Let’s take a little trip down memory lane… back to February 2014 and that year’s Tel Aviv Half Marathon.  The one in which I set my sights on a sub-1:40 finish, only to be hobbled by an injury (quelle surprise) which caused me to run an ugly positive split en route to a 1:45:19 finish.  Which wasn’t even a PR at all.  So you understand why I felt that I had some unfinished business with this race, thus necessitating a return this year to vindicate myself.

Of course, I still want that sub-1:40.  But for that to happen, everything needs to go right — weather (I run well in heat, but I’m not acclimated to it just now), being uninjured (ha, when is that ever the case with me?), feeling awesome on that day… yeah.  So that was my pie-in-the sky goal, with a PR (under 1:44:09) being the lowest boundary of acceptability.  Realistically, I was aiming for something around 1:42 — allowing for straying from the tangents, if I kept my average pace around 7:40-7:45 per mile, I would be okay.

The thought of running 13.1 consecutive 7:45 miles is a bit daunting.  In lieu of music, I had this running through my head for much of the race: run the mile you’re in.  Because I can run a single 7:45 mile.  And if I can do that, I just have to do it again.  And then again.  Until I’ve done it thirteen times.  That should be less mentally taxing than ticking off backwards like I usually do — at the first mile marker, it’s another 12.1 miles to go!

Of course, there were no mile markers here, just the odd kilometer marker at the strangest points — so I got to keep my brain busy with figuring out how that converted to miles.  Not such a terrible thing, I suppose!

Last year, I attempted to stick with the 1:40 pacer, which backfired in a number of ways.  I decided not to do that this year — as long as I didn’t let him get too far out of sight, that would be fine, especially since I wasn’t really expecting sub-1:40 anyway.  Turns out that it was a good thing I hadn’t planned to rely on him, since the starting area was a total mess.  There were two waves for the half — all the start times had been pushed back because of the anticipated heat.  I was in the first corral of the second half marathon wave, set to go off at 7:30.  I arrived a few minutes before then to find it less than densely populated, and with a strange assortment of people — some were wearing bibs from the first wave, some were wearing bibs from the corral behind mine, some were randomly starting across the line… I have no idea what was going on.  I couldn’t see any pacers from my wave either, so when my watch hit 7:30, I just pressed the start button and headed off on my own.  It was kind of nice not to be battling the usual starting line congestion, but it was still kind of weird overall.

At the start line. I look confused.

I remembered from last year that there was a hill around mile 5/6 … other than that, I didn’t know what to expect of the course, since my view of the second half was kind of colored by agonizing pain last year.  I did know that it wasn’t quite as pancake flat as I’d been led to believe, so at least I was going in under that illusion again.  There is something to be said for having run a particular course previously!

Pretty even, overall!  It amazes me to see that it’s not really that obvious how much I started to suffer around mile 9 — I don’t know whether it’s just because I was nine miles into a race at my fastest pace ever, or if the course really is more difficult in the second half, but I can say that it did not feel good.  But I passed the 2:00 pacer of the first wave, and then the 1:50 pacer around mile 10, so I knew I was pretty much on target and forced myself to keep pushing.

Yes, the race shirt is purple. That’s why everyone but me is wearing purple.

Also?  That climb up the overpass in mile 12?  I didn’t appreciate it last year, and I didn’t appreciate it this year.  That’s all.

The concept of the finish line on a conveyor belt also hasn’t changed — I think it’s because there’s a straight stretch coming up to it, you think it’s closer than it really is, which plays games with your mind.  But when we passed the 21 km marker, I looked down and saw that I would definitely come in under 1:42, so yay!

I don’t know why this always happens here, but my Garmin time is slower than my official time.  It’s usually the opposite at home — I start my watch before the first mat and stop it after the last one, so that makes sense.  I have no idea why that doesn’t happen here.  But anyway.  According to my Garmin, I ran 13.21 miles in 1:41:48, 7:42/mi.  In case you’re keeping track at home, that’s five seconds per mile faster than my 10K PR pace, because I hate 10Ks that much.  As for the official results…

(That’s an average pace of 7:47/mi, as far as I can figure.)  Obviously, the ratio of female to male participation in races here is rather low; and there aren’t many super fast women running here either, which explains how I placed so high in my gender and category.  (This is open age grouping, so my category is women 20-39.)

