“Chug chug chug chug chew chew chew chew run run run run!”
~Only the Most American of Runners
Americans either love or hate exercising. Sure, you can find some middle ground of, people that guess they should go for a jog today, but generally speaking, you have two camps of American exercisers—the kind of person that gets really into their workout journal, and the kind of person who actively brags that they go out of the way to limit their day to day physical exertions as much as possible. The stereotypes are in place—you have the cross-fit trainer on a Paleo diet, or you have the overweight American chugging a beer while eating a ChipoHut Taco (that’s where you take a Chipotle burrito, put it inside a full Pizza Hut pizza, and fold the whole thing into a massive taco).
Naturally, the latter is the more American option. However, in the past few years, people who “exercise” and “take care of their bodies” and “can go up a flight of stairs without running out of breath” have seemingly taken a hard look at themselves and said, “Yes, I should still exercise, but maybe I can find a way to do it while also being a little unhealthy, which sounds a lot more fun.”
We’ve coined a term for this kind of slightly unhealthy, exponentially more fun exercise—the Jog N’ Vom. Basically, dozens of races have sprung up across America that don’t want you to just run an arbitrary distance while they time you—they want you to incorporate drinking or eating something super unhealthy into your run, turning your 5K into an eating or drinking competition, which is a wonderful thing.
So, for you health nuts out there that still want to be the best American you can be, we present with you a (fairly) comprehensive list of the races that let you be bad while being good.
Jog N’ Vom: America’s Official Food and Drink Races