Running: West Toronto Beer Mile

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 - 12:34 AM

The correct way to chug...




NOT!


3rd West Toronto Classic Beer Mile, where the women ruled and the men spewed.

This beer mile gets bigger every year. As usual, we gathered at West Toronto C.I. ready to pit ourselves against each other, hoping this time there would be no soccer game going on in the infield (alas, some munchkins did show up for a practice but they didn't stay long). It was a fairly big crowd this year with 16 participants, many of who were first timers. In the true spirit of the event, Nat showed up despite having a quad injury. She would try to just finish drinking 4 beer before the race ended. And perhaps beat her run and drink time from last year. And Kathie showed up after having a few drinks already, showing true beer mile commitment.

We tried for an official beer mile this time- we actually measured out the transition zone and chalked off the start/finish lines J The details were worked out as to which supporters would be in charge of timing etc , we lined up for the all smiles start line photo. Then we were off.

Holy cow, organizer Kathie and expert chugger April were amongst the first runners sprinting out of transition, hot on the heels of first timer Wes. This was quite a feat for Kathie as she showed up tipsy already. The rest of the field soon followed and the race was on. The slower beer drinkers tried to make up time on the track while the early leaders Wes, Kathie and April continued to show their dominance at both parts of the events. Ability to chug fast usually determines the winner despite whoever is technically the faster runner. Again Kathie proved her drinking prowess by heading out of transition right after Wes, and April not far behind. The rest of us looked on in awe and tried to catch up.

Halfway through the event and there is no clear cut winner emerging. Back to transition, early leader Wes had slowed down on the drinking. Will he vomit and incur the penalty lap? Things continue smoothly with April and Kathie battling it out for the lead. Meanwhile, the rest are starting to have trouble getting the beer down and keeping it down. Transition times get longer and longer as all try valiantly to drink their beers without vomiting.

Ah the end of the 3rd lap and final beer. Perhaps the hardest of them all or the easiest, it all depends... It all starts to come undone for many of the men. Wes can’t keep his beer down and vomits in the middle of the transition zone; a penalty lap will have to be run. Did he start a chain reaction because soon Dustin also vomits in transition. Steve makes it out of transition but not far down the track; he is seen losing his beer as well. Penalty laps abound. But not for the ladies J Oh no, we are all managing to hold it in. April finally beats Kathie out of transition and runs her last lap as fast as she can. She is finishing her race before many are finished their last beer. Kathie comes in a strong second less than 30sec back. And even further back Melanie finishes as well. It is a sweep of the top three for the women. Yay girls!!! Early finishers stick around transition to cheer on the final runners. And yes, we all finish; there are no quitters in our beer mile- penalty lap or not. Arthur, Heather and Roger set new PBs with Arthur’s time being his first official beer mile (right sized beer this time J)! Nat struggled to finish her 4th beer, but with some encouragement, she manages to get it all down beating her time from last year- minus the running of course. Unfortunately it didn’t stay down for long J. Trent manages to finish his last lap before letting loose as well.

Of course we all had our victory beers afterwards and swapped tales of woe. Newbies seemed to realize that they have to learn to burp while running. Drinking practice needs to be done as well in order to be ready to compete next year. Another successful Beer Mile is over.

Final results:

1. April “Killer B #1” Boultbee 7:36 Sleeman’s Honey Brown
2. Kathie Zeman 7:57 Blue, can
3. Melanie “Killer B #2” Boultbee 9:22 Sleeman’s Honey Brown
4. Just "Keith" 9:33 Keith's
5. Neil O’Reilly 10:14 Budweiser, from can
6. Trent Perrett 10:33 Pabst Blue Ribbon, can
7. Arthur Tateishi 11:01 Moosehead, can
8. Wes Dearborn 11:25 Blue, can
9. Roger Barker 11:40 Canadian, can
10. Heather Brown 12:30 Blue, can
11. Steve Biggs 13:08, Keith's, can
12. Dustin Demille 13:37 Maclay's, can
13. Paul Mora 16:30 Waterloo Dark bottles
14. Darrell Wright 18:01 Carlsberg
15. Natalie Patterson 20:42, Canadian *no running*
16. The Seeps 30:05 Canadian


Read the No Show Training Story here:

http://www.mynextrace.com/module-v4bJournal-detail-id-199.htm