Meet The Runner Who Ran 475 Miles Across The Canadian Border To Run A Beer Mile

Mark Dowdle clocked a new PB and met a local legend.

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Jessy Carveth
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Jessy is our Senior News Editor, pro cyclist and former track and field athlete with a Bachelors degree in Kinesiology.

Senior News Editor

Mark Dowdle, a runner from Chicago, Illinois, recently completed an impressive 475-mile run, arriving in Windsor, Ontario, on Friday afternoon. His goal? To participate in the Beer Mile World Classic at the University of Windsor on Saturday.

Dowdle’s road to Windsor began on July 31. It was part of his personal running challenge, where he celebrates the end of each month with a beer mile. When Dowdle discovered that the beer mile world record holder, Corey Bellemore, hails from Essex County in Canada (the county in which the Beer Mile World Classic would be held), he decided to make the trek to meet him and join the local event.

Speaking to CTV on his motivation, Dowdle said, “I run so I can drink beer. And this is the extent I’ll go to be able to drink four beers. It’s funny, I’ve stopped at pubs and bars along the way, and every one of these guys and gals at the bar is like, I love that idea. I would do that. Let’s just remove the running aspect to it. Like, fair enough.”

Dowdle arrived in Windsor in time to compete in the beer mile, extensively documenting his journey on Instagram along the way. He clocked a new personal best of 5:51:57 (which is already pretty impressive for a standard mile) and placed second in the “Legends and Emerging Beer Milers” division.

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Jessy Carveth

Senior News Editor

Jessy is our Senior News Editor and a former track and field athlete with a Bachelors degree in Kinesiology. Jessy is often on-the-road acting as Marathon Handbook's roving correspondent at races, and is responsible for surfacing all the latest news stories from the running world across our website, newsletter, socials, and podcast.. She is currently based in Europe where she trains and competes as a professional cyclist (and trail runs for fun!).

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