Monday, January 9, 2012

VO2 Beer Mile



Crazy fun weekend full of exciting events!

Started off with the 3rd race of 6 in the 2 mile Winter Grand Prix Series (post to follow) Saturday morning bright and early, followed by a pancake breakfast with the high schoolers, a nice little nap, and then off to the track again for race #2 for the day! The BEER MILE

One of my triathlon training buddies, Gerry, invited me out to do the beer mile with his team. I hadnt done a beer mile in probably 3 years now and had been craving to do one recently so this worked out perfectly.

I showed up and was a little bit nervous because I hadnt done a beer mile in so long, so i was questioning my abilities, but i had nothing to worry about, and in fact even surprised myself quite a bit! Below is the full footage of the race full of bright commentary, terribly outrageous costumes, and one heck of a good time!


Overall, the race broke down better than I had expected, but being the athlete that I am, I am always striving for more! So I sat down for some film study and this is what I concluded. My splits were as follows:
  • :09 (First beer down)
  • 1:16 (First lap run)
  • :26 (Second beer down)
  • 1:23 (Second lap run)
  • :23 (Third beer down)
  • 1:24 (Third lap run)
  • :26 (Fourth beer down)
  • 1:13 (Fourth lap run)
  • 1:24 (Cumulative beer drinking time)
  • 5:16 (Cumulative run split)
  • 6:40 (Total cumulative time)
After seeing the splits and breaking down the film, I know there is a lot of room for improvement, and I have given myself the hefty goal of breaking 6 mins someday!

The first thing i noticed is that I can drink that first beer faster...for a dude to beat me drinking with a bottle shows there is time to be had there. Second, my run splits were quite slow. I went in with the mentality that I was going to focus solely on the drinking and run comfortably so that I could get the beers down quick. It worked for me here, but no doubt i can cut off 10-15 seconds running alone. Third thing i noticed was that I was taking too long to finish the beers. I need to get it down where I finish at least 3/4 of the beer on my initial chug so that I can catch my breath and get it down on the second chug and be out of there. I realized i burned at least 10-15 seconds catching my breath and waiting to finish the last 2 sips on a 3rd chug. NOT ACCEPTABLE! :) Finally, I need to bring the last lap home in under 70 seconds. I believe that running the race earlier in the day led to my legs not being as fresh as they could have been, but all excuses aside, I know im capable of more!

Well, after all that I set my own PR in the beer mile by 25 seconds (disputed by some who doubt my previous PR wasnt 7:05) posting up a 6:40. Gotta keep up the drinking and the running and i will be under 6 in the very near future :)



And more footage from the inside of the track!

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