Celebrate Israel - Mission Accomplished!!!!

Today was the Celebrate Israel 4 Mile race, which was run by the NY Road Runners.

Woke up bright and early had my toast with coffee and headed out to Central Park via bus.  Got into the city around 7:45 which gave me plenty of time to check out some of the pre-race stuff going on.  Also gave me a chance to meet up with my friend Dahlia and chat a little bit before heading to the corral.

Then I made my way to the back of the pack corral, which at least wasnt colored $hit brown like my last run, I can handle purple! lol

Here I am getting ready in my corral

Race started at 9AM, but I didnt cross the start line till about 9:09 AM, there were about 6000 runners participating at this run.

Mile 1:  East side of Park / Cat Hill

I went in with a Gallowalk plan of 2 min run/1 min walk, and stuck with it for most of the first mile, including Cat Hill (Named hill in central park because of the Cat Statue at its peak).  My last time running this course in Central Park, i took it too hard up Cat Hill which aggravated my quad, so I learned from my mistakes and took it easy on the way up, and it paid off!  I made it past this hill with no pain!  And was also rewarded with my fastest mile of the run!

Mile 2: East Side/North End of Course

This is where things got interesting for me. There are several rolling hills along the course that start here, and luck have it that my Run intervals seemed to start as the Uphills were starting.  At this point I figured that I should just make up my own intervals to get thru these hills.  Id slowly run uphill, make up time on the downhill and then do a short recovery walk before the next hill.  And this strategy worked!  I recorded another fast mile, and after checking my GPS data, I was hitting about a 9:00 pace on the downhills!!

Mile 3:  North end/West Side

More of the same with the hills, and I decided since I was making decent time to take it easy a little bit and save my energy for that last mile.  Nothing special during this part of the course.   This was my slowest mile.

Mile 4:  West Side / Finish Line

After passing the 5K mark with a PR pace, I felt energized from taking it easy during mile 3 and just gave it my all the last 8/10 of a mile.  Turned the corner to the finish, I knew I had set a PR and hit my goal coming in!

Coming in I had 1 goal only, and that was to break the 1:00:00 mark which I missed last time by 3 lousy seconds!

Here I am coming thru the finish line

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! FINISH TIME 56:41!!!!

14:11 Pace!

Here is the breakdown by Mile:

Mile 1 - 13:30

Mile 2 - 13:39

Mile 3 - 14:47

Mile 4 - 14:09

I definitely think that my last 2 mile training run on Thursday helped me.  I ran 2 miles in 28 minutes and knew I was capable of 14 minute miles.  Im also glad I learned from past mistakes and did a better job tackling the hills which really helped my time alot.  Also enjoyed using a hydration belt for the first time, was nice having both hands free during the race!