Blood, Sweat, and Brews

Yazoo Brewing and Blind Pig team for Barely a 4K

By Hillary Houston

The Yazoo Brewing Company will host Oxford’s first “Barely a 4K” run and raffle April 6 at Oxford’s Blind Pig Pub & Deli.

The Yazoo run is not your average sweat competition, or leg cramper race, rather a simple run designed for beer drinkers. That’s right, beer drinkers can run, too.

The Nashville-based brewery started the Barely a 4K run events two years ago as a fun event to do before a beer festival in Nashville.

“It got such a great response that we decided to host these runs in other cities either before beer festivals or just whenever,” said Ivan Chester of Yazoo Brewing Company. “We want to bring like-minded folks out to explore different parts of their city and enjoy a good beer together afterwards.”

Since then, Yazoo has been travelling the South sharing their fun run concept in cites such as Memphis, Nashville, Birmingham, and Hattiesburg. And now, it’s Oxford’s turn to burn just enough calories to drink them right back again with complimentary Yazoo beer at the post-run party.

The Barely a 4K is designed for anyone who wants to participate. The run itself has no time limit and no winner. The exactly 2.48 mile stretch through Oxford’s downtown can be sprinted, walked, jumped, or any other mode of step by step exercise your heart desires, or can handle.

“We invite all people out, whether they enjoy running or have never run before,” Chester said. “The main point is to have fun with Yazoo Beer.”

Here’s how it goes: Registration is $20 a person, which includes race entry, entry to the post-race party, one raffle prize entry, one event t-shirt, and of course, Yazoo Beer.

“We started out with giving each runner a t-shirt with the event logo on it, but we got a little bored with t-shirts and have given runners a variety of pieces to take home including capes, rubber football helmets, and technical shirts that you can actually run long distances in,” said Chester. “We will be giving the Oxford runners technical shirts in Ole Miss Red.”

Check-in for the race starts at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, April 6 at the Blind Pig. The race will start outside of the Blind Pig and end right back where it started for the post-run party and raffle.

During the post-run party festivities, raffle tickets will be sold for Yazoo merchandise and other quirky giveaways.