Energy Renewal at the Sea of Galilee – A Saviour at the World’s lowest Marathon

It must have been somewhere between the 23- and 24-kilometre of the Tiberias Marathon mark when I saw Daniel for the first time in his white shirt and shorts. He wasn’t running or even walking anymore. From behind it looked like he was moving in very slow motion. That was what made it possible for me to catch Daniel, since I myself was not running any more. I had passed the halfway mark of the marathon in a bit less than two hours - faster than scheduled. Soon afterwards I did what I had planned to do – walk - speed walking. After only 99 kilometres of running last year, that was the only reasonable approach to the total distance of 42 kilometres. The first kilometre of walking proved I would need nine minutes for every kilometre, meaning that I would complete the course in less than five hours.

My 10th marathon. Easy, in a way! Just one problem: there was nothing to eat. Nothing at all. In Germany you would get bananas at any time on a long distance run. But here on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, I could look at them still hanging on the trees to the left. Under the blue plastic bags the unripe bananas were waiting for harvest. I could also see the dark blue water with the white town of the start and finish: Tiberias. In this marathon we got water every three kilometres and it was politically correct water, not water with the Eden trademark. One peace activist told me that “Eden” was taken from a source below a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Unfortunately, “Eden” has the most convenient design for drinking. But that is of minor importance in a part of the world, where everything is political, especially water.

Sometime earlier we passed a gas station at the southern tip of the sea. My girlfriend Mirjam warned me to bring some food, having researched on the internet of another German marathon runner experiencing serious problems in this race a few years back, ironically near the site of the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. But I did not have anything to eat with me, only some 120 shekels and no time to spend them in a restaurant. But there was Daniel who was just un-wrapping some date balls with coconut. “Energy balls,” he called them. He offered me one of them. I felt that this was an incredible act of generosity - especially since I am the type who doesn’t work things out in advance too carefully – for anybody to offer me something from his well-calculated food supply so far away from the finishing line. There was not even time to say thank you, since Daniel re-started running immediately - a kind of running that would evidently soon come to a stop again. And so I again caught up with him a little later. “Go!” I told him. Go faster, I meant. Otherwise he would not meet the time limit of six hours.

”Come on!” I pushed him to get him to move faster. So we talked a bit, I always one step in front to keep us going. It was Daniel’s first marathon. His regular training partners in Tel Aviv, his brother and his brother-in-law, had left him far behind since they run faster. And Daniel just wanted to finish his first marathon in less than five hours, which he would if he kept up with me. So: Yalla (let’s go in both Arabic and Hebrew).

It was Daniel’s only chance at completing a marathon this year – Jan. 6th, 2005 - since the Tiberias Marathon is the only one in Holy Land. This was the 28th Tiberias Marathon and it is the lowest on earth: 197 metres below sea level. The marathon is run in deepest winter when there are excellent conditions for running. The average temperature for this time of year at the starting time of 9 a.m. is 15 degrees Celsius. On this day it was even warmer. In some parts it was actually too hot. But then white clouds served to protect the runners.

A lot of things were just like at home: the pasta party on the eve; the small market for shoes and equipment; Uriel mint paste for the muscles in the starter bag; the number with four needles to fix it in place; the wheelchair contestants starting shortly before the runners; the 12-kilometre run half an hour later; a children’s run; the entrant’s fee of 50 U.S. dollars.

This may have been the only chance in my life to run a marathon in the Holy Land. I have been here since the end of November as part of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israeli (EAPPI) of the World Council of Churches. So for some kilometres I was “accompanying” Daniel. He is a journalist who works for the left-oriented Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz and he also evaluates Arab newspapers for the American Embassy in Tel Aviv. He complains that the English edition of Ha’aretz is just a translation of the Hebrew one and that the journalists are often made responsible for the mistakes of the translators, since the English edition is read all over the world and is therefore more important than the local one.

Daniel started running once again. I followed him. The walking breaks started getting shorter and shorter. Daniel re-started running again and again. He pulled me closer to the finish. We found ourselves back round the southern tip of the lake (the Sea of Galilee), pushed towards Tiberias by the south wind. In the north we could see Mount Hermon, snow-covered above the Golan Heights. Another water station and Daniel found some more energy balls and shared them with me.

The countryside, where the Bible is present in sky, sun, rock, and water, quickly passed by. We reached the first hotels of Tiberias. “Kol Hakavod!” the excited spectators shouted. I remembered from my small Hebrew-English dictionary that “kavod” means by “might, power, glory.” And soon we could see the time above the final arch. Running somewhere between 4:45 and 4:56. Praise be! Daniel wanted to let me finish first. “You saved me,” he said. I pushed him forward, saying, “You saved me.” Together we passed the plastic arch. The sound from below the Champion-Chip signalled that the time was registered. Daniel introduced me to his wife. She had made the energy balls for him - and for me! She saved me and my 10th Marathon as well.

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