Comments on: 13 Beers in 13 Miles

13 Beers in 13 Miles

sveskemus — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:34:12 -0800

"Several of you told me that I was "going to die" if I drank 13 beers while running the San Francisco Half Marathon. I did not die. I puked three times, blacked out for miles 11 and 12, and needed five hours to finish. This is my story."

By: RobotVoodooPower

RobotVoodooPower — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:36:02 -0800

Bookmarked in case anyone ever fools me into running for any reason besides being chased.

By: Slack-a-gogo

Slack-a-gogo — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:43:22 -0800

Is he warming up for the 30 Pack Marathon? "It's a drinking club with a running problem."

By: AElfwine Evenstar

AElfwine Evenstar — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:47:22 -0800

Getting drunk while running a marathon does not a Hunter S. Thompson make. Adding acid, ether, and adrenochrome into the mix would have made him more credible.

By: Jugwine

Jugwine — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:50:41 -0800

Sheesh, if you're going to drink and run in San Francisco, do it during Bay to Breakers like a normal person.

By: geoff.

geoff. — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:52:12 -0800

My 13 beers during a Halo 3 marathon did not get this kind of coverage.

By: slogger

slogger — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:52:27 -0800

Beer mile!

By: hermitosis

hermitosis — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:58:10 -0800

Gross.

By: felix betachat

felix betachat — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:01:30 -0800

Isn't this why they invented the Hash?

By: mazola

mazola — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:03:28 -0800

I will wait for results from the urine analysis before celebrating this feat.

By: MuffinMan

MuffinMan — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:04:05 -0800

"Stupid is as stupid does." Forrest Gump A waste of a good beer and a good run.

By: norm

norm — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:07:12 -0800

A waste of a good beer and a good run. Of the beer he drank, only the Hoegaarden really can be counted as "good beer".

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:07:44 -0800

Did he consume more calories than he burned off?

By: yeti

yeti — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:08:19 -0800

My first reaction to this story was, My god, I never want to try that. Then I read his time. Over 5 hours? Really? Now I'm thinking: I think I can beat that.

By: adipocere

adipocere — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:09:47 -0800

I like it! Everything even slightly out of the ordinary seems to earn the "... and then you'll die!" from The Ninnies. It pleases me to see things done and nobody dies at the end. Remember, you bite it eventually, no matter what, so you might as well gun the engine and do something stupid once in a while. No points for a pristine carcass.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:13:05 -0800

Now if his water bottle had been big enough for a brick, this may actually have been amusing.

By: MarshallPoe

MarshallPoe — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:14:01 -0800

Proof that high school never ends (for some folks).

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:21:55 -0800

Then I read his time. Over 5 hours? Really? That's two and half miles per hour, barely a fast walk. Of course after thirteen beers, I wouldn't be able to walk at all so I doubt that I could beat his time.

By: MuffinMan

MuffinMan — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:22:16 -0800

Of the beer he drank, only the Hoegaarden really can be counted as "good beer" Good point, norm. In which case it's a tragedy he didn't puke 12 times.

By: resiny

resiny — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:22:40 -0800

Why the hell would you want to do this?

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:23:09 -0800

Did this at university... though it wasn't 13 miles more like 5 and we carried/drank a crate between three of us (and it was a lot more stagger/walk than run).

By: Pope Guilty

Pope Guilty — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:26:29 -0800

Modelo's pretty tasty.

By: KevinSkomsvold

KevinSkomsvold — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:28:12 -0800

Try running from the police after 13 beers, a fifth of Bacardi and 4 Thai sticks. I would have blogged about it but the internet wasn't around then. Why the hell would you want to do this? I blame the edgy sideburns.

By: dirtdirt

dirtdirt — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:30:13 -0800

I wish I could have handed this bro a Smirnoff Ice as he crossed the finish line.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:32:11 -0800

That would have been the one and only cool "Icing".

By: cstross

cstross — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:34:35 -0800

He's a fake! Those are 12 ounce beer bottles he's talking about. By my arithmetic, 12 X 13 = 156 fluid ounces, or about 7.8 real (imperial) pints (9.75 of your wimpish short-measure colonial ones). Seven and a half pints in five hours is a heavy evening session -- but he's exercising, hence burning off rather more calories than sitting around in a pub. And he puked three times? He's a wuss! If he tried that here in Edinburgh, we'd pull his kilt license! Why, if you can't down sixteen pints before breakfast, what kind of Scotsman are you? Hic. Thud.

