By Patrick Wall and Tom Liddy
DNAinfo Reporters
EAST VILLAGE — These guys put the Guinness in Guinness World Records.
A group of thirsty troupers was on a mission in the East Village Saturday to break the world record for the number of pubs visited in 24 hours.
In fact, the team of 13 ladies and gents, led by East Villager and endurance athlete Chris Solarz, 32, is so ambitious that it was aiming to crush the previous record of 170, set by a Chicago team last year, in about 20 hours.
The beer-swigging buds, a group of Solarz's pals from college, work and running, hopped to it at O'Hanlon's on 14th Street and First Avenue at 8:45 a.m., when most weekend revelers were still sleeping off their Friday night.
By 12:45 p.m. Saturday, the sud-sipping superstars had 50 pubs under their belt — a little bit too good, if you ask Solarz.
"That's the only problem we've had so far," he said. "We're too good."
Breaking the world record is not as easy as gathering a group of pals and going on a bender.
Solarz and his team meticulously planned their brew bash, beginning with a "wet run" over the summer that involved visiting and mapping out 420 bars and eateries around the neighborhood.
"It wasn't really hard work, but it was a lot of work," he said.
In order to qualify for the record, one person from the group has to drink half a pint at each of the pubs. The requirement stems from the UK, where competitors drank half-pints to set the first record.
Each drink has to be captured on tape and the bartender has to sign a form.
For the event, Solarz — who has competed in 190 marathons and set the record for traveling the entire subway system in less than 24 hours — sported a stop watch as well as a watch with GPS so that he can map out the team's exact route later.
His wife, Bea Reig, 33, who accompanied him on the "wet run," carried a clipboard with the list of bars, their hours and locations in order to maximize imbibing efficiency.
Each member of the team, all wearing gray shirts with "World Record in Progress" emblazoned on the front in blue type, also ponied up about $200 each in fives and ones and gave the cash to team captains for easier distribution.
They chose Labor Day weekend because they knew that the bars would be less crowded.
Solarz, who tweeted their progress at @RecordPubCrawl, said that they were aiming for about seven to eight minutes in per bar, including travel time, in the morning and about four minutes in the evening, when the bars were expected to be more crowded.
“The route was perfectly planned, so we minimized walking and maximized beers per hour,” he said.
"You can't get lucky in a marathon. It's all about practice and preparation."
During the first leg of the tour, the group tipped their glasses at bars and restaurants such as Mudspot, International Bar, Cafe Pick Me Up, Kate's Joint, Dorian Gray and Horseshoe Bar among others, drinking mainly lighter beers such as Coors and Bud Light and Pabst Blue Ribbon.
But they ventured into more adventurous territory as well, drinking Hell or High Watermelon, a wheat beer, at a pretzel shop. Along the way, they snacked on energy bars and bags of pretzels.
After hitting the Hop Devil Grill, on Avenue A and St. Mark's Place, they broke for lunch at Tompkins Square Park, where they noshed on sandwiches.
"This is not your standard pub crawl," said participant Steve McLaughlin, 33, of Hoboken, NJ. "This is a whole new world to me. We're not a bunch of frat boys."
McLaughlin said that he's considered taking part in other endurance contests, but this one seemed like a perfect fit.
"Most of them were taxing, but this one, I was like, 'I can do this.'"
Francis Laros, 48, had knocked back four pints by lunch.
"I'm going to start obeying traffic signals because I don't trust myself at this point," he said.
Laros, who competed with Solarz in a tethered marathon, predicted that fatigue would start hitting around the 150-bar mark.
"That's when the alcohol will start to kick in and people will get grumpy," he said.
Another competitor, Rickey Gawley, said that he was prepared to go above and beyond the call of duty when it came to the half-pint rule.
“Some of us do half, but some of us do the whole thing," he said. "Leaving have a bottle of alcohol on the counter is not good. I don’t support that.”
Gawley, who has run 15 marathons said that all of the competitors had to be in top shape to belly up.
“You kind of have to be an endurance athlete to do this for 20 hours,” he said.
Despite the chance for an unexpected twist, Solarz predicted that the group's efforts would be successful because they left nothing to chance.
"It’s already in the bag," he said. "It’s a matter of executing.”
A spokeswoman for Guinness World Records confirmed that Solarz had applied for the record.
