11 minute read
The Road to the Maccabiah Games
Only in a runner’s wildest dreams could he or she ever see themselves participating as an athlete in an Olympic-caliber event. Last summer, I had the rare lifetime opportunity of doing just that – in Jerusalem, Israel of all places. Let me explain…
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While watching the Summer Olympics in August, 2016, I learned the next Maccabiah Games would be held a year later in Israel. Maccabiah what? That’s right, most people have never heard of them. Also known as the “Jewish Olympics,” they are now the third-largest international sporting competition in the world after the World Olympics and FIFA World Cup. The Maccabiah Games are open to Jewish athletes around the world and all Israeli citizens regardless of religion. First held in 1932, they are now presented every four years in Israel in Open, Junior, Masters, and Paralympic divisions. Past Maccabiah athletes have included American Olympic gold medalists, world champions, and world record holders. Among them have been swimmers Mark Spitz, Lenny Krayzelburg, and Jason Lezak, gymnasts Kerri Strug and Mitch Gaylord, and Olympic marathon bronze medalist and eight-time U.S. national cross country champion Deena Kastor (who participated in regional Maccabiah events).
Curious about running events for the upcoming 2017 Maccabiah Games, a quick Internet search revealed the longest running event would be the half marathon – my long distance specialty. A little more digging found an application to serve as an athlete on the American team in the Masters half marathon race. I had never been to Israel. My wife and I had been planning a trip to visit relatives there in spring 2017 anyway. So why not apply and see if I was accepted? Within two days I received an e-mail notification that I had been selected for the Team USA Maccabiah Games Masters Half Marathon team by the event chairperson. That was a pleasant surprise. I accepted…even knowing that July was one of the very hottest months in Israel. It wasn’t too long before I was also named captain of the Masters team – probably because I asked the half marathon chairperson far too many pesky questions. My team would be composed of nine male and female runners age 40 and over.
Athletes would be coming from 85 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and even Cambodia and Uruguay. Competition would be in 45 different sports, including the Maccabi Man & Woman event, the equivalent of the Ironman triathlon. Team USA would bring the largest contingent from outside Israel with over 1,200 athletes representing 44 American states.
I knew from the very beginning that running a half marathon in Israel was going to be tricky for a number of reasons. The race would be held during mid-July in the heart of Jerusalem, Israel’s largest city. My key question was, “How do I properly train for the major race event of my life?” The greatest challenge would be the heat and humidity. July is typically Israel’s second hottest month of the year. Daytime temperatures would likely be in the 90 degree Fahrenheit range with humidity in the high double digits as well. All my training and nearly all my racing would be in cool Colorado morning temperatures and very low humidity conditions. I was unsure of my ability to handle the heat and humidity even with good hydration leading up to the race. Heat training in Colorado is certainly possible, but it is just too dry here to help acclimate to Israel’s humidity. The good news was that the race officials recognized potentially dangerous weather conditions and arranged for the race to commence at 8:10 p.m. when it would be somewhat cooler. The bad news was that it would be held at night. I don’t run with my prescription eyeglasses and am clumsy, so stepping into a pothole would be a distinct probability.
It occurred to me that the University of Colorado’s Sports Performance Center in Boulder was now performing hydration testing on athletes. I made an appointment with Ryan Kohler, their Sports Performance Manager, to be tested and he recommended glycogen testing as well. Glycogen testing would measure the carbohydrate fuel stored in my muscles for use during endurance events such as a half marathon. Hydration testing would assess my pre- and post-exercise measures of sweat rate and sweat sodium concentration. Both tests would yield data that would provide me with detailed hydration and nutrition recommenda- tions specific to my target race environmental conditions and own unique physiology.
When I showed up at the Center one hot day in mid-June, Ryan first glided a three-inch ultrasound wand over my quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves to measure the current level of glycogen in my subcutaneous muscle tissue. Then he placed rectangular cotton pads on my forearm and thigh, sealed them with clear adhesive plastic wrappers, and directed me to do hill repeats on a nearby steep inclined Boulder street. When I returned to the lab, he peeled off the pads for analysis. Based on the results he told me that by going in well hydrated under projected weather conditions I would be good for about an hour and a half of racing. If I engaged in a moderate intake of carbohydrates in the days prior to the race, there should also be plenty of glycogen to use as energy reserves for the duration of the race and beyond. So laboratory results confirmed that with my standard approach to race preparation, my physiology would support a good performance.
