11 + 4 = One Long Run

One of the Malone Coaching athletes (Thanks AnnieLloyd!) organized a Donut Dash yesterday for athletes and friends/family. But since coach won't let me get away with "just" running 4 miles, I had 11 miles on tap before the donuts.

Looping around downtown Greenville for 11 miles to dodge the snow.

I wasn't the only one that had more than the dash on the calendar and this way, a fairly big group of people met up at 8am in front of GoRun to get a run in. The plan was to hit the Swamp Rabbit Trail and the plan started out good until we hit a section of the trail that was still covered in ice. In the meanwhile the group split in smaller groups and because the whole SRT plan fell through, the different smaller groups took different routes to total up the mileage for the day. A training friend (she really is faster than I am, but slowed down for me) and I stuck together and looped around downtown while catching up.... It's amazing, how fast an almost 2 hour run passes when you haven't seen each other in weeks and have tons and tons to talk about.

It was almost 10am by the time we got back to GoRun and the place started to fill up with contestants for the Donut Dash.

The donut run was set-up like this: You run a 2 mile loop, than have to eat 6 donuts (Krispy Kreme Glazed, still warm) in a designated area and then run the 2 mile loop again. If you leave the donuts on the second loop, you are disqualified.... All of this applied, if you started as "challenger". But you could also start as "casual" participant and only eat 0-5 donuts, but in that case, you were also not eligible for (donut shaped) awards.

Since my history of stomach issues is well documented, let me assure you that I didn't signed up as challenger. But fellow blogger Lindsay is much more kick butt than I will ever be and she started as challenger and ended up coming in second woman... She has some good insight in fast donut eating strategies and you should totally check her "race" report out.

I took those 4 miles very easy... The tank was empty and fortunately another one of my training friends came out for the dash and we ended up running the two loops together... Catching up, since we haven't seen each other since before the holidays. After the first loop, I actually thought about skipping the second loop, but with that kind of company... Skipping wasn't really an option.

After the race we all just hung out for a while. Several of my relay team goons came out too and it certainly was fun to hear their donut stories! ;-) I had two donuts after the race to refuel... of course!

The contestants for the inaugural Do Run Donut Dash!

Pre-Race instructions: "This is an unofficial race, if you bust your butt, it's your fault!"

The Goon-Ru came out too... Of course he was sporting DNR team gear.

The donut, a natural enemy of the runner.... ;-) Those facial expressions are priceless.