Long and then some more

Long & then some

Saturday is Long Day here, because of the weekend being Friday & Saturday, So Saturday is like Sunday and Sunday is like Monday. So on Saturday morning the roads are deserted and most Israeli athletes; Runners and Cyclists take the opportunity to avoid the Natural Enemy of the Sportsman here the Israeli Driver.

I could write a thesis on Israeli drivers but that is not the purpose of my blog and since you are not here it makes no sense to bore you with how bad it is to live in a country where the drivers can right fully claim to be the worst, most obnoxious, rude, and just plain bad drivers. Not all, but the other 90% are in the other category. If they ever add bad driving to the Olympics. Israel stands a chance to win a its second Gold Medal in its history.

For you trivia buffs, they other Gold Medal was in Wind Surfing at Athens in 2004.

Enough digression, Saturday is long day and the aim today was to run about 10 miles give or take. It was evident that after a couple of km’s that Judith was in trouble, the km splits were literally in the 7 minute a km pace, whilst long runs are meant to be slow this pace is very slow.

It is hard to train as a group, when two of us, Maureen & I are at a high social runner level capable of doing track speed sessions and hills as part of the schedule and longs can be pushed easily in the 5:40 to 6:00 range. Chaim has made leaps and bounds and is right on track doing everything right and building a solid base level from which to go into a formal marathon training program (at this stage we are going to look at an 18 week program) Judith is really trying but continues on this insane Chinese diet as prescribed by a Chinese Medical Doctor to rid her of parasites, yes you read correct parasites.

I am prepared to continue to train with here, but the diet has to change her running yesterday was slow and labored she had no strength and rather than seeing progress, her running is stagnating.

We got back to the cars and I then went on and did a few more km’s at pace to brush off the cobwebs of frustration, it actually started to rain, which was nice. Ended up doing 16 km or should I say 10 miles, remember miles Mal miles, American Marathons are only sign posted in Miles.

Now, the run had not been enough, I honestly felt frustrated after the run. Whilst the others may of felt that it had been a good training run, mentally once again I was down, So I headed to the Gym and took part in a killer Spin Class, sixty minutes later completely dripping in sweat and my legs burning in pain and exhaustion I staggered out my Heart rate had hit 156, so easy and hard a nice workout combination in reflection.