So I haven’t told many people about this, but a couple of months ago I took part in a terrible, terrible activity.
I let myself get talked into running the Austin Beer Mile.
What’s a Beer Mile? You probably don’t want to know. Maybe best to turn away from the screen now.
You drink a beer and then run a quarter mile, then drink another beer and run another quarter mile, then another and another. And you’re supposed to do this as fast as humanly possible.
If you look on Wikipedia you can find these facts:
In the women’s race, American Beth Herndon set a new world record with a time of 6:17.8. In August 2015, Lewis Kent of Canada ran a 4:55.78, becoming the fastest recorded beer mile ever. His beer of choice was Amsterdam Blonde.
I just want to say for the record that there’s no way in hell I could drink 4 beers WITHOUT ANY RUNNING INVOLVED AT ALL in 6:17.8.
These people are certifiably insane.
So why did I do it? I’ll be trying to figure that out for years.
But I will say, not without some pride, that I came in dead last. Like so far behind every other runner that I tried to get away without running the last lap. They were already handing out awards at that point so I didn’t think anyone would notice.
But I did run it, and I didn’t puke, and I only felt sick for approximately 18 hours.
I trace my failure back to my childhood refusal to ever learn how to make myself burp. Man, that carbonation while you’re running is a killer.
This photo was taken of me while I was the last one left on the track. I was happy about losing, I guess, and not a little bit tipsy, and glad the race was almost over.
I’m being heavily recruited to try to improve my performance in 2017, but I just don’t see it happening. Please punch me in the gut (gently) if I end up there again.
Burp.
