The Krispy Kreme Challenge needs no introduction. It has become part of the University’s anatomy and is quickly climbing the ranks of the University’s most hallowed traditions. Alumni and students take pride in an important humanitarian cause and can claim a unique, nationally known, event as their own.
Despite the frigid cold — the temperature was in the low-30s during the race — 6,000 participants, likely more, filled the course and created a truly memorable experience, while raising more than $45,000 for the N.C. Children’s Hospital.
For the estimated 2,650 competitors, the competition mandated 2,400 Calories of glaze and dough consumption. Many left the Bell Tower with high hopes at 8:30 a.m. and quite a few found the task a little harder than it might seem.
Technician‘s Executive Editor, Russell Witham, ran the race Saturday for his fourth consecutive year and dodged along the course taking in the sights and sounds:
8:27 a.m. For whatever reason, I decide that I’d rather run leisurely this year. I pull up in a spot towards the rear of the pack with a couple of my friends from mechanical engineering. It didn’t really grip me when I left the house this morning, but it is cold as sin out here.
8:30 a.m. Tom Stafford, the vice chancellor for student affairs, booms the beginning of the race over the loudspeaker. (Despite his impeccable exercising habits, he told me a few minutes earlier that he wouldn’t be running this year; I became dreadfully jealous of his ability to stay at the Bell Tower.)
I imagine that the teen-ish looking runners at the start of the pack are sprinting past traffic cones right now, but I am stationary with thousands of other people, and dogs, near the rear of the pack.
8:33 a.m. Still stationary. The lull has given me the opportunity to evaluate the strollers in my vicinity. Two of the three strollers have a three-wheel design. I had absolutely no idea Schwinn made strollers as well as bikes, but am convinced I’m going to get passed by these four-year-old cheaters; it’s disheartening. Another stroller has four wheels; that child must be running “casually.”
8:34 a.m. Progress. My buddies and I start moving down the course, past the Bell Tower and through a war-torn area of Yugoslavia. For a second I thought I was going to be “beamed up” by those ominous looking timing devices. I figure they were looking for someone with Energizers instead.
8:37 a.m. The field is starting to thin out a bit and I can finally stretch my legs and run. I’m not sure why a gorilla and giant banana were running down Hillsborough, but it doesn’t phase me, I press on.
8:40 a.m. I was starting to zone out a bit as we passed the sketchy Chinese place and approached St. Mary’s. Then, boom. A guy runs into a traffic barrel. I’m not particularly sure how you can be so absent minded as to run into a belt-high cone, but he did. And ridiculously, received a hefty amount of applause for stupidity. Good grief.
8:46 a.m. I pass my first Quidditch player; he looked like a beater to me. I don’t understand why he isn’t flying on his broomstick (impotence perhaps), but it seems he’s a member of a University sanctioned Quidditch club. A little piece of me just died.
8:48 a.m. I hear the blare of the siren and see the blue lights at the corner of Johnson and West Street, but I find it hard to believe this guy is already on his way back. (Turns out it was the eventual winner Eric Mack, a 2009 alumnus in the College of Natural Resources, I’m impressed.)
8:54 a.m. I’ve made the turn up Peace Street and see a steadier stream of runners. Some haven’t eaten their doughnuts and are carrying the boxes, but the number of people who have completed the most difficult part of the challenge with sub-30 minute times is pretty impressive.
8:55 a.m. I arrive at the Krispy Kreme and am immediately inundated by thousands of doughnuts and the almost repugnant smell of thousands of doughnuts.
8:56 a.m. The mash technique (pushing three to six doughnuts together with your palm and eating the doughnuts in a denser form), which was rarely employed four years ago, is wide spread. It has clearly won the battle of the eating techniques.
8:58 a.m. Misery is everywhere. I decide not to eat doughnuts so that I can continue writing and observing. (This is my coy way of sneaking out of the sheer misery I experienced the last three years on the run back.)
I meet Colin Bradley, a sophomore in biological sciences, who is using a modified-mash technique. His theory is that by mashing and then folding the rock-hard doughnut mass into a taco shape, the eating goes easier. It still looks ugly and unappetizing.
I haven’t eaten any doughnuts, but I’m becoming nauseas from the sight of the glaze-water slush dripping from people’s mouths. The scent is palpable; it’s disgusting.
