Mountain Marathon Hebraica 24K - Run

This is our (GF and I) last race in preparation for EcoJarillo Adventure Race from Nov. 14-20. I was out to pace her on the flats and downhill and see if I could possibly keep up on the climbs! (She's an experienced skyracer).

We started out at a very good pace in the initial climb. I knew from looking at last year's times that the results would be pretty close to the times in standard road full marathons. These were no regular 24K!

Then we reached the only semi-flat area, which was approximately 6km. We finished that in a fairly good time for us. After that, we had to go all the way back down again and climb the steepest part of the race. We beat our training time by nearly 5 minutes. I was a bit worried that we might have been going too hard.

After that, we reached a very popular area of the park, a short-climb named Sabasnieves. I was a little annoyed that there was noone from the race organizers trying to guide runners or other park visitors. I crashed into a guy who was doing his leisure Sunday exercise. Sorry, mate.

Then we entered a section filled with small water passes. Mayde was still looking very good. The terrain got a little rough before we started climbing again. We then powered (or so I thought) up to the highest part of the race. I was glad not to get dropped by Mayde!

After that came the only section of the course that we were not familiar with. It was also some of the race's nastiest terrain. We had to climb over fallen trees, skid down some areas on our butts, clear several ledges, etc. I kept dropping the two front bottles on my fuel belt from so much bending, twisting and crawling. At one point, I was looking back checking up on Mayde and a low-hanging tree knocked me flat on my ass. Mayde and another racer who was following us asked me if I was fine as I got up, and then they went really silent. A few seconds later, after we started moving again, they could not stop laughing. I have a pretty big bump on my head now!

Later we reached what we knew was the last downhill; however, it was a long, sketchy section of loose rocks and knee-breaking jumps. This was the area where we saw and passed a lot of other racers. It was definitely tough, nearly 4 hrs. into the race and we all had to deal with the most technical part on very tired legs. We cleared that part and then about 2 minutes before leaving the mountain, I twisted my ankle really bad. I tried to walk it off, but actually ended up telling Mayde to carry on her own.

I walked a bit and then ran down as other racers were getting nearer, specially a girl who was looking pretty fresh at the moment. I caught up to Mayde, warned her about the fast girl on her tail and picked up the pace toward the finish line together. Very exciting!

We finished 16 minutes before our projected time!

Nothing much. All the work I've put into my trekking since recovering from ITBS has paid off. I do wonder what my race result would have been if I had done this on my own. Fortunately, I didn't get dropped by my awesome GF (I know, it sounds pathetic, but she's really good!). She was 19 seconds away from 4th place in her age group.

I got to sit in the med-tent to get my ankle iced and tightly bandaged. It's pretty swollen as I write this, but it's a well-earned temporary war wound!


Only three drink stations, but after all this was an adventurous race and there were plenty of "natural" drink stations.

This is the second year of this race, and it will definitely become a staple for Venezuelan adventure runners!