Beer mile: It's not about the running

The nanban beer mile was held yesterday, which happened to be my first "running" event of the year. The weather was perfect. A georgeous sunny day of about 12 degrees. Not exactly beer drinking weather, but a pleasant contrast to the cold and rainy Friday night previous. Here I am thanking the beer gods with a namaste and praying that I don't damage my internal organs!

A beer mile consists of 4 beers and 400 or so meters of running after each beer consumed. Thus, you chug a beer, run 400 meters, chug another beer, run 400 meters, chug a third beer, run 400 meters, and chug the last beer, and sprint to the finish line. By the 2nd beer I was buzzed and missed one of the turns after the 2nd beer. After the 4th beer, I was hammered from the rapidity of drinking and running. Ironically, it got easier to drink after the 2nd beer.

The first beer was a shock to my system and it took me a full 50 seconds to get the beer down. But I told myself, "tiny little baby steps" and got the rest down with big belches in between gulps. The giant burps helped me. Other rivals complained that they were not able to belch like me. Something to be proud of!

My time was 12:33, which is not fast but not too slow considering it was my first race. Although I doubt there will be another one! My goal was to finish without hurling, which I accomplished. I might have even won my age group. The winning time was about 8 minutes.

Chad and Satohi were the superhero drinkers. Something to be proud of...The slowest time was about 16 minutes, so I was right in the middle. Not a great performance but a helluva experience. It is good to try new things. Perhaps this should be my new year's resolution...

Thanks to Joachim for the prizes and Gareth for organizing the event.