I finally broke 100 Km in a month - 105 Km this month.

14 km

Ok, lets talk running and numbers.

I just got back from a 14 km run (that's 8.7 miles for most of you) It took me 1 hour 35 minutes and 37 seconds, which is a pretty good pace for me, for such a long run. It wasn't that bad. The only thing was that I got bored running in circles. I need to mix it up a bit. My GPS watch knows how much I weigh, but only cause I told it, and it does this weird sorta calculation and figures out how many calories I burnt (depending on time, speed and my weight - I don't know the actual calculation). Anyway, it said I burnt almost 950 calories - that's so crazy. I don't run to loose weight, but I have been loosing some more lately. I think it's the mixture of high milage during the month and also being at school. Whatever, I run for fun.

I'm up to 99 km (61 miles) this month alone, and I can't wait till Mon (or Tue) when I pass 100. I've never run more than 100 km in a month. Sep and Oct I only just barely got to 97.
I got my GPS watch on Nov 17 2005 - one year and one week later and I've run 769 km (478 miles).

I'm feeling good - my monthly milage is up, my monthly pace is down - go me!

7 km

I had such a long day. Oh, it was horrible. I spent all day doing nothing but homework. Except for 40 minutes of tv I watched while eating lunch, I didn't do anything else. And guess what, I've still got more than a whole day's worth to do tomorrow. If I start listing what I have to do I'll just make myself miserable. I think I'll have to get up early tomorrow and get started.

The only good thing about today was that I went running. I only did 7 km, but I couldn't keep going because everyone was waiting for me to eat dinner. I go for my long run tomorrow. I think I'll do 12km again, even though I could possibly do 13km. I'll see how I feel. It feels unnatural to go on such long runs when I don't hardly run during the week, but I can't fit another weekly run in. There just isn't anywhere to put it without exhausting myself even more.

12 km

I went on a long run today. I did 12 km. I was slow and it took me close to 90 minutes. It feels weird to be running so much one day and running less than 60 minutes on other days, but that is the nature of the long run. I just need to run a little bit more during the week. I'm doing all right keeping up my running so far. I just hope I can keep it up once the winter really starts. Already I'm cold when running. It's mostly my neck that gets cold because of all the sweat.

My first race

I ran the Ramat Gan Safari race 8K today. It's called that because you run about 2K through the zoo, which is called "Ramat Gan Safari". I saw two kinds of elephants (African and Asian), giraffes (I think the running made them nervous), gorillas, chimpanzees and a lot of apes (lemurs and some others I can't remember their names).

So, this was my first run, and it was quite the experience. I was so nervous and intimidated by everyone, but it turned out fine. My time was 51:29.40, I came in towards the end (as I expected) 539 out of 581 and 18 out of 25 in my age group (20 to 39). Actually, there weren't that many women there, but I expect that's because there was also a women only race going on today in Rosh Ha'Ain.

I know that compared to a lot of people, I'm slow, but I'm really happy with my time. I only really started trying to run a bit faster one month ago (before that I just ran at a nice slow pace - just to enjoy myself). My 8K record up until today was 53 minutes, and I did that when it was nice and cool out one evening. I didn't expect to beat that time today, because running in the morning/sun makes it really hard for me. All I wanted was to beat 56 minutes (my best time for 8K in the morning/sun).

I'm very pleased with myself today. I'm gonna wear my race tshirt to school on Sunday :)