September 26, 2025
Previous snapshots of Om's running adventures: I half assed a half marathon
This past Monday, I ran a mile in 5:20 on the MIT track!
On Sunday evening, I found out from fellow runners in the EECS department that there was going to be a mile time trial on the MIT track the next evening. I thought it would be a good break from work and signed up immediately. I've been running a lot more recently, and I had done several intense track workouts in the prior weeks, so I was confident that I could break six minutes, and I was curious if I could hit 5:30 or go even faster.
On Monday, I ate a late lunch around 3:30pm and then kept working. I headed over to the track at 6:30pm and met the organizers and some of the other participants. As it turned out, most were from the Cambridge community and there were fewer graduate students than I expected.
I decided to join the "sub-5:30/mi" heat, as I figured that would be an ambitious target and I'd be able to push myself by chasing the faster runners. There were four other people in my heat: two pacers and two other runners. One of the pacer/runner pairs was aiming for 5:00/mi and the other was aiming for 5:30/mi. They asked what time I would be running and I responded that I'd target somewhere in between. By 6:50pm, we lined up at the starting line.
We started, and I was effectively running with the 5:00/mi pair for the first bit, with the 5:30/mi group a few seconds behind us. I remained a few seconds behind them for the first lap, which I completed in 1:20. By the second lap, there was some more separation in front of me, but I kept at it with a steady 20s/100m pace and crossed the 800m mark at 2:40.
By the third lap, I started to feel a bit tired, and I could also hear the 5:30/mi group gaining on me. Near the 900m mark, I could feel the 5:30/mi pair right behind me, and I moved into lane 2 to let them pass. I tried to keep the pace, but looking at my timer I could see my hundreds were closer to 21s and 22s. I crossed the 1200m mark at 4:05 and realized that any more of a slowdown would take me over 5:30.
However, I still had a bit more energy in the tank and decided to spend it all on lap 4. I sped up back to 20s/100m for the next two segments before sprinting around the final bend and straight towards the finish line. My speedup was substantial, and I finished the final lap in 1:15, for a final time of 5:20/mi! I was quite excited to clear my target time and also have an updated mile time benchmark.
After the race, I felt a bit sore, and my stomach was really feeling the churn. In addition to wanting to clear 5:30/mi, my second goal was to not throw up. I'm not sure if I've ever thrown up after a run, and I thought I had done a good job eating lunch three hours before, but as I walked onto the track at 6:30pm I started to feel a bit skeptical. After the race, after a few minutes of slowly walking around hunched over, with intermittent dry heaving, I drank most of the water in my bottle and started to feel much better. With my second goal clinched, I went back to the office and kept working!