Luggin’ & Chuggin’: Yes, the Finnish Wife Carrying Festival and the Beer Classic Are for Real
I’m not a big drinker (at least not since college). It always amuses me how some people want to pair beer drinking with everything. Like watching the Oscars. Take a drink when a movie you haven’t seen wins an award. Take two drinks when …, Finish your beer when …, etc. I played a game of softball once where you had to bat with a full beer in one hand and if you got on base you had to finish said beer before you crossed home plate, or the run didn’t count.
I read about a Finnish Wife Carrying Festival where a husband has to negotiate a 253.5-meter course, complete with land and water obstacles, while carrying his wife on his back. Dropping or “bouncing” the wife incurs a 15-second penalty. (If I drop my wife, I’m most likely incurring more than a 15-second penalty.) The prize to the winner is their wife’s weight in beer. My wife doesn’t weigh a lot, so I feel I could do pretty well in the race, but that would also reduce my beer prize. Maybe we can fill her pockets with nickels.
Anyway, the reason I was thinking about all of this is because I was reading about the Beer Mile World Classic. This is an actual thing. “Once a year, the most elite beer milers across the world gather to compete in the world’s premier drinking event,” states the promotional material. There are some rules. The race is run on a regulation 400-meter track. A beer must be drunk at the beginning of each lap. Four laps, four beers by the end of the race.
I have heard of people drinking beer after a run supposedly to help them rehydrate. I never really bought into that one. I did find a study in The Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, “Effects of a moderate intake of beer on markers of hydration after exercise in the heat.” It basically had a large group of men perform less than an hour of intense dehydrating exercise, rehydrated them with beer or water, then compared a variety of biometrics. They concluded “a moderate beer [regular] intake has no deleterious effects on markers of hydration in active individuals.” Not a ringing endorsement for beer rehydration but not much of a condemnation, either. Sounds promising. Maybe we should talk to Corey Bellemore. Corey holds the record in the Beer Mile at 4 minutes, 28 seconds. That’s 4 minutes and 28 seconds to run a mile and finish four beers. I would have trouble finishing four beers in that time, we don’t even need to talk about the mile.
According to some sources, you can feel the effects of alcohol in as little as 10 minutes, with it usually hitting its peak after 30-90 minutes. I wonder if Corey was even feeling the effects or if he had finished the race before the alcohol even kicked in. Is Corey running on an empty stomach? How much training was done for the beer portion of the event? He seems very proficient in both aspects.
Another study I found, titled “Alcohol Ingestion Impairs Maximal Post-Exercise Rates of Myofibrillar Protein Synthesis following a Single Bout of Concurrent Training,” put physically active males through a strength training workout followed by continuous high intensity cycling intervals. (There seem to be a lot of studies on beer and exercise, it makes me wonder if we could be using our resources a little more intelligently.) The test subjects were then given a recovery drink consisting of a variety of things, some including whey protein, some including carbs, and some including alcohol. Muscle biopsies were then taken at intervals post-workout. They concluded “that alcohol ingestion suppresses the anabolic response in skeletal muscle and may therefore impair recovery and adaptation to training and/or subsequent performance.” That doesn’t sound great. So basically, a few beers post exercise won’t really hurt in terms of hydration (won’t help either). However, if you are trying to increase muscle mass, a few beers may not be the best idea as they may impair muscle repair and growth.
There are plenty of great places to enjoy a post-workout beer here on Seven Mile Beach, so if having a few beers after your workout gets you to go on a run, I say go for it. It’s not a bad reward. Just don’t pretend it’s something it’s not.
Now that I think of it, I’m not sure the Finnish Wife Carrying Festival really counts as a drinking game/sport, as you’re not drinking during competition. Beer just happens to be the reward. Can you imagine if there was required drinking during competition? There would be a lot of 15-second penalties.
