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 :)