Race training would merely be a tweak of the program that I had pretty much followed for many years: weekly mileage of between 50 and 60 miles a week, including the usual long run of up to 18 miles, track intervals, tempo runs, and hill repeats. I would peak at 70 miles a week a few weeks before the race. I would also emphasize training later in the day when it was warmer for heat acclimatization.
There were other challenges. The race promotion literature was alluring: “Come and discover the magical atmosphere of Jerusalem by night and enjoy an electric running experience which passes through 3,000 years of fascinating history, in an unforgettable track across Jerusalem’s main landmarks…” But the actual racecourse might not be announced until the day before the event for security reasons. I certainly got that – perhaps no other country in the world has to be as security conscious as Israel. An international competitive running event in the heart of Jerusalem would be a terrorist’s dream (let’s not forget the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing). Knowing the intricacies of a racecourse, such as surface conditions, topography, twists and turns, etc., as far in advance as possible has always been beneficial to me. I knew that Jerusalem sits about 2,500 feet above sea level. That would be good for runners like me coming from a higher elevation. To further complicate things, we were advised that the Maccabiah Half Marathon was an “open race” that was expected to have “up to 2,000 runners” and be immediately preceded by 5K and 10K races.
Based on past Maccabiah half marathon finishing times, a podium placing would be possible, but certainly not assured. This race would be treated like any other – no sense having any concern about the competition, a pointless endeavor. By the time a runner crosses the starting line, the die has already been cast. That is, speed will go to those who have trained the best in the prior months and years. All I would need to do would be to simply focus on my own race and see how it all fell out in the end. I would train like I always have, to the best of my ability balancing hard training with rest and recovery, then run a “smart” race.
It was a long plane trip to Israel with a brief layover in London. We visited with some of my wife’s Israeli relatives in Tel Aviv prior to the Maccabiah Games Opening Ceremony in Jerusalem, which was certainly going to be one of the highlights of my trip. The evening of the Opening Ceremonies, on July 6, I put on my Team USA apparel: polo shirt, warm up pants and jacket, and red, white and blue cap and headed to Jerusalem’s Pais Arena, the Maccabiah athlete gathering location prior to the march into nearby Teddy Stadium for all the festivities and show. The area was quite secure and all needed to show their special identification credentials to get anywhere near the arena. What immediately struck me at my arrival to the arena were the diversity of countries represented and the vast differences in athlete characteristics. In terms of people size, it ranged from small and thin to very large and surly. Skin colors ranged from very light (the Swedish delegation seemed mostly blond and blue eyed) to very dark, like Indians and Africans. Athletes were as diverse as what would be expected from a World Olympics. The age range was from early teens to perhaps 80s. This was simply a testament to the fact that Jews had been forced to leave their ancestral homeland in the Middle East and had to spread all over the world for 2,000 years due to never ending persecution and forced migration.
Just like the World Olympics, they paraded us into the stadium in alphabetical order by country. The 1,250 or so athletes in the American delegation were packed in tightly and it was hot, especially in our heavy warm up suits. Finally, we left the arena and made our way outside under the night sky and into the tunnel that led inside the stadium. The stadium was nearly filled. At this point I found myself a little emotional. My eyes began to tear up. Who would have ever thought that at age 63 I would be an athlete in an Olympic-scale world championship event — and team captain and age group medal contender as well? I couldn’t make this stuff up…
The half marathon event was only four days away on July 10. By now it was clear that Israeli road racing was very different from what I had become accustomed to in the U.S. The greatest challenge was figuring out where to pick up our race bibs. It seemed like race officials were playing a shell game with them. Discovery of the bib location did not occur until just hours before race start. Had we not engaged in some very assertive independent sleuthing it is doubtful my team would have had them by the race start.
My team had by now received a map of the race course. The start and finish was located just west of Jerusalem’s Old City. It would be very hilly and follow an exceptionally circuitous course, sometimes covering the same ground more than once. We were told that distance markers along the course would be in kilometers, which was fair enough. The assumption was that they would be very easy to spot in the night. As it turned out, there were no markers to be seen along the course until the end was near…and they were stenciled in chalk on the road asphalt.
My team donned their Team USA singlets and shorts and grouped up at a hotel near the starting line for group photos. We made our way to the starting line in the midst of much tumult since the 5K and 10K runners had used the same starting line not too much earlier.
