Race Recap - The Krispy Kreme Challenge

12 Doughnuts - 5 Miles - 2400 Calories - 1 Hour

Or, since we are not crazy college students:

1 Doughnut - 4.87 Miles (Garmin) - 200 Calories - Just under 1.5 hours

The Krispy Kreme Challenge is a fundraiser for the NC Children's Hospital that started 10 years ago on a dare with a bunch of NC State students.  Run from the NCSU Belltower down to the Krispy Kreme on Peace Street, eat a fresh dozen glazed doughnuts, and run back in under a hour.  Nowadays, it's turned into a major event and fundraiser with nearly 8,000 runners.  It's mentioned in many lists of the top cool things to do at colleges nationwide and it's definitely an iconic event here in Raleigh.

Enough history!  I can sum this event up in two words: Costumes and Puke.

I know you are so disappointed that I didn't take photos of the puke.  I did, however, take lots of photos of the costumes!  What's that?  You say you prefer costume photos?  Well, ok weirdos, here they are:

Uhhhh... dead mice in kilts?

NCSU Wolfpack, er... wolfdragon?

That cop from Reno 911 and some lady donuts

Banana Boys

Gladiators

Breaking Bad



Elvis

Vikings

PacMan

We did not dress up.  I wanted to, but my darling 15 year old son is in that teenage phase where everything your parent does is mortifyingly embarrassing.  So, yeah.  No costumes.  This was Wil's first race!  If you read this blog at all, I think you know that I trained for crap.  Wil didn't train at all.  So we did 1/1 intervals and still ended up finishing ahead of several thousand people. 

The start was cold - 38 degrees or so and we did a lot of waiting before the 8:30am gun.  (Review some of those costume photos now that you know how cold it was! YIKES!).  We were expecting rain, but thankfully, it was only overcast.  The race started promptly and so did Wil's teenage bowels.  Poor guy had the trots, big time.  The 2.5 miles to the Krispy Kreme (and only Port-O-Potty stop) were a blur of grimaces and curt nods when I would ask if he was doing ok.  He is a trooper, though, and handled it like a boss.  I also got several marvelously detailed descriptions of the poop situation as only a 15 year old boy can provide.  It was sad yet hilarious.  Sadlarious, as we call it in my house.

Finally, we made it to Krispy Kreme!



Wil gets his dozen

Selfie while Wil waited in the Potty line



Nom nom nom



Me & Wil in front of Krispy Kreme at the halfway point.

All the empty boxes!  So many carbs!!

 There were not a lot of spectators, but we did see this cute sign next to a guy playing trombone:

It says, "Please Don't Puke On Me!"

We did see a good amount of vomit, so the more squeamish may want to skip this race.  The Finish Line was pretty much a puke-fest.  Again, yerwelcome for not providing THOSE pics.

This race was loads of fun!  As always, I wish I would have trained more (reoccurring theme here at LFTL) buuuuuut, it really was mostly a "fun run" and loads of people were flat out walking.  They allowed strollers and wheelchairs to be pushed, so the only people that cared about time were way up front anyway.  There were no corrals or anything in the way of dividing people by pace, so we just headed to the back third of the pack, and we were just fine.  We were passed and we passed folks.  No major problems with attitudes since everyone was there for a good time.

So proud of my son!  He says it's his first and LAST race, but we'll see.  That lure of the Finish Line is a siren's song too sweet to forget.

Could you eat a dozen doughnuts in the middle of a 5 mile race?  (and not puuuuuuke???)

How I Lost 5 Lbs In A Week!! (aka My Trip To Japan!!)

I've been ignoring my wee little blog lately, but for a pretty good reason.  I've been in exotic and exciting Japan!  And, since this is a blog about exercise and weight loss, I'll bring it home by saying that I lost 5 pounds over the 7 days I was in Japan.  I could explain this revolutionary new diet plan, or I can just show you some highlights:

This is a delicious baked potato completely ruined with squid and squid liver pate.

This was the hotel breakfast: seaweed with beans, ginger root in "sauce", salad with something decidedly NOT ranch dressing, pork sausage that was a little off, fruit and rice.

Lunch one day - a collection of mystery foods.  I did eat the sushi and there was potato salad in there.

This is a tiny Pepsi bottle being served in a tiny little glass.  I guess they don't believe in Super Sizing beverages.

I love noodles, but octopus is chewy.

My quick lunch option on two of the days.  Sandwiches from the local 7-11.  I didn't eat the whole thing.

So, needless to say, I lived on rice all week:

I am lousy with chopsticks so only about half of the food I wanted made it to my mouth.

 

Also, apparently people in Japan walk everywhere as well.  When I would ask how far something was, I was usually told in terms of how long a walk it was.  Since they all seem to power walk like something was chasing them (perhaps the mama squid?), a 15 minute walk was easily a mile.  So I walked.  A lot.

Don't get me wrong... I had a blast.  But eating was not something I did a great deal of.  Fortunately,
the complete flip-flop of time zones (Japan is about 14 hours ahead of EST where I live in NC) meant I was so tired that I was too nauseated to eat much in the first place.  Believe me when I tell you the first thing I did after clearing Customs was to buy a gigantic tea from McDonald's and a bag of white cheddar popcorn.

Here are some pics of some of the cool things I got to see between teaching classes and prepping for those classes:

Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atsuta_Shrine)

Kaminarimon Gate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaminarimon)

Sensō-ji (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensō-ji) - This tower is said to hold some of the ashes of the Buddha.

