Luke - 1.9

Beer Mile, 7:21.

Pretty good turnout for this one, about a dozen people. I think everyone except me was a chemistry grad student. A couple of them were into Crossfit and half of them were pretty good drinkers so it was a pretty good race (although Zack and I were the only ones who had previous beer mile experience). I warmed up one lap plus to the bathroom and back. My outfit was my Zoom Streak XC flats, black and purple argyle socks that were fairly tall, navyish shorts (not crazy short but still running shorts) and an old-school jersey.

At the start, two or three people finished their first beer before me. I was drinking out of a bottle (all other beer miles I've used cans) which I think slowed me down a couple seconds. Of course I went to the lead by about 50m into the running though. Felt okay but wasn't able to burp as much as I'd have liked. Zack and I were drinking Weihenstephaner Original, which I think is a great beer mile beer...very easy to drink, a great light taste. I took the running a bit slow to keep things under control gastronomically. While drinking my second beer some other runners were coming up behind me, I think Zack was first. I finished drinking fairly quickly and was able to burp a few times, which allowed me to go a bit faster for a short section. The third beer felt about the same as the second, and the third lap also felt the same as the second lap. The fourth beer was again pretty easy to drink, so I just had to get through the last lap without throwing up. I knew at that point that if I threw up I wouldn't win, because Zack was close enough that an extra lap would be too long for me to catch him. I alternated going fast and slow, just making sure to hold it all in. I crossed the line and lasted about two more seconds before throwing up. Perfectly executed. Zack finished in 8:09 I think, and third place was 8:59.

A while later we were all hanging out and talking and stuff and I saw one guy, a little Japanese guy named Kozu, still drinking, and I asked him if he was still going. He was, a little over twenty minutes in and still on his last beer. We all ended up cheering him on while he tried to finish his beer. He hadn't thrown up yet so he was trying to get it down and keep it down, so he was taking tiny sips, about one every 45 seconds. At one point he sat down, but he was still going. He set his beer down and I could hear there was still beer in it, and he walked over to the edge of the track and threw up. That gave him the space in his body to finish his last couple ounces of beer, and almost everybody went with him when he started running, and we were all cheering for him. He was actually a pretty fast runner. Three or four of us also ran with him on his penalty lap, and he finally finished with a time of 28:32.

It was a really fun time, and afterward a handful of us went to Max's for peanuts and pitchers of PBR. Zack and I hadn't really eaten dinner so we got really drunk. Good times.