Around 100 participants spent a sunny New Brunswick Day morning taking part in the annual Fredericton Beer Run, a fun 4-, 6- and 12-km run that provides runners with a chance to enjoy the city’s trail system and sample local craft beer.
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From the moment the starting buzzer goes off, runners in the Fredericton Beer Run know that not only does a medal await them at the finish line, but so does the opportunity to enjoy craft beer from Fredericton’s ever-growing industry.
Whether or not that helps bring them home faster than usual is anyone’s guess, but it likely doesn’t hurt.
Sisters Beth Shaw and Susan Cobham have been taking part in beer runs for several years, and say both aspects of the events keep them coming back.
“We like to run them,” Shaw said. “We know we’re last, we’re always last.”
“We do them for the beer,” Cobham added.
Shaw said she was convinced by her sister to participate three years ago, and was hooked immediately, although she needed a little convincing beforehand.
“My sister said when I started to lose weight that I could do a run and I said, ‘No, I can’t’,” Shaw explained. “She said, ‘Let’s do the beer run — it’ll be for fun, and we can have beer afterwards.”
That helped Shaw’s decision, one she is glad she made.
Now the two take part in similar events around the province, always side by side.
“I had more fun doing the beer runs with my sister because it’s not competitive. It’s for fun,” Cobham said. “We like drinking beer so this is something that we’re going to do now, until they quit doing beer runs.”