Foto Friday – Holyland Hashers run Tel Aviv

April 4, 2009 - 8:04 PM by · 4 Comments
Filed under: Foto Friday, General, Pop Culture, Sports, Travel 

My running club, the Holyland Hash House Harriers, held a traditional Red Dress Run in Tel Aviv this weekend in celebration of our 777th run. The Hash, for the uninitiated (and yes, there is an initiation!), is an international running and beer-drinking dis-organization that specializes in fun runs. And here’s your proof:

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Here we are, doing a bit of cult-to-cult dancing with some Hare Krishnas.

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Ynet did a really nice video of the run, noting that, as Israelis tend to take their sports very seriously, they seemed mighty perplexed by the stampede of “Ameri-kookim” tearing down Rothschild Boulevard.

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But that was nothing compared to the week before, when the Holyland Hash House Harriers met up with 40 Royal Navy sailors and flummoxed Haifa.

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We are now getting set for the Tel Aviv Marathon, 10k and 5k runs on April 24th. (Despite all outward appearances, the group includes some very serious athletes). So be on the lookout! Come run with us! Or at least have a camera ready.

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Running the Circuit

November 30, 2008 - 12:23 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: General 

It wasn’t the New York Marathon, but the 10K race I ran in last week was big enough to attract star runners from all over Israel – even though there were no cash prizes for the winners. It was the first marathon I ever ran (even though I’ve been seriously jogging and running for nearly 10 years), and a great introduction into Israel’s running culture.
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This is the third time the race I ran, called the Benaya Marathon (named after Benaya Rhein, who was killed in battle in Lebanon), has been run, and this year it attracted over 250 runners from around the country. While the first one was an ad hoc affair, where anyone who wanted to could run, the last two have been handled by a professional marathon management company, which gave all runners an electronic chip that recorded everything there was to know about the race – time, route, speed, pace, etc. Results were listed by age group, and about 15 minutes after the last runner crossed the finish line, the list of who came in what place was displayed, followed by the presentation of trophies to top runners in each category. It’s professionally run, but it does cost 50 shekels to register.

Never having run a marathon before, I treated the whole experience as an extended workout, running the 10K instead of doing my usual circuit on the treadmill. So, for me, the marathon was more of a “personal best” thing, and I was happy to beat the time I predicted I would make for the route. But there were quite a few competitive runners there, who apparently follow the circuit of mini-marathons, preparing for the “big ones” – the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv half-marathons (the latter had over 7,000 participants this year!), and the uber-race, the Tiberias Marathon, which follows a 40+ kilometer route around the southern Kinneret. That’s where the big money is – $25,000 for last year’s winner, Kenya’s Leonard Mucheru Maina, plus an additional $15,000 because he broke the course record. The winner of our race was David Raskai, a policeman who is a serious runner, having come in first in a raft of races over the past year. And yours truly? I’d rather not say – It’s a personal best thing, remember?

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