When you’ve run nearly 100 miles, you deserve a beer even before you hit the finish line.

Or at least that’s the priceless advice from 62-year-old ultra runner Jim Kerse, who knows a thing or two about ultra running.

“Five miles from the finish, I like a beer,” says Kerse, who finished his first 100 mile race in 1979. “My body gets sick of the sweet stuff and the beer gives me a lift and takes the pain away.”

Kerse recently spent four months in Canada and the United States running ultra endurance races, as chronicled by his hometown New Zealand paper. Clearly his beer (ultra) running technique is working for him, because he topped his age group three times during his competitive North America trek.

And he claims he actually speeds up at the end after downing a beer.

“When I see the finish line I actually start sprinting over the last 200m and run at six-minute-mile pace,” Kerse said.