Many donuts. One of Mira's many photos of the delicious delicacies. (Mira Wang/North by Northwestern)
Join your favorite Life & Style editing crew in the most exciting eating-exercising journey of the quarter. The premise: Run a 5K (organized by the NU Triathlon team); eat Krispy Kreme donuts; raise money for World Bicycle Relief. For each donut consumed, time is subracted from the final time – but for each vomiting incident, time is added. The result? A strange, masochistic calculus of donut versus run. Check back on Sunday for video coverage of this strange, terrible, philanthropic run.
Mira Wang, L&S editor:
I love donuts. In fact, I love donuts so much that I created a shared Google spreadsheet that delineates all the donut shops and specific donuts to try in the cities where my fellow donut-obsessed high school pals go to college.
Running? That’s a bit of a different story. In the name of full disclosure, I will reveal that I “ran track" for 1.5 years in high school. It was the most masochistic thing I’ve ever taken part in, and I quit after coming to the horrible realization that I actually dreaded the end of classes because I didn’t want to run track.
Nowadays, I have evolved to the point of working out once a week (or something close to that number). I’ll do a weird sort-of dance-run along the lakefill or at Blom, jamming to Kanye’s old hits or some throwback One Direction, tolerable only because of the beautiful men singing in my ear and because I know that I can slow to a walking pace without feeling particularly guilty.
But this Sunday thing? This 10 a.m.-eat-donuts-and-run-till-you-die thing? I feel all kinds of mixed emotions. I love donuts! But running races makes me anxious! A 5K isn’t that bad, right? But I’m also so not in shape… The only prep work I’ve done was a two-mile run on Sunday and a couple donuts from Nor-Dunkin’ (Norkin’ Donuts? Dunkin Do-Nor-nuts?) in between classes. I did, however, eat two Insomnia cookies and then promptly walk up the stairs to pass out in my room, so let’s just say I’m as prepared as I’ll ever be.
Here’s the gameplan: Lots of Kanye, lots of One Direction and a donut or two in between my lame walk-jogging stints. I’m not going for speed, but I will go for my 10-dollar-registration-fee’s worth in Krispy Kreme.
Tanner Howard, Managing:
When this heinous idea was first hatched several weeks ago, I was enthusiastic. Surely I could handle a 5K, no sweat. Eat a bunch of doughnuts on the way? Piece of cake.
Now, as the day approaches, I don't know how I'll survive. While I'm not especially worried about not finishing, there's still an inherent terror that surrounds this whole affair.
I'll just say it: running sucks. I don't know how people delude themselves otherwise. Your ankles hurt, you get winded so quickly, and there's no way you look good doing it (there are photos of me in 6th grade track that prove that). I think the doughnuts will make this whole ridiculous event physically uncomfortable, but it's the running that I'm more afraid of.
I am lucky that I'm in semi-decent shape right now, after riding my bike around Evanston and Chicago this summer. No saying that will mean anything come race time, but I'm hoping it counts for something.
In terms of prepping myself doughnut-wise, I wasn't as diligent as I meant to be, eating one every day two weeks before the race. But on Monday I did eat a fire buttermilk doughnut from a Doughnut Vault truck in downtown Chicago, then ran four blocks to catch a bus back to Evanston, so maybe that will be enough training for this thing?
Anyways, I think this race will kill me. I don't mean to do this, but I get unfortunately competitive in these types of events. Pray that I don't overdo this and and up spewing half-digested Krispy Kreme into the waves of Lake Michigan come 10 a.m. Sunday morning.
Julia Song, L&S assistant editor:
Less than a quarter at NU has allowed me to realize that my decision-making process doesn't actually exist. I just say YES or NO after flawed selective comprehension. For example, a proposal that reads something like, "Run...triathlon club...Eat Donuts...your health..." evokes a yes from my brain, even though the two verbs should be mutually exclusive.
I can already feel the donuts I've yet to eat crawling up my throat, but I guess this is why people watch horror movies. You'll hate yourself afterwards and already know how it will end, but you want bragging rights and therefore must stick it out.
My strategy?
1. Donut throw up.
2. Bring myself back to my first jaunt to Krispy Kreme: face pressed up against the glass separating me from the rows of warm, gorgeous freshly-glazed doughnuts. Channel Julia the second grader, who whould've given anything but my blankie for the opportunity to eat a dozen hol(e)y confections.
I began my week of dedicated preparation for this challenge with a Sunday cardio/weights workout on five hours of sleep after a Halloween night out.
I have also consumed two donuts and disgusting amounts of pizza at ungodly hours over the course of this week, so I must have practiced enough, at least for the second activity of this 5K.