Canadians chug their way to beer-mile relay world record
Canadians not only marked the country’s sesquicentennial on July 1 — four citizens also celebrated a new world record for the beer-mile relay, which involves relay-running a mile while chugging beers.
The four Vancouver men each chugged a beer before running a 400-metre (quarter-mile) sprint. Running back-to-back, they were able to complete a full mile — and chug four beers — in the span of just four minutes three seconds.
According to Canadian Running magazine, the time bests a previous record of 4:06, which was also set by Canadians at the 2016 Beer Mile World Classic in London, England.
The new record was set on the track of Vancouver’s Point Grey Secondary School. Notably, race officials were wearing faded neon tracksuits dating from the 1994 Commonwealth Games, which was held just across the Strait of Georgia in Victoria.
While it may seem like a frivolous excuse to get drunk, the various disciplines of “beer miling” have attracted some serious competitors in recent years.
The much more challenging beer-related feat, for instance, is the solo beer mile, in which a single runner must complete four laps of a quarter-mile track while chugging a beer before each lap.
The clock is running while the competitor drinks, meaning that their time is also dependent on how quickly they can chug. (On the recent record-breaking Vancouver run, relay-runners’ beer-drinking times ranged from 4.8 to 11.3 seconds.)
Then, once the runner begins their laps, they are faced not only with the impairment of binge drinking, but with the gastrointestinal nightmare of vigorous exercise paired with a belly full of carbonated liquid.
Canadians have proved to be naturally inclined to the sport. BeerMile. com, the website generally recognized as the world arbiter in beermile records, counts Canadians in the top two spots for the solo men’s beer mile. The current world champion, Corey Bellemore of Windsor, Ont., clocked 4:34 on a solo beer mile.