March 30th was the Tel Aviv Marathon and Paul and I both ran! Well...not the Marathon portion. I ran the 10k and Paul ran the half marathon. As you can see from the pictures, tons of people ran.
My goal was finish in 1 hour so I set my running watch. There is this great "training buddy" feature where a little stick figure runs against you and the watch tells you if you're winning or losing the race, and by how much. So the whole race I didn't watch how far I had run or for how long...only if I was beating my little racing buddy. I did great in the beginning...then the race got close...then I let him get ahead by just a bit.
My course went down 3 of the most popular streets in Tel Aviv and when I thought I was about two-thirds of the way done, there was a Marathon sign posted to a light-pole that read "5k." I can read some Hebrew, but not that fast. There was no way I could do double what I had already done...so I considered giving up. For a moment. Luckily I didn't because that sign was supposedly for the half marathon and I really was almost done! I admit...that last mile was pretty tough, but when I crossed the finish line I stopped my watch - 56 minutes!! Yeah!!!!
Paul also did a great job. He always does. A couple of people from the Embassy ran and Paul got the fastest time of all of the half marathoners! And he beat our boss!
