McNellie's Pub Run Race Recap

Saturday was the annual McNellie's Pub Run in Tulsa.  McNellie's is a great beer pub that hosts a 4 mile race and optional Guinness Challenge.  The Guinness Challenge includes three beer stops along the 4 mile race route and at each stop you drink approx. 8 oz. of Guinness.  Some friends and I headed over for the race but only two of our group were brave enough to take on the Guinness!

Not your typical race water stop!

The race takes place in downton Tulsa and is hosted by Fleet Feet and McNellie's.  The start line is in front of the Fleet Feet store on 2nd and the finish is one block over in front of McNellie's.  There were lots of runners wearing kilts and even a few in costumes.  Temps were mid-50's and sunny for the race start at 3PM.  The start was a little funny...there were no loud speakers or count down just all of a sudden a big boom!


AJ, JP, Britt, Me, Jonathan

For our group, AJ and Jonathan were racing while Britt and JP were doing the Guinness Challenge and I was just socializing with Britt and JP.  After the race start, Britt and I settled into a comfy pace and got to chatting and laughing about the crazy Reno 911 people running near us.  The first beer stop was around the 2 mile mark and there was a huge crowd standing around drinking beer. JP waited for us after drinking his beer and then decided to hang with us for the rest of the race.

Britt was brave enough to get a picture with the Reno 911 duo!

We left the beer stop and made our way towards the BOK Center.  JP, Britt, and I are all running the Route 66 Half Marathon next weekend so we discussed the fact that Brad Paisley is playing concert the night before our race.  Next up, we were running along and a woman randomly stumbled towards the ground.  Being that it was a drinking race, we were slightly concerned...until she simply reached for her toes and took a stretch break!

The second beer stop was after an overpass and just down from Cain's Ballroom.  As we were hanging out there talking and telling stories, AJ and Jonathan came back from finishing and met up with us.  We got started back on our pace and headed towards the finish line.  The final beer stop is just in front of the finish line so while JP and Britt drank their final beers, I ran across and finished.  That last beer seemed a little rough for Britt but she got it down and finished strong. 

Just after the finish line they had beer trucks and the atmosphere was like a street party.  We hung out drinking beer until we couldn't handle the cold anymore then we headed into McNellie's for some good pub food and more fun.  Overall, a fun afternoon road trip! The only complaint was that for those racing, the times were based on gun times and not chip time so while AJ's chip time was 1st in her age group she placed 2nd due to gun time.  Kind of odd but prizes were only for top 3 and not age groups.