As for those weird kilometer markers, there were some strangely placed timing mats as well.  I’d prefer those in miles, since kilometers generally are not something that fall into my frame of reference, but look!

My official 10K PR is 48:15.  That means that I ran a 10K PR, which is sort of hilarious.  (According to Strava, I also ran a ten-mile PR — 1:17:01.  Makes it even more laughable that I still haven’t officially run a sub-1:20, doesn’t it?!)

Now for the fun part — it’s been a while since I’ve set a significant PR, which this definitely was… two minutes and nineteen seconds, I believe?  So let’s play the McMillan Prediction game!

1mi — 6:20.2
5K — 22:00 (7:05/mi)
4mi — 28:35 (7:09/mi)
5mi — 36:29 (7:18/mi)
10K — 45:41 (7:21/mi)
10mi — 1:16:22 (7:38/mi)
FM — 3:34:21 (8:11/mi)

All I have to say about this, since pretty much all of the above is enough to set me off into gales of uproarious laughter, is that 3:34:21 would be a BQ for me.

Now that I’ve wrapped up my unfinished business with this race, I can return to run Jerusalem again in 2016 — something I would have loved to do this year as well, but the option was rendered a geographical impossibility when I realized it’s slated for two days prior to the NYC Half.  It will be nice to run a race with a start/finish line just steps away from my hotel, because I could have done without the 5K traipse around Tel Aviv after the race.  (Don’t ask.  And I have no idea if it was actually 5K — based on the amount of time we spent wandering, it could have been much farther.  Though I wasn’t moving very fast, given that, you know, I just ran a half marathon and my knee kind of hurt, and my pelvis was starting to get achy.  But overall, I’m incredibly thankful that my body cooperated to the extent it did.  Believe me, I am not one to take that for granted.)

I’d say all that walking helped, since I’m not sore now in the slightest… but I don’t think I can attribute it to that, since when I finished, I still had to wait for OneFamily teammates who were out on the course, and I got into a line at 9:25 for something — I didn’t know what at the time.  Turns out it was for photos.  By 10:00, when the line had barely moved at all, I gave up and went back to the finish to see if maybe now I’d be able to find the TOF crew, which I did.  All of this probably negated the effects of walking around an hour later.  But do you have any idea how grateful I am that I was able to walk around like that after a race, taking into account that last year it was an effort to limp a few steps?!  No, I don’t think you do, not unless you’re an oft-injured runner as well.  In which case… you have my deepest empathy.

Nice job blue!! Those are some lovely splits!

Nice time and the race shirt may be purple but your shirt looks white and gold.

I will admit it took me a second to pick up on that.  I blame the combination of insomnia and jet lag.  

I like the just run the mile you're in mindset, Imma use that for my next mile race.  

Very funny -- you let me know how that works out for you!  I have a couple of mile races planned this year myself... but the thing is, that mindset only works if you know you can run the pace you want to run for a single mile.  I don't know that going into a mile race.  So it wouldn't work!

Glad you had a good race and congrats on the PR.  When will you be running your next marathon?

Hopefully May... I'm currently registered for the half (it's where I PRed in 2013 and 2014), but if I can stay relatively healthy I'm going to upgrade at the expo.

...I did not just say that.  

Congrats on the PR!  And for standing out in the crowd.

Congrats, great job! Very solid even splits. And yeah, mile 9 is just about where a HM starts to hit me pretty hard too.

Which race are you doing in May, that you might upgrade to full? I truly hope you can stay healthy enough for that. And I'm not just saying that because you're on my 2015 Mileage Game team. 

My official 10K PR is 48:15.  That means that I ran a 10K PR, which is sort of hilarious.  (According to Strava, I also ran a ten-mile PR — 1:17:01.  Makes it even more laughable that I still haven’t officially run a sub-1:20, doesn’t it?!)

Actually no, as at any given time depending on what you are training for one or more PR's are going to be soft, it's the nature of what we do.

As for the race, I like how you went out there and basically took what belonged to you. This was a pretty impressive performance by any measure so turn one up on me. 

Oh, and what exactly does a conveyor belt have to do with a finish line?