A few friends and I have been talking about this for years. The challenge is, you eat as many donuts as you want to in about a 10 minute period, then have a mile race. For each donut consumed, you get a certain time benefit. There are several possible methods we’ve outlined, some involving diminishing returns, some with an incentive to eat as many as 9-10 donuts, still another where everyone must eat a certain number of donuts based on body weight, then hold an all out race for time.
To give you an idea, a simple setup would be something like 1:00 reduced from your mile time for every donut you eat. I like this race idea because if you set it up right, someone running a 4-5 minute mile with no donuts can compete with someone eating maybe 10 and running a 9:00 or so. However, the rule is that there is now vomitting of any kind - if you throw up during the race, your time benefit from the donuts will be erased.
I guess the question in all this is, what do you guys think of this? Would this appeal to anyone besides me? I’m not exactly trying to market this as a national race, just looking for some fun pushing the limits (I think we’ll all pitch in $10 for prize money). Most triathletes I know like pushing the envelope of physical ability, how fast do people think they could run with a couple of donuts in them? All these small meals a day, I’m not sure I can do well, but in college I think 10 donuts and a 5:45 would have been easy.
I did enough vomiting in college to last me for a long time. Especially since doughnuts will not come up as easy as say a six pack of light beer.
If you really want to have some fun you should check out ‘The Outdoorsman’ blood sweat and beers. These guys have a real competition here, with actuall organization. Plus I think tha it takes longer to recover from than an IM.
Not a bad idea. I envision it getting minor publicity, then catching on with Krispy Kreme as a corporate sponsor. Although we’d need a street sweeper afterwards. Just think about the race photos…
Put me down for 6 Hostess chocolate iced donuts and an 8 min mile. I mean, I would guess that I could eat 6 donuts and then run an 8 min mile. I mean, who would ever eat 6 donuts and then run a mile? Not that I have ever done that.
Interesting. I’ve heard a bit about these, along with Sloshball. While beer is likely healthier for you than donuts, I also like the challenge/strategy aspect of choosing how much to consume and pair that with how fast you could run. I’m not real speedy anymore, but I could probably run a sub 6:00 mile. I think I could eat about 6 and run a 7:30, or possibly eat up to 8-9 and run a sub 9:00, just seems interesting to my friends and I. We’d like to think of it as controlled/strategic gluttony. High risk, high reward.
Actually, funny you mention donut types. A friend who’s interested has suggested we even prorate the donut time benefits. I’d figured maybe we all eat standard glaze, but he thinks maybe something like 1:00 for a Fritter, :45 for an old fashioned/cake donut, and maybe :30 for a glaze, etc. I think pacing would also be tough here, do you start out easy and try to speed up or just go all out and hope it stays down?
Maybe I’m crazy, but I really like the challenge of this…
Yeah, we’d looked at that too. One approach I came up with time benefit as follows:
#1 :15
2 :20
3 :25
4 :30
5 :30
6 :35
7 :45
8 1:00
9 1:15
30 seconds thereafter. While we don’t think a huge guy eating 12 and running a 12:00 would be a big accomplishment, I’d like to see it where people running with no donuts have a decent chance of placing as well as those who’ve had 10.
Thanks for the link, looks interesting. I don’t eat donuts anymore either. See my last post though, you could just run it as a mile time trial and possibly beat the fatties.
Let me throw out an endurance twist. I’d like to see a bog table of donuts on a track and every lap you have to eat one. The person who runs the farthest wins.
Bonus points if you can finish a maraton and keep down over 100 donuts.
There are people in my office who don’t run at all, but are professional donut eaters and could eat more than 20 donuts and walk/waddle their way into a negative time.
Maybe a professional division for them. I think we’re setting a cutoff time of about 10:30-11:00 for ours, so you can’t just binge and walk your way to victory. Interesting though, I was thinking about what would happen if Kobayashi came.
Unreal. Sounds like another good challenge. I like the races where you consume something each lap, but there’s also something to be said for having to strategize at the beginning and figure out how many to down in a 10 minute period, then suffer the consequences. The endurance twist is pretty intriguing, really comes down to pacing and who has the strongest/best gut.
In college, every weekend before Thanksgiving if nobody qualified to nationals, we would have the Chug Run 10K and it’s been around a long time. My senior was the 15th annual. Some alumni would come back to it. Other students could enter too. We even had some football and volleyball players. Basically kegs on Thursday night. Kegs on Friday night. Then kegs to the starting line with cases and cases of shit beer at every mile marker (including the 6-mile marker) and the finish. Rules are simple. Drink a beer at the start. After completion, start running and chug a beer at every mile before moving on. The 6 mile marker is bad, because then you gotta sprint to the finish and chug another for completion. It has come down to the final beer before. Yes, lots of puke. Yes, girls running topless in the woods. No I never won. Yes, there is videotape evidence that comes up that we hope never goes public. Even better, VCRs should just become extinct. But I would do it again. Set it up and let’s do it. Us big guys might have a chance against the little guys in this one.