Rabbi Richard Israel, the 46-year-old Boston area director for B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundations, has described himself as a “non-athlete.” But when several of his friends died from heart attacks he began to jog 10 miles daily, toned his muscles and “got into great shape,” good enough to be one of this year’s 2041 men and women marathon entries.
The 26-mile race last week from rural Hopkinson to downtown Boston included a segment through Newton Centre where Rabbi Israel lives 20 miles from the starting line. There the rabbi collapsed. “I felt like I was wearing sandpaper socks,” he said later. “I was about to drop out. But another competitor, an elderly Japanese man, grasped the rabbi’s hand to encourage him. Together they plodded up the remaining tortuous six-mile road.
By the time the rabbi got to the finishing line he was more than two hours behind the record time (2 hours, 9 minutes, 55 seconds) of graduate student Will Rodgers, winner of this year’s race. “The exhilaration, the camraderies–they’re all worth the torture and pain,” Rabbi Israel reflected.
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