Running in the Holyland

I got up at 4:30 this morning - my dad was going to prayers and I was going to run. I had laid out all my equipment last night, shorts, running shirt, garmin, ipod, bandaids cut to size, body glide...he drove me about 5 minutes away to the entrance to Gan Sacher which is one of the big parks in Jerusalem. I got there at about 5:10 - and did some stretching at the entrance to the park and was off and running.

I was a little nervous about running in the park - when I first started there was no one else in the park - my father was nervous, but I had one of my parent's cell phones and I promised to be safe.

This time I paced myself a lot better - however, and I am not making any excuses (really I am) the running area was horrible. The asphalt was all bumpy, cratery and completely cracked. It was absolute hell on my knee. In addition at the end of the loop that I did 4 times there was a steep uphill which really knocked me down hard (I only did 4 complete loops of the park, after that I cut out that uphill part at the end and did 4 shorter loops). I was only able to complete 7.2 miles. At just over halfway through my left knee really started hurting and I had to stop for a little bit to re-stretch. I was afraid that I would have to call it a day - but I was able to finish up the last 3 miles or so. It wasn't the 8 miles that I had been hoping for, and it wasn't straight through, but it might have been the best that I could ask for. My final pace was 9:30, my fastest mile was a drop under 9 minutes and the slowest was a drop over 10 minutes.

I miss you Danny and Sara - running is just not the same by myself.

There is definitely something special about running in Jerusalem, it's hard to explain - it may be that I feel that I belong here - this is my home (no matter that I live in Da Bronx). I tried recruiting someone to come run with me this morning - but couldn't convince anyone, but I am scheduled to run 5 miles with my cousin Tuesday morning. The only thing that bothered me was that I am used to the early-morning runners being friendly to each other and wishing you a good morning. Here, it seems the custom is not to be friendly when running. Even when I said "Boker tov" (Good morning in Hebrew) I often didn't get a response and even when I did I don't think I ever got a smile. Guess that custom hasn't made it to Israel yet.

Afterwards, I went back to my parents' apartment and went with them and their friends for breakfast. Afterwards we went to the Herzl museum. Theodor Benjamin Herzl, for those of you who don't know (I will summarize from wikipedia) was the founder of Zionism. He lived in Vienna in the late 19th century and was greatly influenced by the Dreyfus Affair (a Jewish Captain in the French army was framed for treason) which he covered as reporter for an Astro-Hungarian newspaper. He organized the first Zionist Congress in Basel - one of the famous quotes from his speech is:
''Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word - which I shall carefully refrain from uttering in public - it would be this: in Basel I founded the Jewish state. If I were to say this out loud today, everybody would laugh at me. In 5 years, perhaps, but certainly in 50, everybody will agree.''

He spent the rest of his life travelling the world, speaking with different world leaders, trying to obtain the rights to then Palestine for the Jewish nation. He died in 1904 before realizing his goal.

The museum was nicely done, in an interactive manner. Basically they set it up as if they were training an actor to play the role of Herzl in a play - and it was the education of the actor on the life of Herzl that we watched. Couple of major mistakes in the movies they showed: 1) The actor playing Herzl writes from right --> left, even though Herzl never wrote in Hebrew. 2) There is a train scene where the director of the play and the actor playing Herzl are on a train playing chess. The director castles and then un-castles (if that is even a word, I don't know what to call it since it is an illegal chess move). But I am just being picky here. :)


He is buried in Jerusalem.
A picture of his tombstone.






Anyway, congratulations to Danny and Sara on completing their long runs - maybe I will be up for another one on Friday. My knee is sore right now - so I am going to rest it for a while, will have to see about that Tuesday run. Chag sameach!