Running News Daily

There are fast miles… and then there are legendary miles — the kind where oxygen competes with carbonation, and athletic brilliance collides with controlled chaos. In 2025, Canada’s beer-mile king, Corey Bellemore, once again rewrote the record books, storming to an astonishing 4:27.10 at the Beer Mile World Classic in Lisbon — the fastest performance of his career, achieved while consuming four full beers along the way.

Yes, four beers. No shortcuts. No mercy.

For the uninitiated, the beer mile is not merely a novelty — it is a bizarrely demanding hybrid of elite running physiology and stomach-stretching courage. The rules are simple but unforgiving: before each of the four laps, the athlete must down a 355 ml beer (minimum 5% alcohol). Spill it? Penalty. Throw up? Penalty. Hesitate? The stopwatch does not care. Bellemore averaged roughly seven seconds per beer, before unleashing laps hovering around 60 seconds each — a combination that sounds medically questionable but athletically extraordinary.

What makes the feat even more impressive is that Bellemore is not some party trick specialist. He is a legitimate endurance machine — a sub-four-minute miler with the aerobic engine of a Half Ironman competitor. In other words, he possesses the rare ability to sprint while his stomach debates filing a formal complaint.

His relationship with the beer mile borders on mythological. He first seized the world record back in 2016 and has spent nearly a decade lowering his own benchmark, like a scientist refining a volatile experiment. In 2018, he actually ran an even faster 4:24, only for it to be disqualified because the bottle contained excessive foam — proof that in this sport, even bubbles can break hearts.

Then came 2023, when Bellemore casually ran 4:30 wearing only one shoe, because apparently symmetry is optional when you are built differently from the rest of humanity.

There is also the delicious subplot involving Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Bellemore jokingly hinted that he might retire — but only after Ingebrigtsen beats him. Considering the Norwegian star once clocked 5:22 at his own bachelor party, the throne remains firmly Canadian for now. The challenge has been issued, the gauntlet thrown, and somewhere in the future a showdown may yet brew.

Beyond the humor and spectacle lies something genuinely remarkable: the beer mile demands precision under absurd conditions. Athletes must control breathing, manage carbonation pressure, maintain coordination, and still produce near-elite track speed. It is part physiology experiment, part circus act, and part celebration of human weirdness.

And Bellemore? He remains its undisputed maestro — the only man capable of turning hops and barley into horsepower.

Because running a mile in 4:27 is impressive.

Running it with four beers sloshing in your stomach?

That is pure athletic comedy… performed at world-class speed. Chug beer and run!