Last weekend I had my Sprint-Triathlon and this weekend I was up against not only a biking challenge, but an eating challenge as well. The Donut Derby presented by The Lehigh Wheelman Association in PA.
Ever since Dennis and I moved to PA, we've wanted to do this event. For those of you not familiar, the Donut Derby is a 36 mile bike ride broken up by 2 donut stops where you eat as many donuts as you can possibly handle, earning a time credit for each donut consumed.
This year, the YOC, our starts aligned and we were able to finally enter this event and we were pumped!!
Dennis and I had no real clue as to how many we'd be able to eat, so we just went into it with a do as many as possible attitude. We were lined up at the start and off we went!
The first leg of the race was 12 miles and pretty manageable. I was staying with Dennis and our friend Chris and we had a very decent pace going. Then it was time to stop and eat the donuts. They looked so pretty all laid out on the table. Hundreds of donuts, thousands of calories, there for the taking.
I started eating and was going to keep going until I was on the edge of discomfort. No real strategy here, just eating a donut like a normal human. Dennis took the smooshing strategy to eat multiple at a time, which proved faster, but c'mon man, so gross.
After four I was about to call it quits but I pushed for one more donut and succeeded, giving me a score of 5 and Minus 15 minutes on my bike ride. The Donut Marshall collected my popsicle sticks (that's how you got credit for each donut eaten) and we were back on our bikes for another 12 miles.
I thought I'd feel worse than I did, and before I knew it was time to attempt to eat more donuts. This is where I started to fade big time. I ate 1 donut and knew this stop was going to be short lived. I could barely eat 2 and I tapped out. I've never not wanted to eat a donut more in my life.
The final 12 miles were semi challenging with my full stomach and the rolling hills, but keeping up with the boys kept my pace up and nothing that I couldn't semi comfortably handle.
I was happy to cross the finish line and check this event off my YOC list. Icing on the donut? We stuck around for the awards ceremony and funny enough I took home 2nd place in my age group! Completely unexpected but super funny, and now I have a medal from my 1st competitive eating event.
The visit to PA overall was awesome. I got to hang out with almost all of the people I've been missing so dearly since we've moved away. Everybody always makes me feel so welcomed when I visit and I am so lucky to have all the people in my life that I do.
