How fast could you run a chocolate milk mile?

Think of it as the beer mile’s more wholesome younger sibling: the annual chocolate milk mile championships were held at Pinckney Middle School in Pinckney, Mich. on Friday, June 27, and for the second year in a row, Connor Vachon of Hope College in Holland, Mich., broke his own world record (set last year at 4:38.2), running 4:37.6.

This chocolate milk mile event (there are others, but probably none as serious as this one) was established in 2019 by Quinn Cullen, who was a freshman at Brighton High School (just east of Pinckney) at the time. The rules are simple: within 20 metres of the start/finish line of each of their four laps of the track, runners must down a 12-oz. (one and a half cups) of chocolate milk–that’s 48 ounces (almost a litre and a half). Upon finishing each cup, they must turn the cup upside down over their head to prove it’s empty. (And no, they can’t just dump half the chocolate milk on their head.) It’s OK to dribble some milk down their chin as they chug, but excessive dribblers are disqualified after one warning. 

Runners also are not allowed to throw up before the final lap, and they may walk only in the 20-metre chugging zone, referred to as “the kitchen” (and no, this isn’t pickleball).

“I ran a meme Instagram account for [Brighton] high school’s cross country team, and I thought that it’d make some great content,” Cullen says of the event’s early days. “Super casual, only 13 finishers, but it was the start of something amazing.”

Inspired by the beer mile

Naturally, the event was inspired by the beer mile: “I’d seen Corey Bellemore run stupid fast in one, and that really got me amped,” Cullen says. “Corey actually just commented on one of my recent CMM posts, saying, ‘not bad.'”

Since 2022, the race has had both an open division and an elite division, with Vachon (a former Jenison Senior High School student, about two hours west of Brighton) winning that year in a new world best of 4:44.4; he didn’t race in 2023, but won again in 2024, which was the first time the race had an east vs. west (sides of the state of Michigan) team competition. The race also expanded to include college runners.

Canada’s Corey Bellemore and Jim Finlayson take wins at Beer Mile World Classic

The “world record” is unofficial. “It’s just the fastest time we can find anywhere on the Internet,” Cullen says. “The official beer mile website used to have a section for chocolate milk miles, which is where we saw the 4:44 time,” he adds, but that site has not updated the chocolate milk records. Cullen even tried to get Guinness World Records interested, but has not been successful. “Unless someone can prove us wrong, I’m calling that the world record,” he declares.

Cullen has a theory about why Vachon is so good at the chocolate milk mile: “No one I’ve ever met loves chocolate milk more than him,” Cullen told Canadian Running. “He drinks 3/4 of a gallon of chocolate milk after nearly every hard run.”

The event almost got shut down for good in 2023, when Cullen sneaked a video about a past event into Brighton’s announcements. (“There was a lot of slow-motion puking,” Cullen says. “A lot of faculty weren’t happy.”) Even though it was only two weeks before the race, the school put the kibosh on it, so they had to scramble to find another track; luckily, the school in Pinckney came through, and the event has been held there ever since.

“The goal of this event is nothing else other than to bring joy to the people that compete/attend,” the race’s website says. “Although it may get competitive, this is truly all about fun.”