James Nielsen, of Novato, California, boasts some impressive running credentials. At the University of California San Diego, the 34-year-old Bay Area native and father of two was a two-time NCAA champion in the 5,000 meters. In 2007, he won the Eugene Marathon and qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials, finishing 50th in New York.

But no record has sparked the kind of attention than the one Nielsen set on Sunday, April 27, when he broke the world record and set the first sub-five-minute time in the beer mile, a perhaps less prestigious (although still extraordinary) feat of athleticism in which a competitor must finish a 12-ounce beer before each of the four laps on a 400-meter track, with penalties for throwing up.

With a time of 4:57.1, Nielsen’s name is now atop the standings at BeerMile.com, which is viewed in the running community as the authority on the event.

Nielsen’s wife, Mimi, a three-time NCAA All-American runner herself, videotaped the event and congratulated her husband in awed disbelief as he finished his last lap, bent over, and gasped, “That was really painful.”

The video has since gone viral, accumulating more than 1,074,00 views on YouTube at the time of this posting and media reports on ESPN, TMZ.com, USA Today, and other outlets.

“Most people were impressed that I could drink the beers so fast, but I think [my wife] was more impressed that I got myself back in good enough running shape to run a 4:20 mile with a full stomach and cramps on both sides,” Nielsen said in an interview with Runner’s World.

Nielsen retired from competitive running following the Olympic Trials in 2008, but said the beer mile, which he had done several times as a collegiate runner, had “been in the back of [his] mind for a while now, to be honest.”

With the 59th anniversary of Roger Bannister’s completion of a world-record sub-four-minute mile last May, Nielsen was inspired to set a record of his own by running the first sub-five-minute beer mile. The original plan was to go for the record on May 6, which will mark the 60th anniversary of Bannister’s accomplishment.

But when Nielsen saw quotes from Olympian Nick Symmonds (and Runner’s World columnist) about his own desire to break the beer mile record, Nielsen became even more motivated, fearing that Symmonds would beat him to the punch as the first sub-fiver. So he adopted a training regimen to slim down, shave off some upper body weight, and increase his interval training and speed work.

And then, there was learning the science behind carbonation.

“There are 2.6 liters of carbon dioxide in one can of beer,” said Nielsen, an executive for a San Francisco-based tech firm. “You multiply that by four, you’re looking at about 10 liters of gas in your stomach, which is completely unmanageable. That’s why everyone starts to throw up or belch often, to get that gas out of there. What you want to do is warm up the can of beer to get the gas on top of the liquid, so that when you open it, you release as much as you can.”

In early-morning sessions before work, Nielsen replaced beer with Pepsi or Coca-Cola to mimic the carbonation without the inebriating effects of alcohol. On weekends, armed with a few cans of Budweiser - which has a lower CO2 content than other beers and is the brew of choice in the BeerMile.com community - he’d head to a local track and “do intervals of 400 [meters], slam a beer, and do another 400.”

In addition, Nielsen’s record-setting beer mile was the only one he’d actually run during his training. Which makes his accomplishment all the more remarkable – though he admits to being quite uncomfortable at times.

“On the third lap, I hit a lower point, my stomach was really starting to hurt, and I’m thinking, I’m going to run 5:05, this is going to be so disappointing, but I’m out here doing it, so I may as well finish and see what happens,” he said. “I heard my wife yell 3:54, and I knew I had to drop a 65 on the last lap, which I didn’t think I would be able to do.

“With 200 meters left in the race, I told myself, if I go all out, I never have to do this again,” he continued. “I shifted into another gear and went for broke, and was thinking, please get under, please get under. I was so glad that I finished with room to spare.”

Nielsen said since posting the video to his Facebook page, he’s been “blown away” by the attention he’s received.

“I definitely thought in the running community there would be a few thousand people who were interested, and it would get some views and some talk,” he said. “But I never in a million years thought it would be a million views in three days.”

There are, of course, the inevitable criticisms – commenters wondering whether the cans were full of water, for example, or if the track was the appropriate length. Even so, Nielsen said he “finds it as a huge compliment that people still can’t believe I did this.”

And viewers who watch the nine-minute-plus video to the very end, after a breakdown of splits that factor in beer consumption, will see an adorable shot of Nielsen’s two children, James, 3, and Claire, 1, with James proclaiming, “Go, Daddy!”

“I thought, just in case this turns into something cool, 20 years down the road they can look back and say, ‘My dad was the first one to break five in the beer mile,’” Nielsen said. “So I thought, what the hell, I’ll put that in.”

To watch Nielsen’s record-breaking beer mile, see the video below:

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