9:01 a.m. I spy …a second giant banana.
Steve Hite, the owner of BaySix USA, an apparel store for runners that co-sponsored the race, is pushing a two-seat three-wheeled stroller. His two young children, Jake and Beatty, are consuming doughnuts. His strategy: wake up late, run to the starting line and let the kids eat the doughnuts. Children have just gained a new use.
9:08 a.m. Luigi and doughnut-head, a.k.a. Garik Sadovy, a senior in materials science and engineering, are mingling with the despondent crowd.
A man who is preparing to vomit said, “it’s turning into paste.” I silently chuckled at his melancholy.
9:15 a.m. Part deux begins. Passing a giant pile of empty boxes — some partially empty — I depart for the Bell Tower at the same time as a cheese-head.
9:17 a.m. Overheard on Peace Street; “Next year we’ll come and walk.” “This is the most exercise we’re getting all semester.” “[Sound of cowbell.] I need more cowbell.”
9:18 a.m. Four UNC-Chapel Hill students are proud of their school, as evidenced by their puke-ugly baby blue shirts. I mention the McDonald’s blocks away. In an effort to be cool, the tallest of the four said, “I want a McGriddle.”
9:23 a.m. My quads feel like they are about to explode. I’ve run the entire way thus far, but I’m not sure how much longer I’ll last. My senior year diet seems to have taken a negative impact on my athletic abilities. I pass two girls who I can only assume are dressed as Pippy Longstocking look-a-likes.
9:25 a.m. Running stops at the site of bile covering the street. I can only imagine how much his or her abdomen hurts. Procuring an “iron gut” is elusive.
Meanwhile, an inventive fellow is using a chunk of ice to wash his hands of glaze. It reminds me of the sticky feeling those doughnuts give your hands — above and away my least favorite part of the race the three previous years.
9:27 a.m. An old man claps while watching me walk up St. Mary’s Street, he yells, “these are the smart ones.” I don’t feel particularly intelligent, just tired.
Perhaps, he is the owner of the odd-looking church-home at 208 St. Mary’s; it makes sense to me.
9:28 a.m. A guy notices I’m wearing a watch. He inquires, “what time is it?” I reply and he responds with an expletive.
9:30 a.m. Time expires for the first runners to leave the alien portal.
9:31 a.m. My friend and I round the corner onto Hillsborough for the home stretch. Running commences again.
I dodge a heckler who is throwing a doughnut at what I presume to be his friend — an odd greeting, for sure.
9:32 a.m. The Krispy Kreme doughnut man is walking back down Hillsborough as we pass the Republican Party offices. I’m crestfallen and decide to finish strong.
Someone shouts, “let’s do it for the Republicans.” It’s good enough for my friend and I; we pick up the pace as the Bell Tower draws near.
9:36 a.m. The crowd is calling to us with its chants. It’s surprisingly warming, despite the abysmal weather.
A little less for the wear, I cross the finish line thoroughly exhausted and wondering about the state of my health.
9:40 a.m. Sadovy, the guy with the doughnut-head, finishes the race, as does the group in the body suits.
The gorilla and banana number one appear near the traffic circles. The gorilla looks as though he had jumped off a springboard headlong into a pile of freshly glazed doughnuts. The banana was not missing any bites.
9:43 a.m. A guy in a beige suit completes his quest; apart from the New Balance shoes, he could have come right out of “Miami Vice.”
A truly epic gentleman completes the race, lighting up a cigarette as he passes across the finish line. His lungs may hate him, but I enjoyed his sense of irony. Lighting a cigarette at the finish line of a race that benefits a children’s hospital is simply too good.
Don’t Stop Believing by Journey is pounding in the background; I appreciate the musical selection and begin to do a little jig of sorts. In reality, it was more like Eileen’s dry heave.
9:48 a.m. Light flurries are falling and at least three people were consecrating the Bell Tower grounds with their vomit.
10:00 a.m. Come on Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners is playing — I guffaw.
10:05 a.m. The coordinators announce the winner. My jaw drops. Eric Mack finished in an astounding 27:48. It’s not the course record, but it still blows my mind. The top female finisher clocked in at an impressive 31:24.
11:00 a.m. I’m exhausted while I sit in Bojangles eating a country ham biscuit combo.
I also cave and eat a doughnut — 200 Calories of bliss. Now, it’s time for a nap.
