilities.

Runner's Guide To Israel: Tel Yarmout

Today's trail run was unplanned. Our small group met up at 6 am for a local run of 10-12km. When we met we decided to run a trail instead of our normal routes in the area.

We ran down and headed out of RBS towards the 38. At the bottom we turned on to a trail and ran across the trail, almost parallel to the highway. At some point we would have to follow the trails up to the left and climb the mountain to come around the other side.

Tel Yarmout is the site of an ancient village from biblical times, currently an area very rich with archaeological finds.

After running across the trail, we located the correct trail heading up the mountain to tel Yarmout. Coming across the top, we ran through the edge of the site of construction of the new neighborhood of RBS C, and then down the steep decline to the fields at the bottom and across back to RBS A.

The trails up to Tel Yarmout were probably the hardest trails I have run barefoot. They actually alternated between very soft trail sections and very hard, rocky sections. Thankfully my feet have adjusted nicely and, while I had to take certain sections slow being more careful, overall I did pretty good and came out of it mostly painless. Had I known in advance I would probably have worn my Vibram Five Finger Treksport shoes rather than my Bikilas, but I did just fine with the Bikila.

The total run for me was about 13.5km, and was a beautiful scenic route, with a nice early-morning cool breeze.

I closed this week with 4 runs, the longest being the hilly trail of 13.5km, with a total of an estimated 39km.

9km Steep Trail Run

After 9 days of no running, and 3.5 weeks of minimal running, I went out for my second run of the week this morning.

The first run was a 7km run on Saturday night, We ran around the perimeter of RBS, which is 4.8km, and I ran halfway around a second time.

This morning's run was going to be a path we don't normally do. We were going to run out to Road 10, turning left instead of right, then running up through Zanoach and on the trail out into RBS. Along the way, one of the guys wasn't feeling well and dropped out. It was hotter than expected. We decided to turn up a different trail instead. This trail was very steep and rocky, but I have gotten used to running rocky trails. While needing to take it slow at rockier points, and the steepness of the downhill required a slower descent, overall it was pretty good.

Along the way we passed some Bedouin who had set up tent along the trail. They had a small pen of young lamb, along with doing laundry by hand and everything else that is part and parcel of a Bedouin tent.

After continuing along the path, we eventually got dumped out at the junction connecting RBS B and RBS A. I turned off and ran home on Kishon, concluding my run at 9km, while my running partner ran the other way up Yarqon towards his house.

It was hot, it was a difficult trail to run, especially because of how steep it was, and it felt great at the end.

barefoot rocky trail

I learned a very valuable lesson on Friday - don't run barefoot on a real trail. It hurts. A lot.

I suffered through 2.5km before I decided to give it up. I turned around and walked back to the beginning of the trail, so I really spent 5km on serious rocky trail, though only about 2.5km were running.

When I got back to the road, I figured I would run along the road for a bit until the group finished the trail. My feet were so sore I could hardly run. Now it is Saturday night and they are a bit better, but still sore.

Lesson learned.

The Runners Guide to Israel series #1

I am only doing low-level running, once or twice a week, as we are not in training for anything specific right now. A bunch of guys from our club just did a 200km relay race that I wish I was in better shape for to have been able to participate in - it sounded really cool. I am too slow for that though.

Anyway, being that marathon training only starts in September (yes, I think I will be training for another one though that is not final), it seems strange that I am suddenly posting here now. Here is what happened - I was out running on Friday morning with the group, and I thought to myself that it was such a beautiful run that I could post where we ran and describe it. It could be something like a runners guide to Israel, or at least to the Bet Shemesh area. That way other runners doing searches can get ideas of trails based on where our club went running.

During the "off-season", our running club does a series of trail runs. Some of them are pretty difficult, and some of them are just pretty. Actually they are all stunning, with amazing views and scenery and the topography can be anything up to extremely challenging.

So this Friday we went on the trail to Hurvat Hanot. The trail was marked at 11.8 km, but on the way back we added about another 1.5km, plus I ran from my home to the meeting point and back again adding another about 2.5km, making my whole run about 15.5km or so.

I had run to Hurvat Hanot previously, but via the highway. This was completely different. We started out running via the road from the Yarkon-Yarden juncture at the edge of RBS to the entrance to the trail off of Road 10. We ran in and joined up on the trail.

The trail went along the mountainside. It was never-ending in its climb to the heavens, as it kept going up, up and further up. It was a difficult run up, but the incline was not too steep most of the time, so it was fairly doable even for someone like me.

The area was beautiful. We were running on a trail on the side of the mountain - the ravine below was full of woods, and the sun was coming up in front of us over the tree lined mountain tops.

When we finally got to the top, or what we thought was the top, we got to Hurvat Hanot. there was a long and large mound there and someone said this is supposedly where Goliath is buried. I have no idea if the is true or not, but that is what he said.

So we kept running, technically back now. The trail still kept going up. we ran right by a flock of goats. Now we had RBS directly across from us in our sights - on the mountain across the way. We ran right by a flock of sheep framed by the RBS view right behind them. It looked so pastoral, the image could have been taken right from a photograph book of the country.

The run down was a bit difficult as the trail was rocky and steep in some parts. We got to the bottom, hooked up with the highway and ran back to RBS via Road 10.

The mapped out trail can be seen here..