Fast Mile REFLECTIONS

Eight weeks ago, on June 21, we started the Fast Mile Summer with one goal in mind; run a fast mile. The marathon gets all the attention. I wanted to plant my flag in the ground and say: a fast mile is more impressive than a slow marathon, and one that everyone can relate to. My goal was to get a PR in mile. I hadn’t run a fast mile on the track since 2020, when I ran a 5:35. There’s some controversy around what I thought my PR was, more on that later.

Last week the time had come to take the test. Coming from vacation my legs were tired, but improved throughout the week. On Thursday, I did a make-up workout from the week before, 400m with 1 min rest. I was able to run these fast and smooth and it was a confidence builder. My schedule opened on Friday afternoon and I wanted to take advantage of the cooler weather and nice breeze.

I ran a mile easy interspersed with drills and stretching, followed by some 100m strides working up to race pace. I felt good so I walked a lap, took a swig of water and was off. I knew pacing on the track was going to be tricky. Despite my lack of skill, it would still produce the fastest time. I knew my splits for a 5:20-2:25 mile. My strategy was to run fast and look down at my watch as little as possible—this was a mistake.

I came around the first lap, took a quick peek and saw something different what it ended up being. On the second lap, I looked down and was about where I thought I was supposed to be for halfway. Two hundred meters later I was in the pain cave. Coming into the corner I was surprised at how hard it was to breathe. I glanced down and my pace was WAY too slow. I put my head down for the next lap and a half knowing I screwed it up, that sub 5:30 probably wasn’t in the cards today.

My mile—1609 meters measured by GPS, not just four laps—was 5:30.57

After the fact, I really wish I had lapped every 400m to get my split times and see how the effort went. Did it really all fall apart on that third lap? I exported my GPX file into ChatGPT and it was able to pull my splits from the file. I ran my first lap way too fast, about 4 seconds faster than target pace. Combine that with slowing down by 4 seconds on the third lap and I went 5:20-5:30 just like that.

Note how my cadence slowed on the third lap.

Heart rate run for fun (strapped up)

I was hoping to be a little faster, solidly in the 5:20s, or honestly, maybe even faster than that. After a couple days reflection however, I’m pleased with my effort, the result, and mostly with how the training plan went. I’m 36, and didn’t pull a hamstring trying to run at near maximum effort. I didn’t tweak anything, overdue it, get too sore, and anything like that, and that’s actually the biggest win.

In years past when I’ve opened up like that for a mile, my hamstrings would be very sore, or my calves. This time, I was drained! I laid in the grass for a good 20 minutes before recuperating. It was all a little bittersweet though, because I really wanted to PR, and I might have gotten one anyway.

My last mile was documented here, and in it I cite that I ran a faster mile the summer prior (2019). I’ve always taken that for face value because it seemed like I was a reliable source. After Friday’s fast mile, Strava and Garmin both claimed that was my fastest mile ever. Upon further investigation, the 2018 mile registered as .99, and I did it on West Road, not the track.

So was that really my PR? You know the rules, if it doesn’t happen on Strava, did it happen at all?

—Justin Miner