Donut Break My Stride
On February 1 the local legend, Alex Lord and I took a short trip down to Raleigh, North Carolina to participate in the 16th Annual Krispy Kreme Challenge. For those that are unaware of the challenge, it tests not only your running endurance, but your gastrointestinal fortitude as you attempt to complete a 5 mile run after eating a dozen donuts at the halfway point. Oh and you only have an hour to do this in order to officially complete the challenge. Oh and the after you cram the dozen down your 2.5 miles are all uphill. You might be asking yourself “why would anyone want to do this to themselves?” I think the better question is 'why not?' Also this race supports the UNC Children’s Hospital so we can’t say no to a good cause.
We arrived at NC State University’s campus Saturday morning with a hearty appetite and a little coffee in hand. It was a brisk morning, but perfect donut eating weather. We hopped into the starting area with a little over 5,000 other participants that have an affection for Krispy Kreme donuts. Once the air horn blew Alex and I were off to face those 12 delicious donuts. The first half of the race is downhill to the Krispy Kreme in the historic downtown section of Raleigh. When you arrive there are volunteers handing you your box of a dozen donuts to eat before you can continue the second half of the race. Alex and I will agree that the best technique to conquer the eating challenge is to stack your donuts in groups of 3 and smash them as flat as possible. The flatter the better so it is easier to eat. You’ll want to grab two glasses of water so you can dunk the donuts in one cup and have the other cup to drink some much needed water. When you finish eating it’s time to run the second half of the race uphill to where we started.
How did we do you may ask? Well neither of us left anything on the course if that’s what you’re asking. No tossing of the cookies, errr, donuts here! Alex crushed the course and finished three minutes under that hour cut off while I missed the cut off by just over a minute. I will admit it stinks to miss the cut off by such a small margin, but donut think that will stop me from doing it again! I know that I’ll be back next year for sure (pretty sure that’s when I will want to see another Krispy Kreme donut) and improve on what I did this year.
Written by Cory Wills, strider and board member
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