Chugging and running at Cayman Beer Mile

By Cayman Sports Buzz
- Tweet
- Pin It
Updated: 4 October 2016

On Saturday, an event that at first glance appeared to just be an afternoon of fun proved to be a very charitable undertaking.

Make no mistake, there was competitive racing.

FN Sports hosted the Cayman Beer Mile, where runners had to chug a can of Caybrew for each of the 400-metre laps on a course just outside Calico Jacks. That’s one beer at a time and turning the can upside down over their head to show they have finished drinking before heading back to the race course.

Approximately 100 participants came out for the event. Initially, the plan was to donate a part of the proceeds to Cayman Islands Humane Society but the ante was upped after competitive spirits took over.

After Michael Testori won the initial competition (dressed as a caveman, we should note), event staff – most of whom are distance runners – decided to challenge each other with a wager on the line. A bet that was $1,000 being donated to a charity of choice was eventually bumped up to $2,000 then to $4,000 if Testori, who had already completed the course, won the showdown race.

Testori showed up as a caveman but there was nothing prehistoric about his running.

In the end, with Testori unable to keep up with the fresher legs of Derek Larner who was timing the event until the final showdown, $2,000 was the final figure to be donated to another charity, which was still undecided at the time of writing.

Costumes added to the fun.

Larner’s time of eight minutes 37.76 seconds was just about a second faster than Testori’s first run of 8:38.64. He then ran 9:38.29, good for fourth overall behind Dale Avery’s time of 8:51.89 in the showdown race.

Kendall Ebanks, whose company, FN Sports, trains athletes for endurance events and general fitness said it was a special feeling to know they were able to help the community after an afternoon of fun.

“It’s always about giving back. We work hard and we do what we do. We train and we commit our everything but it’s always a pleasant feeling inside to know you’re giving back something that is helping. You can’t get a better feeling than giving back. There’s just something special about giving back,” he told CaymanSportsBuzz.com.

Kendall Ebanks of FN Sports.

Asked about why FN Sports held the event, Ebanks said some club members initially did it as a way to wind down after an intense day of cycling.

“We could not make it a brunch because we’re too tired…so we decided to do a ‘beer mile’. We made it a small, private event. It was so good that people saw it on YouTube and said they wanted to be a part of it. This year, we made it a public event because so many people reached out and so many people wanted to be a part of it that we made it a public event,” he said.