It’s been quite a while since I’ve sent out a newsletter. I took off during the off season and then went on vacation before we started this session. It’s been 2 months since I’ve bored you with my witty prose. I hope that I haven’t lost any of my Pulitzer Prize winning writing ability. After reading this newsletter, let me know if I still have it or not.

Last week’s and this week’s run – As many of you know, I spent the past few weeks on a family vacation in Israel. So, my last 2 weeks’ runs were pretty interesting. I was able to run every day, other than when we were flying. None of my runs were easy. We started in Jerusalem, which was fairly hilly. I found a 4 - 5 km route with 3 really steep hill declines on the way out that were tough to get back up on the way back. I ran that several times and did it twice for my only long run in Israel. It was dry and cool in the morning, since Jerusalem is basically a desert. Our next stop was along the Jordan Valley, about 15 km south of the Galilee. We stayed on a kibbutz, which is a collective farm. There was a path that paralleled the road and the farms, which was nice to run on. It was completely flat, but really hot. At 6 am, it was already close to 25C. All of the vegetation and the location near a large body of water may have retained the heat from the previous day. After a few days on the kibbutz, we moved on to Haifa. This city is often referred to being the San Francisco of the Middle East and it’s easy to see why. It’s built onto a mountain overlooking the Mediterranean, which was incredibly gorgeous. We all thought that it was the most beautiful city that we visited. Unfortunately, it was very difficult for running. Our hotel was about ¾ of the way up the mountain. If I started down, I’d have a tough climb the whole way back up. If I started going up, it would have been extremely difficult to make it to the top. So, I compromised. I went down about 1 km to get warmed up. Then, I went back to the hotel and up about another 1 km, before returning. I wanted to finish going uphill, so I went back up again after returning, and then went all the way down, before struggling up the final 1 km to the finish. These were really tough hills, like nothing we have around here. My heart rate was really high at the end of the run. We only spent one night in Haifa, which was good for running but not so good from a personal enjoyment perspective. We finished the trip in Tel Aviv and stayed right across from the beach along the Mediterranean. While that might sound like a good place to run, it really wasn’t. The climate was incredibly humid and the beach was like any big city beach – wrappers, cigarette butts, and bottle were scattered around. It was flat, but not pretty. There was a path along the beach, but it had many obstacles in it, like stairs and trees. The humidity made it even less enjoyable. Nevertheless, all of these runs were special to me. They were parts of the vacation that I treasured for myself. I saw sites in each place that were off the beaten path from any other tourist. I know that there will be times when I’m running back home and I’ll think about that long run in Jerusalem or the tough hills in Haifa and the memories will be much more pleasant than the reality was.

This week’s run will be a bit more mundane. It’s a cut back week for all levels. Novice runners will be doing 5 miles, Intermediates will be running 6, and Advanced will go 8 miles. We’re going to run the Middlefork Savannah again since it is still risky running north along the Des Plaines River Trail.

Hydration – Thanks to Dan Kraft for organizing it the past two weeks and thanks to Craig Splinter, Jackie Splinter, Hetty Lima, and Dave Young for putting it out. This week is Julie Pfeffer and Jim Burkett. Next week, 7/5, is Ken Porrello and Jeff Van Laeke, so they need to pick the supplies up this Saturday.

What’s happening in your sport – The 2008 US Track and Field Olympic Trials are being held today through next Sunday in Eugene, Oregon. Eugene has long been dubbed "Track Town, USA" for its rich track and field history and the community's appreciation of the sport. You can watch the trials live on TV this weekend on NBC and via tape delay on USA network during the week. You may want to watch the 20 km Race Walk on the final day, July 6th, for some local flavor. Jolene Moore, from Northbrook, will be competing for a slot on the Olympic team. Jolene actually ran (or more specifically walked really fast) with the NSDRC a few winters ago.

Nike Ready to Run 20 Miler – The last long run on our schedule is the R2R 20 along the lakefront on 9/21. There will be no other NSDRC or CARA run that weekend. Sign up is now available on line: http://www.cararuns.org/Training/Marathon/Nike%20Ready%20to%20Run%2020%20Miler.aspx. You must be registered in order to run it. There is a $28 charge for CARA members who are not part of the Marathon Training Program. The NSDRC will reimburse $10 of that by deducting it from your 2009 dues. We are also investigating taking a bus down, like we did last year. Please don’t delay and register for the run before it closes.

Tom’s tips – How were you able to get through the last 2 months without these tasty nuggets? Here’s some to satiate your appetite.

Fitness Trumps Fatness...Again
A Stanford study team looked at exercise, body weight, and disability patterns of 805 adults who were 50 to 72 years old when the research began. The study lasted 13 years. After that time, the subjects who performed the most vigorous exercise per week (an hour or more) had much lower disability levels than those who exercised less. This was true for normal-weight exercisers, but also for over-weight exercisers. In other words, the exercisers retained their low disability scores even if they were fat. "This study contributes to the large body of scientific evidence supporting the importance of continuing to be physical active over one's life," said lead author Bonnie Bruce, of the division of immunology and rheumatology at Stanford University Department of Medicine. Source: MedicalNewsToday/ACSM Annual Meeting.

How Fast Can The World's Fastest Man Run?
Few weeks back- Jamaican Usain Bolt lowered the world record for 100 meters to 9.72 seconds. Bolt is unusually tall for a sprinter at 6' 5", which guarantees that he'll endlessly be referred to as a lightning bolt. He's also young and relatively new to the world-class sprint scene. But the endlessly fascinating question is always: What's the human limit for sprint speed? If a cheetah can run 6.0 seconds, why can't we. The guys at the ScienceOfSport blog are interested in this question too, and they've set the human limit at about 9.5 seconds. Of course, not everyone agrees with them. Source: ScienceOfSport.

I had a very busy and eventful few weeks during the off season before the Israel trip. All three of my kids graduated (college, high school, and middle school), I attended a Greek play and a Jewish wedding, plus I saw three concerts. The highlight was the Kanye West concert, possibly even bigger than my kids’ graduations. There is no time or space to describe it here, but I’ll close with a line from ‘Touch the Sky’, which Kanye closed the concert with and is very appropriate:

Feels good to be home,

Bill