Beer Mile World Classic in San Francisco August 22nd – Will We See the World’s First Sub 5:00 in a Competitive Event?

by: LetsRun.com
August 7, 2015

We saw the post about Australian Josh Harris running 4:56.25 for a possible beer mile world best here.

In the video, Josh talks about training for the Beer Mile World Classic. We had heard about the event this winter, but hadn’t heard much about it or had anything on it on LetsRun.com since.

We reached out to the organizers to see what the status of their event is and it is definitely on, featuring most of the world’s best beer milers and a team concept (USA vs. Canada vs. Australia) in San Francisco. The Beer Mile World Classic will take place in two weeks on August 22 on San Francisco’s Treasure Island.

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The field features four of the top five all-time according to beermile.com.

Field from race director Nick MacFalls below: Notes in () are from LRC, rest are from Nick.

James Nielsen, USA, 4:57 (official beermile.com world record holder)
Josh Harris, Australia, 5:01.5 (he’s the guy running 4:56.2 in the video above)
Lewis Kent, CAN, 5:01.9 He has a very low risk of DQ. Has run 6 beer miles this year. Top 3 fastest times in the world in 2015. This is his PR race.
Michael Cunningham, USA, 5:07.9….Second to Gallagher at Flotrack…which was his 2nd beer mile ever. Better trained and track sharp for this event.
Jim Finlayson, CAN, 5:09.0 Former world record holder, 42 years old, has a chance at a podium finish, very consistent, but doesn’t have the speed to win…but will clean up runners who die at the end
Phil Parrot Migas, CAN, 5:21
Kevin Craigie, AUS, 5:21
Brian Anderson, USA, 5:30 Has an unsubmitted 5:10….Will be racing this week, feels like he is sub-5 minute shape
Charlie Blanch, AUS, 5:30

Women

Andrea Fisher, USA, 6:28 2nd all-time
Chris Kimbrough, USA, 6:28 3rd all-time, former WR holder
Seanna Robinson, CAN Former WR holder, ran 6:43 in 1997…training hard again
Caitlin Judd, USA
After that, the field…many haven’t run many beer miles, but have potential to surprise…

Men’s Team Competitions based on beermile.com seed time:

USA 2-4-8 = 14

CAN 3-5-7 = 15

AUS 1-7-9 = 17

Women’s

US 1-2-4 = 7

CAN 2-5-6 = 13

The only man missing from the world’s top five is Corey Gallagher, who won the self-proclaimed Flotrack Beer Mile World Championship in December in Austin. Gallagher was invited to Beer Mile World Classic but declined to participate. (There is a history between the Beer Mile World Classic guys and the Flotrack event. The World Classic organizers, who include WR holder James Nielsen, say they had discussed with Flotrack about co-hosting a Beer Mile world event, and then Flotrack announced their own Flotrack Beer Mile World Championships. That is why Nielsen did not run the Flotrack event. The good news for Beer Milers is they now have two events instead of one)

James Hansen, an Australian who recently ran an unofficial 4:56 beer mile, can’t make it either. He’s a 3:41 1500m runner still training in Europe trying to get close to the real Olympics.

The event is open to the public and there are open beer miles as well. More info at beermilesf.com

(Editor’s note: The language about the Flotrack and Beer Mile World Classic co-hosting an event has been edited since initial publication)

Beer Mile World Classic in San Francisco August 22nd – Will We See the World’s First Sub 5:00 in a Competitive Event?

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