Krispy Kreme Doughnut Challenge

So how are your New Year's Resolutions going? Still making it to the gym, cutting down on the carbs, repurposing your Starbucks addiciton to a fix of regular joe from the deli? Good luck with all that. You can never let it be said that one of the world's leading suppliers of premium carbohydrates isn't in your corner.

Saturday was the fifth running of what has become a tradition in Raleigh, North Carolina: the Krispy Kreme Doughnut Challenge, in which the power of a mountain of doughnuts is harvested as motivation and fuel for a four mile race whose midpoint is not a shot of some namby-pamby sports drink but the scarfing of a dozen glazed. Finally, a sport everyone can support, and athletes everyone can identify with: carbo track and field.

Here's how the doughnut triathalon works: registrants gather at the belltower on the North Carolina State campus as early as 6:30 a.m., pre-doughnut-run doughnuts optional but not exactly wise. These finely-tuned thoroughbreds warm up in anticipation of the 9:30 a.m. start time for a run to the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop on Peace Street, where will be awaiting one dozen warm glazed doughnuts. These have to be scarfed (coffee optional but allowed), and then the journey repeated to the belltower (barfing optional but presumably allowed). The runner does not have to eat all of their doughnuts but has to weather the resulting humiliation if they don't. They have to complete the entire triathalon in one hour or less.

According to the official website, the race began in 2004 with 12 participants, presumably less as a spectacular sporting event than an early morning run among athletes whose commitment faltered at the sight of the doughnut shop's roofline and then was revived within its chambers. By 2008's challenge, there were approximately 3,000 registered runners. For Saturday's race, over 5,000 runners registered. The student-operated challenge benefits the North Carolina Children's Hospital, having raised over $30,000 to date. The event has been named by Sports Illustrated as a "gotta do" before graduation, and is covered by ESPN. And provides some food-and-lifestyle writers the opportunity to cover their first sports story in 20 years of their craft.

Since you're wondering, the calorie count for one dozen Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnuts is 2400, of which 1200 are calories from fat (36 grams saturated, 0 grams trans). 24 grams of protein are overwhelmed by 120 grams of sugar in cahoots with 1140 milligrams of sodium. If the runner takes whole milk and sugar in their coffee, these numbers go up. For the calories burned, the rule of thumb for running is approximately 100 calories per hour, so at two miles each way each runner expends approximately 400 calories, though it will be different for each runner based on metabolism, general fitness level, and the amount of adrenalin they experience while doing something good that tastes good too.