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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

(MUST READ) Krispy Kreme Challenge - Raleigh, North Carolina February 2013

All Pictures and video are at the bottom of the post, but this one is worth reading. You will never believe it, so you should REALLY READ IT!

What a day, you could feel the excitement in the car or should I say in our stomachs, as we started our drive south towards Raleigh, North Carolina. We were off for an exciting weekend of stretching our stomachs to the max.

It started almost a year ago when Dan The Man, Gary Nolan and I did "The Jog 'n Hog" last July. That event consisted of running 2 miles, eating a quart of Uncle Dave's Vanilla Ice Cream, and then running another 2 miles.

One thing I have learned in my over 50 years of life, there is always a bigger mountain to climb. Once we completed "The Jog 'n Hog" we looked for that bigger mountain, and we found it.

"The Krispy Kreme Challenge" We will run 2.5 miles, eat a dozen Krispy Kreme Doughnuts (2,400 Calories), and run another 2.5 miles all in under an hour. This race got it's start in December of 2004 with a dare from a few college students, and in the last 8 years has grown from just a few students at N.C. State to over 8,000 runners from all over the world, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for The North Carolina Children's Hospital.

Dan The Man recruited a few additional participants for this event. Jerry "The Stomach" Green, and John "I can eat anything" Maguire. We knew these two additions would really round out our team. Everybody except Gary Noland, met up in Northern Virginia for the 5 hour drive to Raleigh. Somehow Gray Nolan thought after his stellar performance in "The Jog 'n Hog", he deserved to fly down and that is what he did. The four of us loaded in to Jerry "The Stomach" Green's Cadillac Escalade, a very comfortable ride.

It is important to realize we have 24 hours before the big race so there is still time to train. We left at 11:00 AM and got to Fredericksburg, Virginia just past lunch time, perfect timing, we noticed a Steak 'n Shake just off the highway. What is better for a good stomach stretch then a good steak burger and a rich, thick, milkshake. "Steak Burger?", you ask. It is made from steak, not ham, isn't it! What a great meal and an even better confidence booster.

As we continued down I95, we realized no one had made plans as to where we should stay. We started calling hotels and found out everything was sold out within 60 miles of Raleigh because of the race.

Never fear John "I can eat anything" Maguire is hear. Yes, John "I can eat anything" Maguire came up with a brilliant plan. For those of you that are old enough to remember the movie "Animal House", there is a scene where the frat boys go to the sorority house and act like they know a girl that just died. It worked great for them. With us being 30 years older than most college students, talking about a students death is kind of morbid, and there is a good chance it may cause us to be arrested.

John "I can eat anything" Maguire's plan was to go to the Tri-Delta sorority (we knew they had the lowest IQ) and tell them we were visiting John "I can eat anything" Maguire's daughter. That we had made a mistake, she did not go to N.C. State, but went to N.D. State (North Dakota), just made a wrong turn. The plan worked perfectly they felt so sorry for us they even gave us each our own rooms.

Our first order of business check in for the race and get some doughnuts. Like I said we were still in training. Jerry "The Stomach" Green bought a dozen, half vanilla and half Chocolate. We each had one, we all savored every bite. Come race day we would not even be tasting any doughnuts as they went down.

It was now time for dinner Jerry "The Stomach" Green had made us reservations at the Angus Barn. It was a 15 minute drive outside of Raleigh. What a great traditional southern steak house. We choose to sit in the bar, great service and the highlight was watching Jerry "The Stomach" Green consume his 32 oz. prime rib. The rest of us went small with 20 oz. Rib eyes.

About halfway through dinner I realized I might be in trouble. As I have mentioned before I get gout. One the medicines I take for gout is called Colchicine, before we left I had some aching in my right foot so I took a double dose of Colchicine, there is no way I wanted to get a gout attack with "The Krispy Kreme Challenge" only a few hours away. I forgot about one thing with Colchicine, the side effects! Here is what the drugs website says:


Colchicine. If you're unable to take NSAIDs, your doctor may recommend colchicine (Colcrys), a type of pain reliever that effectively reduces gout pain — especially when started soon after symptoms appear. The drug's effectiveness is offset in most cases, however, by intolerable side effects, such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.


