Three Thoughts On The Flotrack Beer Mile In Austin

by LetsRun.com
December 3, 2014

Three thoughts about today’s Beer Mile in Austin, TX (We may add in more after it’s over).

1) The difficulty of getting the event off today shows in a weird way that a key component of the success of beer miles is their underground nature.

Beer miles are popular because they often were run ‘illegally’ at dusk, after the season was over, during vacation on a university campus, when coach was nowhere to be seen, etc. The fact that the location of this event had to be changed the day it takes place shows you why the event has been underground for so long – most adults in positions of authority don’t want any association with a binge drinking event.

2) A better name for the event would be the Flotrack beer mile, rather than the Beer Mile World Championships.

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A beer mile clearly isn’t an official IAAF event so there is no official governing body and Flotrack isn’t the only party that thought about putting on a big beer mile. In fact, a group in California – who wanted to hold a beer mile event at AT&T Park (home of SF Giants) – was actually talking with Flotrack about putting on a beer mile together. On the morning that their second conference call was scheduled, Flotrack sent out a press release announcing their own event.

On Flotrack, there has been some smack talk as to why the world record holder James Nielsen isn’t at the race. He’s taken the high road but he’s got a good reason to not be there – he’s part of the team trying to organize the race in California. The Cali people have held off announcing a formal date for their 2015 event as they know it’s very hard to get actual permitting.

3) It looks like the people behind beermile.com are in cahoots with flotrack so that a world record’ can be set today.

Today Beermile.com changed their official rules to accommodate the fact the race isn’t being run on a track. The event was originally scheduled to be run on a track in downtown Austin but the venue was changed today because Flotrack failed to secure the proper approval/permits.

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As of November 30th, beermile.com very clearly stated that a beer mile had to be run on a track. The preamble to their rules said all rules had to be strictly followed and their first of 10 rules was that it had to be done on a track:

To qualify for a Beermile.com record list or a Beermile.com official time, these rules must be strictly followed:

Official Beermile.Com Rules

1. Each competitor drinks four cans of beer and runs four laps on a track
(Start – beer/lap, beer/lap, beer/lap, beer/lap – finish).

This morning the beermile.com website looks totally different, has a big prominent link to flotrack on it and the rules conveniently have been changed to say “ideally on a track.” The url of the new rules actually has “new” in it and is: www.new.beermile.com/rules:

1. Each competitor drinks four cans of beer and runs four laps, ideally on a track (start – beer, then lap, then beer, then lap, then beer, then lap – finish).

The new rules and the cached version of the rules from November 30th according to google appear below.
The new rules The new rules
The original rules The original rules

As a result, many won’t view any records set today as official.

More: Discuss this event on our messageboard: Flotrack Beer Mile Event in Austin – Moved.

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