Canadian runner James Nielsen may have complicated things for Nick Symmonds’ Beer Mile World Record attempt. On Sunday, the California Runners founder and former UC San Diego runner ran the world’s first sub-five minute beer mile for a new World Record. The previous record was 5:09.0 by Jim Finlayson, according to Beermile.com.
 


The beer mile requires a runner to drink a can of beer for every lap on a 400-meter track for a mile. The beer must be 5.0 or higher in alcohol concentration and drank from a 12 ounce can that has not been altered. Four beers consumed for four laps. No vomiting permitted.

Neilson unofficially split 63 seconds for his first and second laps. His slowest lap was his second as he ran 68 seconds, but recovered with a 67 in his third lap. It did not take Nielsen longer than 12 seconds to drink any of his beers. His fastest chug was seven seconds for his first beer. He split 8, 12 and 9 seconds for the rest of the drinks in the race against the clock.

Our own Ryan Sterner clocked Nielsen's actual mile in approximately 4:21. Symmonds holds a personal best of 4:00.21 from last year's Kansas Relays. 

"Incredible beer splits!" Symmonds told Flotrack. "Huge congrats to him. I guess I better start training."

Nielsen was a two-time NCAA Division III champion in the 5,000-meter run. He went on to finish his education at Stanford and ran for the Nike farm team. In 2007, he won the Eugene Marathon and qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials. He would finish 50th in New York.  

Fun fact: Nielsen has ties to Flotrack and Flocasts as he previously was a director of sales for Ooyala, which is the video technology company that all our content is uploaded to.

In the past, Nielsen has dressed up as Tim Lincecum and Jim Harbaugh at Bay to Breakers.

Symmonds blogged about aiming for the World Record earlier in the year. He has yet to open his 2014 outdoor track season after running 1:47.29 in the heats of the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot. 

Chris Chavez is a staff writer for Flotrack. He once beat Joey Fatone of NSYNC in a half-marathon. Feel free to to reach him with any questions, comments, or feedback on Twitter or by email.