Sunday, May 20, 2007

Running in the Holy Land: May 2007

I was on a business trip to Israel between May14-23, 2007. I was put up at the Daniel Hotel on the shores of the beautiful Herzliyya Accadia beach. I did not get a chance to do any running for the first 2 days as I returned from work after it is dark around 9pm. On the 17th, a Thursday I returned at 8pm and it was not entirely dark and I decided to go for a run on the beach. It was
an amazing run. I have never run on a beach before, let alone on the shores of Mediterranean. I really like the cool breeze on the beach and there were many people even at that hour walking and running on the beach. I ended up doing a 4 miler that day.

I did not get a chance to run the next day(18th) as I was out visiting Dead sea and also some ancient ruins of Masada, near Dead sea. I was able to float in the Dead sea, was an awesome experience. I was happy to have been to the lowest point on earth, Dead sea at -1371 ft (-411m). The next day, Saturday the 19th, I went on a one day tour of the very historic city of Jerusalem. On my return at 6pm , I could not wait to go for another run on the beach. All in all, I was able to run 5 out of the 9 days I was in Israel for a total of ~26.2miles :)