We had been issued white wristbands with our race bibs, ostensibly to give us access to our own Maccabiah runner starting line corral. But soon discovered that no Maccabiah-only corral existed, so the wristbands we were wearing were totally useless. Despite this inconvenience I was able to position myself near the starting line and got off to a good start when the race countdown ended. Despite a rapidly increasing cloak of darkness, the early miles went well for me. But then the long hill ascents and descents began in earnest. However, all systems were in sync and I was cruising for some time. Hills, especially downhills, are my signature racing strength. Unfortunately, the feeling of ease and fluidity was not to be lasting. Minor soreness in the ball of my right foot that had started weeks before began to steadily worsen at about 6 miles. It wasn’t too long before the pain had become very bad. Foot pounding during the long descents is what most probably brought on the pain. I did my best to transcend it. I worked hard to maintain a good pace, but as time went on this became more and more of a struggle. On the final and seemingly never ending hill to the finish line there was the cognition that walking would be a good thing. That thought only lasted about a second. There was just no way that walking in any race, least of all this one, would be acceptable. I pressed on despite the extreme discomfort. Although I could hear the roar of the loudspeakers and the crowd, the finish line banner was not visible until the last few hundred feet. The digital clock read 1:40 as I approached. Then a final push through this last physical wall and it was all over.
Once over, the finish line instinct told me to immediately sit down, definitely not standard finish line procedure for me. It was total physical and mental exhaustion. The unrelenting hills, elevated temperatures, high humidity, and especially the foot injury had all taken their collective toll. But nothing mattered any more. I had given my best effort in training and the race itself — and now it was all done. Now was time to come to a complete dead stop and recover, both physically and mentally. A volunteer leaned down and asked if everything was okay and if assistance was needed. My wife had just found me, so I shook my head, and the volunteer departed. I then drank water and ate pita bread like a starved animal for several minutes. Replenishment seemed to help right away, which soon lead to standing, walking, and regaining my faculties.
With guiding assistance from my wife and son (he had made the trip partly to serve as my race support crew) I made my way with some other team members to the race awards presentation area. A stage had been assembled for presenting awards to the top three overall men and women finishers, as well as the age group winners in 10-year intervals. The 5K and 10K awards were already over. Before long I heard my name announced by one of the officials. I walked over to where one of them was holding a clipboard with lists of race participants by age group. He asked me my name and confirmed that I was the first finisher out of ten competitors in the Maccabiah Half Marathon “60 and Over” age group. The second age group finisher was from Toronto, Canada and finished over 12 minutes behind me. An Israeli had finished over 20 minutes behind me for third place.
I had won the gold medal! They soon brought us up to the award presentation stage. I climbed up to the tallest “1st Place” award podium. It was hard to believe that my dream of not only being an athlete and medal contender, but of actually winning a gold medal in an Olympic-like running event had finally been fulfilled. My destiny had brought me to this singular point in time and my own life history. This moment had a surreal quality to it and was anti-climatic at the same time.
My name and finishing place was announced just before the award presenter placed a gold medal and ribbon around my neck. Many months before this moment had been imagined: here I was on top of the podium while the “Star Spangled Banner” played. Well, that was TOO dream-like and simply was not going to happen. But being on this stage and receiving this gold medal was a once in a lifetime moment and certainly one of the pinnacle events in my life. It was my right to seize the moment. Raising both arms I shouted out to the throng of athletes and spectators that had assembled in front of the stage, “Viva America…and may God bless the State of Israel!” The crowd clapped and cheered. My pinnacle race win moment was over. My long journey on the road to the Maccabiah Games was also over. Now was time to celebrate with family and friends and to quickly turn to physical and mental recovery in the days, weeks, and months to come.
Postscript:
The injury sustained during the race was much more serious than originally thought. Once back home, my podiatrist diagnosed it as a tear of the “plantar plate” or ligament that connects my second toe to my right foot. It was caused by a genetic biomechanical anomaly coupled with arthritis in the toe. The demands of the race only exacerbated it. The injury necessitated a three and a half month layoff from running. A gradual return to running has only recently begun.
Bruce Kirschner has been a runner for nearly 45 years. He has been an active race director and volunteer in the Colorado running community for over 36 years. Bruce is a member and co-coordinator of the Boulder Road Runners Men 60-69 team that won the 2017 USA Track & Field Masters Grand Prix national championship race series.
