February 6, 2011
Krispy Kreme Challenge 2011
Alex and I like to tell people that we trained for a Marathon for seven months and never once ran in the rain. As we trained primarily in the Summer, North Carolina summer rain usually happens in the afternoon, not early in the morning, when we ran. And during mid-week runs, if it was raining, I went to the indoor track.
Fast forward to February 5, 2011 and we wake to a cold, drizzling rain. Dressed in lots of layers, we met up with our friends Steve and Lydia and joined 7,500 other people at the North Carolina State University Belltower to prepare for the Krispy Kreme Challenge. Alex and I huddled under my bright pink umbrella while still getting soaked from the sideways rain and Lydia and Steve found a tent to shiver under, waiting for the start.
After 30 minutes of trying to avoid the rain, we made our way down to the masses at the start line. I was really nervous about all of the people because I was afraid that when the gun went off, there would be a mad rush of people behind us, pushing and slipping, creating a stampede. Luckily, everyone was pretty calm and we crossed the start line about four minutes after the gun start.
Lydia and Steve run faster than Alex and myself so they went ahead. Alex and I roughly stayed together but since this is a “fun run,” many people were just walking it, which proved to be far too tempting and I increasingly joined in, walking more than running. We didn’t take any photos of people dressed up but I saw a guy/girl in a full gorilla suit, a couple of “Dumb and Dumber” tuxes, “siamese” twins (which ran the whole thing as a three-legged race!), and a girl in a bikini, just to name a few.
After I had made it about a mile, I started seeing the fastest runners coming back. I looked carefully to see how they were holding up and saw several that seemed to be struggling a bit, belching and obviously in some kind of digestive discomfort. I saw Lydia and Steve pass just as we arrived at the Krispy Kreme at Peace Street, where, in the huge crowd of people stopped to eat their doughnuts, I lost Alex. I decided to grab my doughnuts and just keep going; nothing said I had to STOP to eat my doughnuts (at least not as a “Casual Participant”-Challengers have to stop and eat their dozen and then show their empty box at the chute before their return run).
My personal goal was to eat 6 doughnuts and finish in less than an hour and a half. Walking, I started in on the doughnuts. The first 3 went down super easily. I started to slow on the fourth. At the fifth, I started to enjoy the doughnut less. It took a solid 10 minutes to get the sixth down.
Of course, no post on the Krispy Kreme Challenge would be complete without a reference to someone losing their doughnuts. I didn’t ever witness anyone being sick but as I was on the return trip, I did see evidence thereof. Unfortunately, not even the rain could wash away that evidence.
Alex caught back up with me and continued on, passing the finish line about 4 minutes ahead of me. I ran a little on the way back and definitely ran it in to finish. Seeing the crowds of people lining the finish was exciting and I was overjoyed to see the clock read 1 hour, 16 minutes. My chip time was 1 hour, 11 minutes and I was 1,666 of 2,152 females (this includes both Challengers and Casual Participants). AND I ate the most doughnuts of our little group. Steve ate 2 and Lydia and Alex ate 4.
Krispy Kreme Challenge 2011
So, after talking about it for 2 years, I finally did it! It was fun but apparently they’ve never had a Challenge where it didn’t rain or snow. Next year, I think I’ll stay in, nice and warm, and just eat my doughnuts from the comfort of my own couch.
Congrats on meeting both your goals. What a fun race, although I kind of think you should try it again next year but wear the dumb and dumber tux.
Yeah, there were definitely a lot of creative costumes. The gorilla suit looked warm. What was really cool was that there were also a lot of kids and they looked like they were having a blast. Wouldn’t this have been awesome to do when you were 7?
We have a run called Bay to Breakers which was just awash in floats, costumes, and alcohol. We had always talked about participating and just kind of watching the madness. But this year they took away the alcohol and float part of it, so that’ll teach me for being a procrastinator.
Congrats! Very impressed that you ate six! And I love the costumes. My friend and I plan on wearing tutus at the Warrior Dash.
I had thought about maybe doing some kind of costume at the Spartan Race, but as its 8 miles, I may need to just focus on finishing!
Congrats!!! Now that sounds like my type of marathon.
That sounds like something you have to try once, but I’m partial to your idea for next year
Congrats on finishing the race. I’m glad you finally got it beat. I was wondering if someone would become sick. Although I imagine some people’s stomachs were doing flips that night. What a fun race to have been in.
Next time you do a race like this, you should have something like the gorilla costume as a back-up just in case it rains. That way you don’t need an umbrella.
This is such a crazy challenge! I bet it was a fun experience though- I don’t know if I would have been able to confuse my body and eat donuts while trying to run it all off though, haha!
Jessica, this looks like so much fun! What prompted you to do this in the first place? I never knew of a Krispy Kreme Challenge until I saw this post!
It’s big around these parts, it’s on the news so everyone knows about. It’s on a lot of “fun run” lists to do adn I’ve been talking about doing it for years so I finally signed up this year. So glad I did but probably won’t do it again. My stomach is still a little uneasy!
What a nice way for Krispy Kremes to sponsor hold its own marathon. A little odd but the sugars have their purpose!
First time here!
Yeah, the ultimate carb loading! And actually Krispy Kreme isn’t even a sponsor. This is a fundraiser for the North Carolina Children’s Hospital organized by North Carolina State University. It started as a dare between some NCSU students 7 years ago and now has grown into this huge event!
I ran the Krispy Kreme Challenge this year also. What a great event!! There is NOTHING out there that compares to eating 2,400 calories in the middle of a 4 mile run. It was a cold rainy morning in Raleigh, but a great way to raise 100,00o dollars for North Carolina’s Children’s Hospital.
I had to comment on this! I think eating races are both awesome and horrible! It does make an awesome story, but it might not always be the best idea during the actual race. I’m really glad you were able to eat the most doughnuts and not get sick! I think that’s really impressive.
I did a a Hot Dog-A-Thon about four years ago (it is what it sounds like: run 3K, eat a hog dog before each 1K), and it ended poorly… But I got an awesome t-shirt!
Where was this Hot Dog-a-thon? I think I could eat 3 hot dogs and run 3 miles…
Some of the guys in my graduating class put it on in our neighborhood our senior year of high school. They tried to pass it on to the next class, but it didn’t catch on, unfortunately. It would have been a cool community event to have, I think. But, I’m sure the guys would have gotten it to work out better if their charity had been something local that they liked, rather than something obscure they really didn’t care about per se, but liked the idea of.