CLEVELAND, Ohio - Elizabeth Herndon's most intense training for her big race came over the span of a handful of nights in her own kitchen. The assistant professor of geology at Kent State went through careful and meticulous preparation with her husband, performing a series of trials to determine what would be her best course of action.

That is to say, Herndon and her husband had a handful of "chugfests" in their kitchen to determine that New Belgium Fat Tire would be her beer of choice in the Beer Mile.

And on Dec. 3, 2014, Herndon combined her natural chugging abilities with her speedy running skills to set a world record in the Beer Mile Championships, completing the event in 6 minutes, 17.8 seconds. She broke the previous world record by 10.84 seconds.

The Beer Mile is so eloquently and simply described on beermile.com as:

"Drink a beer, run a quarter mile.

Drink a beer, run a quarter mile.

Drink a beer, run a quarter mile.

Drink a beer, run a quarter mile.

Four beers, one mile."

"It's kind of an underground event, but it's pretty popular," Herndon said.

Herndon always has been a fast runner. She competed in 5 and 10Ks at Washington University in St Louis. She has a personal-best of 5:03 in the mile. She continued her distance-running career through grad school, and now as a professor at Kent State, where she has continued to run a few half-marathons and marathons each year and trains with Cleveland Elite Development.

And a few times, she even attempted the "beer mile" with some friends. It was all for fun, but Herndon discovered something remarkable: she was really good at it.

"I think a lot of it is natural ability," Herndon said.

She was referring to the chugging aspect of the beer mile, of course.

It took some trial and error to discover which beer worked best for Herndon, however. Her first beer mile, she drank Yuengling. Then, she tried Molson and Blue Moon.

"That was pretty bad," she admitted.

The third time she attempted a beer mile, she drank PBR.

"Which is also pretty bad," she said.

Still, Herndon ran a beer mile in 6:48 - good enough to rank as the fourth-best time among women on beermile.com.

Which is why when the first Flotrack Beer Mile Championships were held in Austin, Texas, in December, Herndon qualified to run in the elite race.

And that's when Herndon went to work with training. Or, at least selecting which beer she would drink. Rules of the event (yes, there are rules!) stipulated that the beer had to be at least 5 percent ABV. She tried chugging Fat Tire in her kitchen, and it worked.

"It's something I thought I could manage to drink every lap without gagging a little bit," she said. "It's pretty smooth."

Lest you scoff at the ability it takes to complete a beer mile, consider this: cyclist Lance Armstrong's attempt at completing a beer mile in November to qualify for the world championships ended in abort. Armstrong lasted just one lap before he was heard saying, "That was not what I expected."

Herndon knew what to expect in Austin, and was actually the first off the line (after chugging her first beer, of course). She never dropped out of the top four spots, and in the final lap, she not only chugged quickly, but ran pretty speedily, too.

"The woman who came in second was a really good chugger, but she wasn't as fast as me," Herndon explained. "The next two people who came in, they were faster, but they had a really hard time chugging their last beer, so I think it took them a long time to finish that."

Herndon? She was the total package - chugger and runner in one.

Her efforts garnered $5,000 in prize money, the glory of being the Beer Mile Champion of the World - and unofficially the coolest professor at Kent State.

"It's pretty awesome," she admitted. "It's such a fun event, and it's an event that people really get excited about and have a good time doing and watching. It's just really cool to set a world record in anything."