Tokyo Skytree - (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Skytree) This picture was taken at 450 meters up!

Mt Fuji (taken from the train window between Nagoya and Tokyo)

I had a wonderful experience, but I am happy to be home.  Now I can start my 100 days towards getting serious on training.  I have a race next Saturday - the Krispy Kreme Challenge and I'm glad I'm not running for time because I would not be so speedy.

I have to say that 5lbs gone was a welcome surprise and I'm looking forward to losing more before squeezing into my silver dress at the end of March!

2014 - Goals, Plans, and Races - Oh My! (Part One)



YES! 2014 is here and it's time to start anew.  Here are my goals for 2014!

At least for the first 6 months. 

I need to get through the Half Ironman in June before I even think about what comes after.

Or IF anything comes after....

 Goal #1 for January is to get settled into a workout plan and build some consistency.  This is going to be a particular challenge, in that I am going to be away from home 12 of the 31 days in January.  I'm going to Wichita for 5 days next week and then on the 24th, I head to Japan for a whole week.

Truthfully, I feel like I'm starting the year swimming upstream.  It's exciting and all that, but Jeeze, it's going to be pretty easy to put training off unless I fight hard to keep on track.  But keep on track, I MUST.

Also, I should mention food here.  I have really let myself pig out over the holidays.  I'm very interested in learning more about nutrition and proper fueling this year.  And weight loss - oh yes.  I am down a wee bit from last year this time, but I gained 5 lbs over the holidays (this is even with having the flu the last 5 days and eating the cumulative amount of a sleeve of saltines in that time)

Our first race of the year is the famous Krispy Kreme Challenge on February 8th.  The challenge is that you run 2.5 miles, eat a dozen hot donuts, and then run 2.5 miles back - all in under an hour.  You wouldn't believe this by looking at my beetonk, but I can't eat 12 donuts in a whole day (let alone less than 10 minutes), so I entered as a participant instead of a challenger.  I am running this one with my son, Wil, and we are pretty excited.  I think a 5 mile race is a good place to start and this is an iconic event for our area.  We plan to dress up as the Eleventh Doctor (Wil) and the Tardis (me) because dressing up for the Krispy Kreme Challenge is definitely encouraged.

Food-wise, following up my mention on eating better with the KKC might seem like I am not fully committed to... anything healthy.  I totally get where you are coming from, and I have absolutely no excuse or justification other than I get to dress up!  LIKE THE TARDIS.  If I get real ambitious, I'm going to put Bad Wolf right across my ass.  That's worth a few unhealthy donuts!

March 24th - 31st is the World Balloon Convention in Denver, CO.  I am teaching for the second time at WBC, which is a pretty stressful undertaking.

My goals for March are to lose enough weight so I can squeeze into the silver dress to the right on the finale night.  It almost zips up now, but I went ahead and bought it anyway because it was at Kohl's and I think they coat their Kohl's Cash with bad judgement gel.  In any event, I bought the dress in hopes it will fit nicely in 3 months.

I'm looking for a Sprint Tri this month but all I can find so far is during WBC when I am out of town.  In that case, I might look for a nice half marathon and there are a few choices, including the Tobacco Road Full & Half.

Most important in April is that it's my birthday!!  I'll be 44.  Next most important is a huge decision, which is... which race to choose?  I was looking at the Rock N Roll Full on my birthday, April 13th, but there is an Olympic Tri nearby on the 19th.  I seriously doubt I can do both and remain standing.

I am leaning more toward the tri because it will help me get more prepared for the HIM in June.  I am SUPER EXCITED about another Olympic Tri.  I feel like I learned so much last time and definitely need all the Tri practice I can get before June.

I am also concerned that I have 4 months to train and that did not seem to be sufficient on my last Olympic Half.  I can honestly say my training was inconsistent and I really didn't start to swim or bike until 1 - 2 months before the event, so I believe I can go in more prepared this time.  It's local, which is nice.  And I can do some Open Water Swims at the location before the actual race.  All good.  I'd like to do this as a confidence builder towards the HIM, so I have to work up some of that "can do" spirit by April.

 May is kinda up in the air!  I don't want to do anything extreme as I taper, but a cool Sprint Tri would be nice.  I did find one pretty interesting event that could double as a mini-vacation for my family. 

The Carolina Beach Double Sprint is May 11th.  It's Swim/Run/Bike/Run/Swim, which sounds like a fun twist.  Carolina Beach is about 2 hours away and close to where we normally take our beach trips.

Ironman Raleigh 70.3 - Yeah, this is happening June 1st.  THIS is my big race this year and everything I do between now and June 1st will be leading to this event.  I am excited, but terrified.  I can imagine that the following two weeks will be spent doing some well-deserved ass-sitting.

I don't know what else to say about June.  I am dreading its arrival and thinking the first 6 months of 2014 are going to blaze by.

CONTINUED WITH PART TWO AS SOON AS I FIGURE IT OUT!

I'd like to add more events, but even these listed will be a stretch financially.  You may have noticed no RunDisney Races and that is purely financial.  The average RunDisney half marathon is $180 now and that doesn't include travel and hotel, or even time in the parks.  I'd love to do Wine & Dine again, but this may have to be a Disney-free year.  The truth is that I can do THREE local races for the cost of one RunDisney entry and that is hard to ignore.

 

Wish me luck with my first 6 months of 2014!  They should be jam-packed since I usually travel about 6-10 days a month in addition to training.  I am hoping for a more quiet year, but I don't think that's going to happen.  I hope YOUR 2014 is going to be successful and exciting!