I’m doing the BEER MILE in 3 hours. Any last minute advise?

Advice *

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"I’m doing the BEER MILE in 3 hours."

That's a pretty crappy beer mile time, but I hope you enjoy the experience nonetheless.

Drink 1/2 cup of olive oil 10 minutes before leaving the house. It will coat your stomach and give you a huge advantage.

Don’t be afraid to throw up, it’ll make you go a lot faster and drinking the other beers easier, even if you have to run extra laps.

Put a solid buzz on before your 5k

Hit the first lap hard. Your stomach will be at it's relative emptiest, so it will be easier to run fast early on. The final lap is awful, so prepare for pain. I'm not one of the types who can chug the whole thing at once, so my technique is to breath in through my nose while I pour as much beer in my mouth as it can hold, swallow, repeat. Takes me 4 cycles of that to get a beer down, usually about 18-20 seconds. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

When the alcohol kicks in, it will have a mild anaestethetic effect, and probably boost your mood. If there is a zone set up for you to imbibe, walk and chug at your level of comfort. Be mindful of your tolerance for alcohol. If you are a light or casual drinker, you might be hammered by the last quarter mile.

Alcohol is a vasodilator, which means it will cause your blood vessels to relax and widen. That means your blood pressure drops when you drink it. Fortunately for you, you will be engaging in strenuous exercise, so your heart rate and extertion level should keep you out of the danger zone (where your blood pressure drops so low that you pass out).

Extremely important: if you feel light-headed at any point stop running, lie down, and call for medical assistance. Lightheadedness means not enough blood is getting to your brain, and therfore you run the risk of passing out. If you pass out while running, there is a good chance you will hit your head, which can be fatal. If you're in good shape and have enough tolerance for alcohol, you'll probably be fine...just watch out for this symptom and please follow my suggestion if it appears.

This is your first beer mile. You will learn how unpleasant it is to run with 48 ounces of fluid in your stomach, and don't be afraid to throw up, if you feel like you have to. You will feel better after, and there's no shame in doing so if you haven't practiced running with that much liquid in your stomach.

Since this is your first beer mile, your goal should be to finish. Expect to add a couple minutes to your mile time, at a minimum, and don't forget to enjoy the experience!

Good luck! Please let us know how it turned out.

Chug a seltzer (water) before for practice

Spill as much as you can all over your face and shirt

As a very infrequent drinker who can throw down a pretty good beer mile:
- For your first beer mile doing the 400s at 3k-5k pace is probably ideal. Mile pace will leave you breathing too hard to drink the beers properly and greatly increases the chance of puking. You can let it rip last lap though.
- Make sure you're creating/drinking as little foam as possible, that's what really kills you. First 100 of each lap is good for burping up the gases building up in your stomach
- You won't feel anything during the race, the alcohol doesn't kick in until around 5-10 minutes later.