As the name suggests, the Beermile is about running and drinking beer over a distance of 1,600 metres, in other words a mile. The race was last organised in 2017. 'The participants are going to drink a beer and run 400 metres and finish the run after four laps,’ says Ivo Stapel, Biomedical Engineering student and former board member at Kronos. ‘The race is not only for solo runners but can also be run in teams. The top three runners who finish their runs and beers the fastest will receive a prize yet to be announced by Kronos.’
Non-alcoholic
It is clear that drinking a lot of beer to then sprint 400 metres four times can cause nausea in some people, so Kronos is prepared for participants who need to vomit. To prepare for this, Kronos has first aiders ready and lots of buckets and water ready to clean the track, Stapel explains. Yet the Beermile is not only about drinking a lot of alcohol, as there are also non-alcoholic alternatives. 'We have the Milka chocolate run, which is a race where one runs 400 metres after eating a whole Milka. The same run is also offered with non-alcoholic beer.’
As of recently, the UT has a new alcohol policy. Although the Beermile also offers non-alcoholic alternative runs, it seems to be somewhat difficult to get permission from the UT for an event that partially motivates students to drink beer, Stapel knows. 'The biggest challenge in organising the event was to explain to the university that this is an event that takes place in many universities and that we can do it safely.’
New members
One goal of the Beermile event is to help the Kronos association to attract students who would otherwise not become members. ‘Many students who do not have a background in athletics are unlikely to join an athletics club like Kronos because they assume they must have some previous athletic experience to become a member’, Stapel says. ‘This event is an opportunity to appeal to these students, as it is an event that encourages fun for running and is not aimed at hardcore competition.’
Another motivation of the Beermile is to find suitable runners for other races outside of UT in the future, because finding the best Beermile runners is not as easy as it appears to be. ‘We have many people in our association who are good at running and we have people who are good at drinking, but those traits do not go together very often, explains Stapel. ‘With the Beermile we want to find out if there are talents at UT that can participate in the upcoming world championship.’
The race starts Wednesday at 7pm on the UTrack. You can register here.
