Saturday, August 19, 2017

Krispy Kreme Challenge Training Begins

Cross-posted to riseupandrunagain.blogspot.com

Something I've learned about running is that there are a few ways to do more with a running routine. Many people choose to go faster, while others prefer to run longer. Quite a few marathoners set their sights on qualifying for the Boston Marathon. Heck, I'd like to be there someday, but right now I'm not putting enough focus on the whole "running faster" thing, so I might not qualify until I'm at least 70 years old. That's fine. I'm nothing if not persistent when it comes to this running stuff.

A few years ago, I found myself going down an internet rabbit hole when I saw some friends doing a 5K where they had to eat a donut every mile. I thought that sounded disgusting, yet I was intrigued. What I ended up landing on was this Wikipedia page about the Krispy Kreme Challenge. Involving more mileage and more donuts than the 5K my friends were running, the Krispy Kreme Challenge was the kind of ridiculousness I can get behind: 2.5 miles, 12 donuts, and 2.5 miles back--in an hour or less. The fact that it takes place at NC State, the school which has held my athletic support longer than any other institution, is just glaze on the doughnut. Why run 3.1 miles and eat 3 donuts when you can run 5 miles and eat 12 donuts? The Krispy Kreme Challenge would be my new way to do more with my running, and it's a pretty sweet (pun intended) option between where I am now and someday qualifying for Boston.

Most Saturdays, I have a morning running date with my friends Tim and Lauren. We talk about lots of things, including our hopes and dreams, and on August 5, I shared with them that a shorter term goal I've set for myself is completing the Krispy Kreme Challenge in February 2019. Their initial reaction was the same combination of disgust and intrigue that I experienced when I was first exposed to the KKC, but less than a mile later, they were on board to help me train. We decided that today would be our first training run, and I said I'd pick up a dozen doughnuts for us to split. They talked me down to a half dozen, and we decided we'd run 2, eat 2, and run 2.  Then yesterday, we decided we'd cover the full 5 miles of the KKC. Here's how we did:

1st run - ran 2.8 miles in 37:52 (13:28 pace)
Donut/transition: 9-ish minutes
2nd run - ran/walked 2.2 miles in 33:51 (15:21 pace)
Total time: 1:21-ish

Bonus: nobody puked or died.

I have run 5 miles in under an hour, and I have eaten four doughnuts in a sitting. I've never combined the running with doughnuts other than a donut around mile 8 of the Louisiana Marathon this year, and I think I threw half of that out. So, I need to get faster, and I need to eat more doughnuts. And I need to get faster at eating doughnuts.

My target race date is around February 2019. I'll need to bank time in the first 2.5 miles to possibly run the second half at a slower pace. I also have to eat more doughnuts than I've ever eaten in one sitting, and I need to eat them quickly. Training is going to be brutal at times, but what an honor it will be to fulfill this dream. I'm excited to share more training reports as we progress. I think our next one won't be for a few weeks, as I'm pretty far into training for Chicago Marathon on October 8, but we're going to step up to three doughnuts. I might even go for four. I also intend to do a better job tracking our time in transition. Stay tuned!