Today is Yom Kippur. I remember 43 years ago walking the streets of Petah Tikva, outside of Tel Aviv, on Yom Kippur. I was nineteen years old, and had moved to Israel with the intention of becoming an Israeli citizen. I was staying with my older cousins and it so happened that my visit coincided with Yom Kippur. My cousins spoke little to no English. I remember going for a walk. There were no cars on the streets and there was a peacefulness in the air. That's how I felt today as I went for a run. I took in my last calories a about an hour before sundown last night and somehow slept over 10 hours. I felt like running this morning and didn't want to add stress to my body. So, I put on my heart rate monitor and went out to run my 9 1/2 mile (15K) route that has about 700 feet of climbing. For some reason it seemed pretty quiet out today.
My plan was to keep my heart rate low, definitely under 130, but really trying to average 120bpm. My normal easy run usually has my average heart rate right around 130. The idea was that the lower my heart rate, the more I would burn fat, and not stimulate my metabolism to burn sugar. If I was going to fast for 25 hours, burning through my carbohydrate stores would only put added stress on my body.
Today was the third day in a row running the 9.5 mile hilly route. The previous two days my run took an hour and 32 minutes. Today, it took an hour and 37 minutes. However, my heart rate stayed right around 120 for the entire run. I only go up to 127-129 on the steepest climbs. As usual, I brought no water with me, and still sweated a fair amount due to the humidity. When I got home I drank a bottle of water with electrolytes and meditated for 10 minutes. Peace.
Running takes on its own meditative bent for me. Today, that's what it was all about. I think back to that day in 1978 when I'd moved to the other side of the world, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. It's funny how things change, but stay the same. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my life, and my journey back to Kona is now firmly embedded in my plan. Finding peace is also important. There will always be bumps on the road, but equanimity and peace are high up on my list. It's not lost on me how peaceful I've felt the two times I've been in Kona. It's a good thing to focus on.
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