Chug, Run, Repeat with BrewMile at XFINITY Live

Story, photos by Jordan Price

It was a sweaty August evening when hundreds of thirsty runners gathered at XFINITY Live in Philadelphia for a brush with BrewMile, supporting Water.org (beer is made from some water after all). This was BrewMile’s first visit to Philadelphia, and hopefully not the last, as this particular challenge takes Philadelphia’s passion for competition, physical activity and, of course, beer to the next level.

The concept is simple: drink a beer, run a quarter of a mile. Repeat three times. Celebrate accordingly with (what else?!) more beer!

Costumes are encouraged, as are teams, and Philly runners really brought their A-game.

Definitely not your Average Joes! — Definitely not your Average Joe’s…

There were several heats, broken down into the “Elite Heat” (for runners who typically complete a mile in under 7 minutes) and everyone else, who ran in two rounds. The energy was palpable as the elite runners grabbed their beers.

Kinda beautiful, isn't it? — Kinda beautiful, isn’t it?

And, just like that, they were off. Now, I’m not a huge fan of running (luckily, I AM a huge fan of beer) but I can definitely appreciate the speed these folks raced and drank. The top finisher actually finished his four beers AND run in under 6 minutes.

I know. He was a machine.

For the rest of us, there was another heat.

Let's do this thing. — Let’s do this thing.

With the sweet sound of an air horn, led by a giant can of PBR, we were off!

(I’ll shoot you straight, I’ve run a 5K and slightly more before, I’ve even done a running bar crawl… but this BrewMile was probably the most challenging run I ever completed).

Four full beers doesn’t sound like much in a night. However, in the span of less than 15 minutes, with the addition of a mile run… it was pretty rough. It went sort of like this:

Beer 1 – I could do this forever. BEER IS GREAT and tastes like water!

.25 mile Run – Sure, there’s some sloshing, but this is fun, look at that guy in a can go!

Beer 2 – Wait. Already? Shoot. I don’t think I can finish this. What was I thinking?

.25 mile Run – Nope. This was the worst idea.

Beer 3 – Oh my goodness. End me now.

.25 mile Run – Wait. I’m actually feeling kinda nice. I think Beer 1 is finally telling the rest of my body we’re having some fun….

Beer 4 – Whatever. I’m feeling A-OKAY!

.25 mile Run – WHERE’S THE FINISH LINE?! Let’s party!!