By: quin

quin — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:39:04 -0800

I did not die. Yet. Sometimes these things can take a while to come true. Give it time, and I assure you, the prediction will be completely accurate.

By: jquinby

jquinby — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:39:32 -0800

(bear holding up paws) HOW ABOUT NO.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:39:39 -0800

beer is a very good thing for a run of six miles or less. After those six miles, it slows you down too much and it begins to taste completely awful. If nothing else, I will take that away from this account. Did he consume more calories than he burned off? Good question! 1 Tecate (146cal) + 3 Hooegardens (3x176cal) + 9(?) Miller High Lifes (9x143cal) = 1,961 calories. "Running" for 5 hours--let's generously call it "jogging"--would burn 2,862 calories (for a 180lb person). So a quick calculation would reveal the answer to be yes. But, 13 miles in 5 hours is 23-minute miles, or an average 2.6mph. I think I stroll about 3-4mph. I think that jogging would be at least 6mph or 10-minute miles (that's pretty slow for running). The calorie calculator above puts walking 3mph at 1,782 calories burned in 5 hours. ... I suppose it depends on how much of it he ran, how much time was spent dodging cars, etc. It seems like he burned most of his calories in the first half. Again, 2.6mph? He may as well have walked, but I suppose that may have not gotten the vomit shot.

By: mikeh

mikeh — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:39:57 -0800

No real Scotsman, that's for sure.

By: Lazlo Hollyfeld

Lazlo Hollyfeld — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:47:36 -0800

He should go to Germany, where they are a bit more organized about this sort of thing.

By: Ouisch

Ouisch — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:49:52 -0800

I remember when I had my first beer.

By: mcstayinskool

mcstayinskool — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:52:34 -0800

Of all the things that make me think "drinking a crapton is so stupid", this is now one of them.

By: grapefruitmoon

grapefruitmoon — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:54:58 -0800

I was queasy to begin with. Why did I read this? I don't even have beer to blame for this particular bad decision.

By: DU

DU — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:59:28 -0800

Count me among those understanding how it could take this long. One beer is equivalent to about a shot.5 of vodka. Spread out over 5 hours, you'd be pretty tipsy but why would you be walking a mere 2.5 mph? Or maybe the arrow points the other way. "Holy crap am I drunk. I better slow down so I don't need to drink again for a while."

By: josher71

josher71 — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:02:46 -0800

Sometimes doing stupid shit in the name of doing stupid shit is fun. This is a great anecdote for him and he seems like a fun dude to hang out with.

By: josher71

josher71 — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:05:20 -0800

I remember when I had my first beer This reminds me of when people call New Years or St. Patrick's Day "Amateur Night", as if somehow drinking for years stops people from acting stupid when they are drunk.

By: Humanzee

Humanzee — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:13:14 -0800

Those calorie estimates are probably inflated. Most tables list total calories burned (i.e. the entry for calories burned watching TV would still be substantial) not excess calories burned. A formula I found for excess calories (from "Energy Expenditure of Walking and Running", Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise, Cameron et al, Dec. 2004.) walking: 0.30 kcal per mile per pound (718 kcal for 180 lb walker on half-marathon) running: 0.63 kcal per mile per pound (1510 kcal for 180 lb jogger on half-marathon) I think a lot of sluggishness and illness could be attributed just to the volume of fluids. One beer per mile is a lot of volume in your stomach, I don't know if I could hold that down while running. The salt balance is probably pretty bad too, and I'd guess that would contribute to a sick feeling and wanting to slow down.

By: educatedslacker

educatedslacker — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:16:36 -0800

Remember, you bite it eventually, no matter what, so you might as well gun the engine and do something stupid once in a while. No points for a pristine carcass. And they have a whole class of awards for that kind of thing!

By: mikeh

mikeh — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:23:40 -0800

This reminds me of when people call New Years or St. Patrick's Day "Amateur Night", as if somehow drinking for years stops people from acting stupid when they are drunk. There's a difference between acting stupid, and acting stupid in a way that brings you later shame. Professional drinkers have lost shame, you see. Well, that and the fact that people who regularly drink or go to bars usually don't vomit all over, fall down, or drink lots of shots in a row.

