The third annual Guinea Pig One Mile race drew 175 runners — though none were actual guinea pigs — to the track at Danehy Park Saturday. The free run was organized by 25-year old Alex Sharp and his friend Ethan Weiner, 24. Sharp said it wasn’t so much a race as a revolution. “Our generation has less exposure to social activities and fun at an affordable price than any other generation in America’s history,” he said. Hence, free entry.
Weiner joked “we don’t talk about the origin,” but he and Sharp offered a few of their motivations. “The whole thing started as an experiment,” said Weiner, with Sharp adding they were concerned about the plight of guinea pigs used in clinical experiments.
“We also just think guinea pigs are cool, and they are just one of the cutest animals,” Weiner continued.
Last year, two guinea pigs did make an appearance, brought by locals Gillie and Guy Rosenzweig, who thought it was an actual guinea pig event. One of the guinea pigs, Peanut, has since died.
“He ran his race,” said Weiner, “but we’ll be celebrating him tonight.”
The other pet, Midnight, “was back and better than ever,” Sharp said via email. She watched Gillie run an 8:44 mile and Guy complete the race in 8:26.
Sharp is a Gen Z’er who is a former driver for Sen. Ed Markey and is currently working on a master’s degree in education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He met Weiner, a Boston-based software engineer, while running years ago at the Fells Reservation in Stoneham.
The two were roommates in Somerville when they came up with the idea of a timed mile race. Weiner didn’t think much about it until one day “I received a flyer while on vacation in California from [Alex], and I was like, ‘oh, so we’re doing this.’”
About a dozen people came in 2024, then over 70 in 2025. This year’s relative flood of runners came from some social media virality. An Instagram reel showing the organizers and several volunteers handing out fliers for the event along Somerville’s Community Path on July 23 reached over 150,000 views.
That the race was free drew many of the competitors. Runners often pay $50 to $100 or more to run in local 5-kilometer, 10-kilometer and longer races.
One runner at the Guinea Pig Mile was Ash Cuevas. She started running to lose weight, and to make her more physically fit for her job working with kids in Cambridge. But, she said, “I feel like had I seen the price point, then I wouldn’t have gotten into [running].”
Two other runners, Rebecca from Cambridge and Carter from Arlington, who declined to give their last names, found out about the race from the organizers’ viral post. They praised the free admission, as well as the low barrier of access which the race offered. Carter, who plays soccer, said it was his first race. “This is me telling myself, ‘go out of your comfort zone and do something you’ve never done before, and push the limits and see what sticks,’” he said.
Sharp, Weiner and their volunteers had to conduct 15 heats, starting at 5:45 until after 8 p.m. Heats were organized by expected times, with the first heat for 8:00 minute miles or slower. Most of the heats took all-comers, but the final two ‘championship’ heats featured an all-female and all-male group of runners. Sharp ran in the 13th combined heat and came in at 4:48, 10 seconds slower than his result the previous year. Weiner came in third for the male’s championship heat at 4:20, more than 10 seconds better than his second-place finish last year.
Dozens of volunteers came out to help this year. Sharp and Weiner said that level of involvement means they plan to do it again next year.
This community support was exemplified during the final lap of the night’s final championship lap, when a tent borrowed from the Cambridge Running Club blew onto the track. It took a group effort from attendees to push it off the track and keep the race going. “The community is stepping up,” yelled Sharp in a video of the moment.
Winners of several of the final heats received small 3d-printed guinea pigs as their trophies, created by one of the many volunteers, Madeline Barowsky. She was one of several volunteers who are members of the Cambridge Running Club, as is Weiner.
This year’s male winner was Paul Neilan, an Olympic marathon hopeful who finished in 4:18. Corinne Yorkman was the winning female runner. She was a collegiate swimmer at the United States Air Force Academy swim; she ran a 5:24 mile.
Yorkman attributed her win to the “positive energy” at the track and “a lot of training.” She recently moved to Cambridge and also heard about the event through Instagram.
Typically, a long-distance runner, Yorkman ran a 50-mile race last week. “So, I was like, I have a mile in me if I can do 50.”
Neilan said he was faster when he ran track at UMass Lowell but was still happy with his time ahead of his participation in the Falmouth Road Race next week.
It was his first time racing in the Guinea Pig Mile. He heard about the event through a coworker at Marathon Sports. “Nowadays it’s all these running influencers and races trying to squeeze every penny and dime out of you, so it’s cool to be somewhere where it is all about the running.”
This story was updated to clarify that there were not qualifying heats for the championship races.
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