Feeling proudly Canadian and curious: Do you know your beer mile time?

I’m a proud Canadian and proud Western professor today. Lewis Kent, a Canadian and a Western student to boot, has taken the men’s beer mile record. The official beer mile record book is here.

What’s the beer mile?

Simply really. One mile, 4 laps, 4 beers.

His time? 4:51.90

The best women’s time is 6:17.8

But Tracy and I won’t be challenging it.

First, neither of us drinks alcohol. So there’s that. (Though we were amused to read that people do their beer mile training with non-alcoholic beer, which makes perfect sense.)

Second, we also couldn’t imagine drinking four beer in that time, never mind the running.

Here’s the story about Kent’s beer mile victory on the CBC’s website.

The 21-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., broke the world record Tuesday night in the beer mile — a race that combines running and drinking beer. Runners chug a beer then run a lap, for each of the four laps of a mile.

Kent, who just completed his senior cross-country season with the University of Western Ontario Mustangs, ran four minutes 51.9 seconds, lowering the previous mark of 4:54.38 set by Winnipeg’s Corey Gallagher in October. He then announced he’d gone pro, signing a shoe deal with Brooks.

Kent ran the race — Amsterdam Beer was his beer of choice — at a London, Ont., high school.

Kent and Gallagher have been swapping the world record for the past few months. Kent lowered it in August before his Winnipeg rival etched his name on it in October.

It’s fitting, said Kent, that Canadians have dominated the race, on both the men’s and women’s side, since it was invented in the late 1970s by a group of runners at Queens University.

“I feel a great sense of pride that Canadians invented the beer mile,” Kent said. “Only we could come up with something so different, yet so amazing.”

Here’s the follow up story about Kent’s rival’s plans to take back the beer mile record:

Winnipeg beer mile runner hopes to guzzle way back to world record: Canada, famed for its athletic guzzling and running, has been called the Kenya of beer miling

“It’s probably harder than any other race,” said Winnipeg mail carrier Corey Gallagher, who held the world record time of four minutes 54.38 seconds until earlier this week. “Not only are you trying to run as fast as you can, but now, you’re trying to consume something. It’s just an awkward mix.”

……..

The beer mile is starting to get recognition within the running establishment.

“In the last couple of years it’s become huge,” said Michael Doyle, editor in chief of Canadian Running. “Canada is kind of weirdly dominant at it. We’ve jokingly said that we’re the Kenya of beer miling.”

Of course, there are non-alcoholic variants such as the chocolate milk mile (that’s out for Tracy as she’s vegan) and the soda pop mile. My favourite?

• The Rubik’s Cube Mile (solve a cube, quarter, cube, quarter, cube, quarter, cube, quarter)
  Best known effort: 19:56.0

Do you know your beer mile time? We’re curious!