By: bearwife

bearwife — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:34:28 -0800

I don't think he can accurately say he ran this event, and actually I don't think it is true that he walked it either. I am not sure just what to call a 13.1 mile staggering and reeling event, in fact. I do know that I want to compete with this guy about as much as I want to enter a hot dog eating contest.

By: sharkfu

sharkfu — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:41:35 -0800

re: Calories Wolfram Alpha has a new calorie calculator that's pretty cool, although I had to guess at the guy's age, height, and weight.

By: Decani

Decani — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:44:02 -0800

Feh. Lightweights. The Otley Run. When I did that, way back in the seventies, it was eleven miles (mainly uphill the way we did it back then - Leeds to Otley), sixteen pubs, a pint in each. and that's a British 20-ouncer, not one of those baby US pints. :-)

By: giraffe

giraffe — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:44:17 -0800

I could neither run (stagger?) 13 miles sober nor drink 13 beers in under 6 hours, so I tip my bonnet to this dude.

By: rtha

rtha — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:47:42 -0800

I thought this was pretty funny when I read it a couple of weeks ago...until I got to the part where he describes his ~~run~~ stagger across the Golden Gate bridge - in the road. Dude. No.

By: HuronBob

HuronBob — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:52:26 -0800

I want to be there when, while applying for a job he really wants, his future employer casually googles him during the interview, sees this link, scans it, and then looks him in the eye and says "Really?"

By: naju

naju — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:57:53 -0800

I don't care how impressive this is, it's giving me douche chills. Future Tucker Max?

By: Electric Dragon

Electric Dragon — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:05:12 -0800

This reminds me of a story David Bedford tells about the first ever London Marathon:

David Bedford's performance in the first London Marathon, didn't exactly befit one of the greatest distance runners of the 1970's. But this was 1981 and the former 10,000m world record holder had hung up his racing shoes to become a nightclub owner. A bloke at the bar threw down the gauntlet in the early hours of the day of the race, betting £200 that Dave couldn't get around 26 miles. David took the bet, switched from beer to cocktails (hoping the fruit juice would help) and later went on to fuel up with a curry. In the Indian restaurant he picked up the phone and woke the race director, his mate Chris Brasher, to ask for a place. [...] Everything went well until he got halfway around. At about mile 14 he was caught on camera being sick into a drain. "I threw up a couple of times," he tells me. "Actually, I was in all sorts of trouble. I won't go into further details, but let's just say it was the sort of the trouble you'd expect after half a dozen pints, several Pina Coladas and a curry at four o'clock that morning."

By: vapidave

vapidave — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 09:36:51 -0800

One beautiful Seattle summer weekend I caught a ride with some friends to a lakeside party about 45 miles to the NE. Party was a verb way back then and I drank my usual amount of beer, i.e. a staggering amount. There are 2 bridges that cross Lake Washington, I-520 to the North and I-90 about 4 miles across the water to the South. At about 9:00 PM it came time to head home. To deposit me at my house my friends would have had to drive on a lot of side streets after dropping me off so we decided they would just drop me off at the more northern I-520 and I would catch the bus home across the bridge. I exited the car at the bus stop near the end of the bridge and I went and checked the schedule to make sure the bus was still running and it was for a couple more hours as I knew from experience. I sat down at the bus stop and no doubt lit a cigarette and sat there while it slowly dawned on me something was wrong - there was no traffic. I walked toward the crest of the hill where I could see the bridge and as I approached the first sight that was revealed to me over the crest of the hill were the yellow flashing lights on top of the service vehicles. Fine, the bridge is closed, I'll just ask the guys to walk by, cross the bridge and be home in couple of hours. I approached in the glare of the lights and talked, sort of, to the guy from the DOT. I asked if I could cross, he said no, I asked why not, he said - correctly as I looked closer - a section of the bridge was missing, I'll swim I said, I'm calling the police he responded. Google maps shows the shortest route between where I was and where I then lived to be 15.3 miles. I assure you that is not the route I took as I meandered the dark suburbs of Medina, Bellevue, through the Beaux Arts village to the E Channel Bridge, across Mercer Island and then the I-90 bridge as people drove past giving a mocking honk of the horn. I walked purposefully but still it was getting light when I climbed the stairs to my house six and a half hours after first starting my little (I later guessed) 19 mile stroll. Despite the embarrassment it hadn't been that bad. It would have been nice though if, for the walk, I had some beer.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:04:14 -0800

Man, sometimes I think I understand mefites and then comes along and I feel like I'm on my own little island an AWESOME island

By: Ouisch

Ouisch — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:11:37 -0800

This reminds me of when people call New Years or St. Patrick's Day "Amateur Night", as if somehow drinking for years stops people from acting stupid when they are drunk. That's really not what I meant, but okay. Though it is actually probably true that drinking for years allows you to know your limit, and not drink to the point of acting stupidly. It doesn't always have to be about building up a tolerance through years of alcohol abuse. Or maybe that's just me.