I had totally forgot about the side effects, until it hit me. DIARRHEA, luckily our table was close to the bathroom I think I went about 3 times during dinner. Before we headed back to the Tri-Delta house I used the facilities one more time just to make sure I was empty. I was hoping that would be it. I was wrong, Jerry "The Stomach" Green is very lucky I have a strong sphincter muscle or his Escalade would be a little stinky right now.

Once we got back to the house I ran so fast for the bathroom I am sure the girls were in shock, I am sure they were in more shock from the noises and smells that came from the bathroom.

The DIARRHEA persisted through night. I bet you the N.C. State Tri-Deltas never let 5 middle aged men stay at their house again. With little to no sleep I met Dan The Man, and Gary Nolan an hour before the race. Gary had a rental car so we drove to the start of the race for a 4 mile warm up run. I was sure I was over my stomach issues at this point or hoped I was.

I was not! At mile 3 of the warm up run, I was in server pain, fortunately for me Gary Nolan had noticed a student union, yes there were Porto-potties at the race, but with the length of the lines I would not make it. The Student Union was prefect. I was hoping this would be my last time taking a duce for a while.

It was now race time, the start was a little chaotic, 8,000 people, this was billed as a family fun run, so you had no idea how fast people would be. The race started at 8:30 AM and it was 8:32 before we crossed the start line, many people were simply walking.

The course was hillier than we expected, our first mile was an 8:25 pace some uphill during that first mile. Our second mile was 7:36 pace, though mostly down hill. We were now a half a mile from our doughnuts and 16 minute into the race. We had 44 minutes left to run 3 more miles and eat a dozen doughnuts.

Now about a quarter mile from the Krispy Kreme shop we noticed the street was lined with empty tables. Both sides of the street and down the middle, as we continued our run we saw the tables now had boxes of doughnuts. Dan The Man, Gary Nolan, and I, had run together. We were not sure where Jerry "The Stomach" Green, and John "I can eat anything" Maguire were. We assumed they were behind us as their names imply their focus was more on the eating than the running.

As we passed the tables with the doughnuts we grabbed our boxes. Dan The Man, Gary Nolan in their infinite wisdom started eating right away (smart move) I waited until we found a spot in the parking lot and got settled in.

As I was eating the doughnuts not worrying about the time I noticed Gary Nolan had 3 doughnuts left, Dan The Man had 6 left and I had 7 and was not feeling so hot. Up until this point the DIARRHEA was a distant memory, now my thoughts were moving more towards vomit. I stayed focus and kept eating. Then I realized Gary Nolan was done, we could not have been there much over 10 minutes, Dan The Man had 3 doughnuts left, I still had 7.

I was very fortunate that Gary Nolan and Dan The Man were staying rooting me on. Dan grabbed his last 2 doughnuts and I still had 5 to go. I doubt we had been there 12 minutes at this point, Dan The Man was now done. FIVE more doughnuts! Finally my last doughnut and one bite to go, NO! It took 5 bites to finish what should have been just one bite. We had been in the eating area a full 18 minutes.


We showed our now empty doughnut boxes and were back running. Our first mile was down hill and we ran a 7:55 pace, our second mile was up hill and we ran an 8:06 pace, we could feel the sugar kicking in. The last half mile was at a 7:59 pace. As we approached the finish line I was very happy, we could see the clock, under an hour, 57 minutes and 7 seconds based on our chips.

No DIARRHEA and I did not throw-up, at least not yet. As we came through the finish line there were patches of throw-up everywhere, the worst part you could see the chunks of undigested doughnuts in the vomit. It took all the strength I had left to keep those doughnuts in my stomach.

We headed back to the Tri-Delta house to shower and find Jerry "The Stomach" Green, and John "I can eat anything" Maguire. It ended up they were just a few minutes behind us. They actually did the first half of the race faster than us by a minute. They ate the doughnuts about twice as fast as I did, luckily the sugar helped my run and I beat them with running speed, not eating speed.

It was 11:00 and we had not eaten breakfast yet and we were all getting hungry so we decided to check at The Roast Grill. The Roast Grill serves some of the best hotdogs you will ever have. We each had a couple and then headed home.

Not sure what or where I will head next so that is it for now. If you have any ideas post them here or on Facebook, I will consider anything

Cheers,

DUG

VIDEO


Pictures

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