To win the Circle Brewing 0.5K Micro Marathon, it’s not enough to run fast. You also must have a really smooth stride.

In the 1,640-foot race, which travels a figure-8-shaped course (a little over a quarter mile) through the Austin brewery’s parking lot, racers carry two full cups of the brewery’s Falkor Experimental Wheat. Winning requires reaching the finish line first without spilling any of your cold brew past a line etched slightly above the halfway point on each of your clear plastic cups.

It’s a feat tricky enough that about one-third of the nearly 200 participants get disqualified, estimates brewery founder and president Ben Sabel. During the fourth-annual event this past weekend, that included Sabel himself and about eight others in a heat reserved for brewery staffers and volunteers.

The biggest quandary for many competitors is how to carry the cups. Some, like 31-year-old Austin runner Laura Fox, use what she calls the T-rex grip—arms bent and elbows glued to their sides, holding the cups around the middle as you would when drinking them. Others go for “shock absorbers,” stretching their arms straight out away from their bodies to reduce splashing.

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This year’s winner was Chris Myers. The 26-year-old finished in a time of 1 minute, 13 seconds by employing the claw, an overhand grip encircling his cup from above. The key, he told Runner’s World afterward, was running a slower but steady pace, keeping on his toes with his upper body fluid to minimize slosh.

Micro Marathon
Alexa Gonzalez Wagner
Chris Myers, 26, wins the Micro Marathon in a time of 1 minute, 13 seconds.

He sat in fifth or sixth place rounding the first curve, but began picking people off as they slowed down to conserve precious liquid. In many ways, it’s like the marathon, he says: “You can’t go out too hot.”

Second-place overall finisher John Sorkness, 29, employed the opposite strategy to win his heat in 1:30—starting out quickly to avoid bumping into other runners, which would result in spillage, then slowing down closer to the finish. He also uses an overhand grip, which he calls the “eagle claw”—and an altered gait, a combination he arrived at after training in his street with cups of water.

Micro Marathon
Alexa Gonzalez Wagner
John Sorkness, right, maintains his beer during the Circle Brewing 0.5K Micro Marathon in Austin, Texas.

“You can’t run just standing straight up, you get too much rock with your arms,” he says “So you almost have to run in a squatting position to absorb as much of the impact of your legs as possible.”

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The method worked for Sorkness last year as well, when he won overall. But it was a critical mistake he made a few days beforehand that may have cost him the repeat, he believes. An aggressive leg day at the gym left him sore, making the hunkered-down position he’d practiced more challenging.

Sabel says the brewery started the event as a fun way to bring together craft beer and running. (He used to log miles daily before developing a foot issue, and his fiancee runs half and full marathons.) Sabel also wanted to raise funds for charity—this year, $1,500 went to the Sustainable Food Center, which improves Austinites’ access to healthy, local food.

In Texas, breweries can’t hold events that promote drinking in excess, he notes, making more traditional beer-mile type races verboten. Besides, carrying the beers instead of chugging them keeps things more family friendly. This year’s competitors included a pregnant woman who ran carrying a young child in one hand, beers in the other. Others ran with dogs or in costume. Last year, someone competed towing a pig on a leash.

MIcro Marathon
Alexa Gonzalez Wagner
Runners try to avoid spillage during the Circle Brewing 0.5K Micro Marathon in Austin, Texas.

And along with a 0.5K sticker and shirt, participants can also consume what’s left of their beers once they cross the finish line. “They poured it right before the race, so it was still cold and carbonated,” Sorkness says. “No beer tastes sweeter than one you’ve just sprinted with.”

Headshot of Cindy Kuzma
Cindy Kuzma
Contributing Writer

Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.