Krispy Kreme Challenge
On Saturday, I ran in the Krispy Kreme Challenge for the first time. This was my very first race event.
The K2C is an approximately 4.5 mile race in Raleigh. The catch is you're supposed to eat a dozen glazed donuts in the middle.
The morning of the race was wet and cold. When I parked my car it was 37 degrees and raining pretty hard. Ten paces away from the car I started to regret my footwear. I love my Vibram Five Fingers, and I'd been running exclusively in them, but they are more or less water-transparent. My toes got wet almost immediately.
I'd gotten there early to meet some coworkers who were also running, but after a few minutes of waiting in the cold, I decided I'd rather wait in the car for a while since it was close by. I jogged back, got in, and cranked on the heat. I pondered switching to the fallback shoes I'd brought (a pair of Merrell gore-tex hiking shoes), but I decided to tough it out.
After a bit of warming up I headed back down to the Bell Tower area. It was raining even harder than before. By this time my coworkers had arrived and I waited with them for the race to start.
The scene at the start was impressive. There were 7500 registered racers this year, plus numerous spectators, sponsors, media folks. A lot of folks run in costumes. This article has a bunch of photos and there are more on flickr.
The start of the race was a real rush. Taking off and running down the street with that many people was incredible. The spirit of the crowd was infectious.
Then, well, we ran a lot. The race goes from the NCSU Bell Tower to the Krispy Kreme downtown and back. The way out is mostly downhill for the first 2/3rd, at that point you hit a healthy upward slope and I really felt it. Luckily that was close to the donuts.
The race was pretty crowded in the zone I was running in, but I was able to run at my desired pace more or less. Once I got going the cold wasn't a problem at all. I was quite comfortable temperature-wise, even my wet toes.
Things slowed down at the Krispy Kreme. Folks stopped to eat their donuts and this created a bit of a traffic jam. I grabbed my box and started working my way through the mob while eating.
I went into this knowing that I would not eat all the donuts. I had registered as a 'casual runner' and planned on eating just a few. I ended up eating five. I could have eaten more, but I was still skittish about the calories and I'd promised to share leftovers with non-running friends.
The way back was harder of course. I didn't have any significant trouble from eating the donuts, but I'd already run a fairly long distance in unfamiliar conditions. The second half is just the reverse of the first (except for going around the Krispy Kreme block), so the first 1/3 or so was downhill, leaving that last 2/3 mostly uphill. Once I hit the uphill I was dragging a bit. Several times I needed to drop to a walk for a few paces, but each time I pulled myself together and got back to a run.
My energy recovered somewhat when I got in sight of the bell tower again. The finish was a wild, emotional feeling, folks cheering, knowing that I'd made it despite all the fatique, and knowing that some of the other folks felt the same thing.
I crossed the finish at about 56:40. My official start was at 1:38, so I'm calling it 55 minutes, which is pretty damn good for my first K2C I think. Unfortunately the timing equipment messed up my finish time (I think the gate must have rescanned me when I left after the winners were announced), so I don't have a more accurate number.
I'll definitely do this again next year, and I'll go for the whole dozen.
ETA: They recovered my official finish time. I was 6 seconds earlier than I thought. 54:54. Top fifth!
The K2C is an approximately 4.5 mile race in Raleigh. The catch is you're supposed to eat a dozen glazed donuts in the middle.
The morning of the race was wet and cold. When I parked my car it was 37 degrees and raining pretty hard. Ten paces away from the car I started to regret my footwear. I love my Vibram Five Fingers, and I'd been running exclusively in them, but they are more or less water-transparent. My toes got wet almost immediately.
I'd gotten there early to meet some coworkers who were also running, but after a few minutes of waiting in the cold, I decided I'd rather wait in the car for a while since it was close by. I jogged back, got in, and cranked on the heat. I pondered switching to the fallback shoes I'd brought (a pair of Merrell gore-tex hiking shoes), but I decided to tough it out.
After a bit of warming up I headed back down to the Bell Tower area. It was raining even harder than before. By this time my coworkers had arrived and I waited with them for the race to start.
The scene at the start was impressive. There were 7500 registered racers this year, plus numerous spectators, sponsors, media folks. A lot of folks run in costumes. This article has a bunch of photos and there are more on flickr.
The start of the race was a real rush. Taking off and running down the street with that many people was incredible. The spirit of the crowd was infectious.
Then, well, we ran a lot. The race goes from the NCSU Bell Tower to the Krispy Kreme downtown and back. The way out is mostly downhill for the first 2/3rd, at that point you hit a healthy upward slope and I really felt it. Luckily that was close to the donuts.
The race was pretty crowded in the zone I was running in, but I was able to run at my desired pace more or less. Once I got going the cold wasn't a problem at all. I was quite comfortable temperature-wise, even my wet toes.
Things slowed down at the Krispy Kreme. Folks stopped to eat their donuts and this created a bit of a traffic jam. I grabbed my box and started working my way through the mob while eating.
I went into this knowing that I would not eat all the donuts. I had registered as a 'casual runner' and planned on eating just a few. I ended up eating five. I could have eaten more, but I was still skittish about the calories and I'd promised to share leftovers with non-running friends.
The way back was harder of course. I didn't have any significant trouble from eating the donuts, but I'd already run a fairly long distance in unfamiliar conditions. The second half is just the reverse of the first (except for going around the Krispy Kreme block), so the first 1/3 or so was downhill, leaving that last 2/3 mostly uphill. Once I hit the uphill I was dragging a bit. Several times I needed to drop to a walk for a few paces, but each time I pulled myself together and got back to a run.
My energy recovered somewhat when I got in sight of the bell tower again. The finish was a wild, emotional feeling, folks cheering, knowing that I'd made it despite all the fatique, and knowing that some of the other folks felt the same thing.
I crossed the finish at about 56:40. My official start was at 1:38, so I'm calling it 55 minutes, which is pretty damn good for my first K2C I think. Unfortunately the timing equipment messed up my finish time (I think the gate must have rescanned me when I left after the winners were announced), so I don't have a more accurate number.
I'll definitely do this again next year, and I'll go for the whole dozen.
ETA: They recovered my official finish time. I was 6 seconds earlier than I thought. 54:54. Top fifth!