Tour de Donut

Being that I'm an official "Chicagoan", I came into town Friday afternoon so that I could participate in a bicycle race on Saturday morning. It's called the Tour de Donut and is held annually in Staunton, IL, about 45 minutes north of St. Louis on I-55. The premise of the race is just like it sounds from the title - you eat donuts (I realize this is the lazy spelling of 'doughnut', but that's how they roll in Staunton, so for the sake of efficiency and consistency, I will use it here, but just this once). It's not that simple though. It is a 32 mile race split into three legs. In between the legs there is a break stop where they have boxes upon boxes of donuts. You can opt to eat as many donuts as you can or you can simply pass up the break stop and continue on in the race. The catch; however, is that for each donut you eat you get 5 minutes taken off of your total race time. Prizes are given for actual and adjusted finish times, so there is actually an incentive to eat the donuts and it gives the race a little niche and a bit of "entertainment". Like any race, you wear a number so that your time can be collected. In this race, your number is marked with your amount of donuts eaten, so they can match your time with the proper amount of time deduction... its kind of a hoot.

The race started out very out of character. Although I have only done it once before - last year - I know that in the middle of July it is supposed to be a nice hot day. Well Saturday that was not the case. About half an hour before the race, it rained... hard! It was bittersweet because the clouds covered the sun and cooled off the air, but the rain actually made it kind of chilly. At one point I even had erect nipples! There were 1200 riders that showed up to race, so instead of sending them all home due to a little inclimate weather (there was no lightning), the organizers decided that the show must go on.

The race started at about 9:15am, and I was in the front quarter of the pack of 1200. Within the first few miles I felt like I was keeping a really good pace. I was passing as many people that were passing me, so I felt I was holding good position and could keep my stamina up all day, eat a shitload of donuts, and finish this thing with a pretty respectable time. That thought went completely by the wayside when at about the 4-mile mark my front tire sprung a leak and stopped me in my tracks. I had to pull over to change a flat - in the goddamn rain!! Unfortunately this wasn't where the drama ended. I ride this race with my friend Steve (Justin's dad) and his wife Nancy. Steve is a very good and experienced rider and in the first 4 miles probably had already built a comfortable lead on me - I knew what pace he was trying to keep before the race started. I knew I was kinda screwed with the flat because although I had a spare inner tube, I didn't have any method in which to inflate it... like a pump or a CO2 cartridge. Luckily, as I was removing the damaged tube and inserting the new one, Steve's wife Nancy approaches me asking if I need anything.... I scream out, "Pump!" She slows down to attempt to pull over to my aid and that is when some jackass totally rear-ends her. He clipped and bent the rear derailleur on her rear hub - which essentially is a part that makes gear shifting possible. Needless to say the bike was un-rideable after the collision. But the worst news was that the impact caused both riders to fall instantly onto their left sides, and Nancy to propel forward a little bit. She scraped her knee and elbow pretty bad and hit hit forehead (the portion covered by a helmet, of course) on the pavement. She had no visible head injury, but she did crack and ding her helmet, so the incident - the injury coupled with the crippled bike - was enough to keep Nancy from finishing the race. I must be a bad luck charm because I did a team race with Steve a few weeks ago where he rolled his ankle in the running portion and he could not finish... sorry Hahns!!!

Anyway, so she had a CO2 cartridge she let me use and I was able to inflate my tire (to about 60% of where it should be - losing that much more efficiency) and finish the race. I wanted to finish due to pride, but this setback of about 30 to 40 minutes total cost me any respectable finish time - and I knew that. I finished the first leg strong, all things considered, and stopped at the first donut stop. I grabbed 2 donuts and ate them both at once - they smash down pretty easily and this is a race so there is no time to dawdle... After I finished them I went back for more but they were gone - they had run out of donuts at the first stop. This really took the wind out of my sails because I was going to try to slam quite a few of these doughy little bastards to make up some of the time I lost with the tire and the wreck. No such luck, so I really, really had to push it in the second leg, and I would say in that 10-12 mile stretch I passed no fewer than 200 riders... no shit. I was kicking ass. It was still all for naught because I was so far behind. By the time I had gotten back on the road I was pretty much at the end of the line, so the people I was passing really were just doing the ride for fun anyway, but it still felt good to blow by so many of them at such an astonishing rate - I needed that kind of encouragement to keep up my momentum.

So I make it to the 2nd donut stop and order 2 donuts... then 2 more. By the time I finish all 4 I see that they are down to about 4 dozen left and I really won't get a chance to eat too many more, so I just said screw it and continued on. Plus my body was feeling the effects of the 20+ mph pace I was pushing in the 2nd leg, so I didn't want to lose any donuts in a pukey mess, as I saw that two or three other people were about to do - kinda gross... Skip, out! I got through the final leg taking a little bit off it as not to injure myself. I still finished and with plenty of people behind me, but I was probably right in the middle of the pack. Even worse, I'm sure I was pretty far down in my male age group. It's all good though because despite all the trials and tribulations, I had fun and got some damn good exercise. Can't wait to do it next year!

So I did the race in the morning, came to my mom's afterward to watch the Cubs/Cards game, took a nap, and hung out with my uncle and his daughters when they came over to swim. Last Saturday was a really good and fulfilling day for me.

If you want to look for my results, just Google search: "Tour de Donut 2009 results". It's not going to look pretty and you may have to scroll down a while to find me (under an assumed name: Christopher Jackson...haha), but it feels good to have finished and put my name on the list.