By: Ouisch

Ouisch — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:15:24 -0800

For the record, I LOVE beer and I drink pretty regularly. But I do dislike sloppy drunkenness, both in myself and other people. Makes me uncomfortable, for whatever reason. But shine on, you crazy puke-covered diamond. Do your thing, I ain't stoppin you.

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:15:33 -0800

So he walked 13 miles over 5 hours while drinking? Half the bartenders on the planet do this every day. Without puking.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:31:56 -0800

This fellow did it all wrong. Stross has pointed out some of the methodological limitations inherent in his approach, but let me add this crucial shortcoming to the list: A beer a mile means when you get to the 1 mile marker, you stop, whip out a beer and chug it. Then you continue running. Repeat at every mile marker.

By: dolface

dolface — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:35:58 -0800

For his 30th birthday a friend of mine had what he called a "30x30x30" party: 30 pints and 30 miles in 30 hours. There was a 1-mile loop trail outside his house that we used for the track, and of the 17 people who took the challenge only one finished the whole thing. It wasn't pretty.

By: hal_c_on

hal_c_on — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:47:36 -0800

Would anybody be interested in attempting to break this dudes 5+ hour mark as a metafilter activity? Memail me or snark qbout your Herculean tasks compared to this guy, and we can start the logistics of the run...

By: mannequito

mannequito — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:13:30 -0800

This made me think of the Berlin drinking game Drink the Ring.

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:47:20 -0800

mannequito, that's 27 beers in 13 1/2 hours. I don't think that's actually possible. Or is it?! *books flight to Berlin*

By: astrobiophysican

astrobiophysican — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 12:48:16 -0800

This research has already been done ad nausea by thousands of people like him at another San Francisco run called Bay to Breakers.

By: mikeh

mikeh — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:06:03 -0800

MetaFilter: the sort of the trouble you'd expect after half a dozen pints, several Pina Coladas and a curry at four o'clock that morning

By: Ogre Lawless

Ogre Lawless — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:28:00 -0800

This research has already been done ad nausea by thousands of people like him at another San Francisco run called Bay to Breakers. Narf narf, Bay-to-Breakers -- time to think again 'cause you're out of the loop. Homeboy is doing this to push the bounds as 2011 is supposed to be a dry year for the Breakers as their major sponsor pulled out after not wanting to be associated with the bad public image of sponsoring a parade of alcohol abusers. They've tried this before and bowed to pressure from the "runners" though half or more of the particpants are non-payers. Facing a non-event has appeared to stiffen their resolve though the apocalypse could be again unleashed by a more party-friendly sponsor! The neighbors are, as one would expect, not entirely pleased with the byproduct of scores of thousands of drunks traversing their front lawns. Not all of them apparently have good judgement, or control over their drinking or bodily products. These people live Sunday under siege...

By: Brittanie

Brittanie — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 21:24:20 -0800

Effin' amateur. My running club does this every Sunday*. *Beer mile this Friday at Memorial Park. Join us if you live in/near Houston.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:54:47 -0800

The neighbors are, as one would expect, not entirely pleased with the byproduct of scores of thousands of drunks traversing their front lawns. Not all of them apparently have good judgement, or control over their drinking or bodily products. These people live Sunday under siege... I know that in practice, I would hate being one of the houses along this route... But in theory, the though of sitting on my lawn in a folding chair, with a high powered powerwasher in hand to deter any possible lawn-defilers, seems like it would be a fun way to spend a Sunday once a year. Only in theory though.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:57:16 -0800

"the *thought* of sitting on my lawn"... Sigh...

By: BeerUniverse

BeerUniverse — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:14:17 -0800

Aren't you supposed to drink the beer after the half-marathon?