Runner prepared to put in blood, sweat and beers for glory
Down a beer, run a quarter mile. Down a second beer, run a quarter mile. Down a third beer, run a quarter mile. Down a fourth beer, run a quarter mile. All as fast as you can, while attempting not to be sick.
Welcome to the bonkers world of beer miling. It might sound like the stuff of frat- boy dreams, or the planned activity on a particularly energetic stag party, but this is serious business, attracting major sponsorship, a large global audience and mass participation — around 5000 results per year are submitted by “milers” to the sport’s website.
It also might, just might, be the saviour of struggling runners in a struggling sport.
Dale King- Clutterbuck has heard all the jokes before. If he had a dollar for every time he turned up to compete at a normal athletics event and someone asked him where the beers were, his money troubles would be a thing of the past. He is accustomed to laughing off the frequent headshaking of the athletics purists.
But as we chat over coffee not far from his London base, King- Clutterbuck, 25, has a few misconceptions to burst. Beer- miling might just be a bit of fun, but the potential is enormous and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics remain in his sights.
It was during the winter of 2016 that King- Clutterbuck realised things needed to change.
He had won 1500m bronze in the British Championships the summer before but not been given a world championships place because he missed the qualifying standard by 2s.
Finishing third in the country provides little in the way of financial security and the mundane reality of earning a living was increasingly inhibiting his international running aspirations.
“Running and working can obviously be done, but it’s hard,” he says. “I was a landscape gardener, doing a bit of building, working in shops, a bit of everything really.
“I was digging holes and my coach didn’t know. I’d run in the morning, go and dig holes for eight hours and then go and run again. So, my coach went spare at me, I got ill and I messed up the race.
“By the time I got to May for the outdoor season, I was just shattered. I was working all sorts, I was knackered and my season was over.”
Which is around the time the call came. The person in charge of putting together an English team for the Beer Mile Classic, billed as “the world’s premier drinking race”, had heard of
Joseph Millar will be New Zealand’s first male sprinter since James Dolphin in 2007 to run at a world championship in London next month.
He won the 100m and 200m national titles this year, plus the Australian equivalent double, setting a national 200m record.
Millar received an invitation into the 100m from the International Association of Athletics Federations yesterday , having qualified directly in the 200m.
New Zealand has 12 athletes competing in the worlds. King- Clutterbuck’s old reputation as something of a party boy — “I loved a night out. I’d do Ibiza and the festivals and that” — and wondered whether he wanted to take part.
Despite never having run a beer mile in his life and with just two days’ notice, King- Clutterbuck smashed the European record and moved third on the all- time list with 4m 47.39s.
It i s worth considering that achievement in detail: four laps of 400m ( plus a bit extra to make up a full mile) and four 355ml beer bottles containing a minimum 5 per cent alcohol — all in well under five minutes.
“The first time was horrible,” he says, of a race with such reach that it was viewed 22 million times online. “I was almost a bit scared because I was like, ‘ What’s happening to me?’
“I was trying to run fast and my belly was hurting. You down a beer and then you’re belching the whole way round. I’m much better now — I think I’ve just learnt how to control the burps and get the beer down with as little air as possible. It is really hard though.”
The seed had been planted. If the leading North American beer milers — almost all of whom he had beaten — were able to train full- time and enjoy sponsorship deals from sportswear companies Adidas and Brooks, then why could he not join them?
“If there are commercial opportunities to come from it and it can allow me not to have to work so hard next season, then great,” he explains.
“That’s why I’m doing the beer mile — to help my actual athletics goals. I’m not doing it just to have a laugh.”
So, while most attention is on one side of London for the world championships next month, KingClutterbuck will be on the other side at Saracens’ Allianz Park, where he expects to break the world record at this year’s Beer Mile Classic on August 12.
“The beer mile isn’t the only thing I’m doing,” he says. “I’m training and racing over 1500m because I want to get the Commonwealth Games qualifying time.
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