Although it only takes a couple of hours for every Krispy Kreme Challenge runner to cross the finish line, the event’s planning committee began preparing for the event almost immediately after last year’s race ended.
The 12th annual Krispy Kreme Challenge, which will take place this Saturday, is expected to draw close to 7,000 runners to NC State’s campus and downtown Raleigh. During the race, participants will run from the Belltower to the Krispy Kreme on North Person Street, eat a dozen doughnuts and run back, a total of five miles.
The funds raised go to a program called the NC Children’s Promise Grants started by the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. Employees of the hospital propose grants when they see needs within the hospital in hopes to be able to provide better care and services to children and their families.
NC Children’s Promise Grants has contributed to programs that provide fun and distracting items to help children deal with invasive surgery. Surgery simulation programs improve the skills of surgeons and help to prepare and support families of patients for the challenges they may face, according to the program’s website.
Brantley Hovey, the external marketing department head for the challenge and a senior studying chemical engineering, said planning for the next race begins shortly after the current race is completed.
“As soon as one race is over there is some planning that starts taking place almost immediately after,” said Hovey.
Hovey explained that preparing for 7,000 runners – and about 84,000 doughnuts – is more difficult than it looks.
“You don’t quite realize how many doughnuts 7,000 dozen doughnuts looks like until you see them all,” he said.
The Krispy Kreme located on North Person Street has called for extra help to prepare for the large amount of doughnuts required for the event on Saturday. Krispy Kreme Manager, Mike Dillion, said the commissary located in Concord helps make the extra doughnuts.
At 2 a.m. on the morning of the race, the machines begin making the doughnuts. At 5 a.m. 7,000 dozen doughnuts are ready to be transported from Concord to Raleigh.
On race day, volunteers and Krispy Kreme Challenge team members prepare by checking people into the race, setting up barricades and making race routes.
“The most important and difficult part of the race is while the race is going on, making sure runners are running on the correct route and do not get lost while completing the race,” Hovey said.
Passing out the doughnuts to the thousands of runners also poses a challenge to the team, he said. “It gets messy very quickly.”
For Hovey, the best part of the race comes right after the gun goes off and the runners head toward Krispy Kreme.
“There is an eerie calm by the Bell Tower,” he said.
This year, for the first time, winners of the Krispy Kreme Challenge in each age and gender group will receive a medal.
The expo event will take place on Friday at Summit Church in Raleigh where runners will be able to pick up their race packets and bibs. The race will begin at 8:30 a.m on Saturday.
The Krispy Kreme doughnut machine automatically cuts the dough to be cooked into the circle shape it exhibits. The machine will cut 400 doughnuts in an hour, equaling 9,600 doughnuts a day.
