Doughman Quadrathlon

This is going to be an epic race report for an epic race - The Doughman! Are you all tired of me talking about this race yet?

The doughman is a competitive eating/running/biking/aquatic event relay. It's always been dominated by all men teams so me and a couple of my girlfriends decided to put together a ringer girls team and see if we could give the boys a run for their money. Mission accomplished.

The skinny:
Brooke Tvermoes started out for us eating local yogurt with granola and strawberries. She then had to bike 10 miles through Durham obeying all traffic laws and even got stopped by a train. She then had to eat barbeque at Hog Heaven, then a ride a short distance before tagging me. I ran .25 to Broad Street Pizza and ate two slices, then ran another 1.5 miles to a Duke pool. I grabbed an inner tube, jumped in, then sat in the inner tube and paddled across the pool. I tagged Alysia Lovgren who ran .7 to Dain's Place, ate a goat sausage hoagie, then ran another 1.8 to Dos Perros. Kari Mayhew was tagged at Dos Perros and ate some weird Mexican dish and then ran 1.5 miles to the Durham Athletic Park. We all reconvened and ate dessert, before running a lap around the park and finishing.

We had prepared well for this race. We had lots of strategy meetings which were really just good excuses for the 4 of us to get together for dinner and drinks. We did come up with a cute team name (Victorious Secret) and an equally cute outfit. We also had a few practice rounds which actually really helped all of us out.

We all met bright and early on Saturday morning.


Here is our coach.
Matt is a friend of ours who agreed to be our team support vehicle. This race is a logistical nightmare (and not closed or anything, and all the eating places were in different locations) so you have to have one team vehicle who drops the racers off and picks people up. He decided to dress up, too, and stayed in character the entire day as a North Carolina super redneck. He even grew a beard for several weeks JUST so he could shave it into that goatee. Everyone was in this thing full speed.

Here's a great team picture before the race.


And a pre-race photo at the start (Local Yogurt)


Last minute hug and words of wisdom.


This race raises money for several charities and they encourage people to come dressed up in costumes. Even so, a lot of the teams are pretty darn competitive.

We had the biggest entourage throughout the race. Brooke's husband Nicolai, Marty, and my sister road their bikes next to all of us while running. Nicolai and Marty got tons of great video, which was awesome since as racers we didn't get to see a lot of the other parts. Here is Nicolai reviewing the course while I contemplate what's to come.


Here are Kari, coach and me waiting in T1 for Brooke to come in off the bike. Matt had his thumbs hooked on his belt buckle in almost every picture we took.


Here's Brooke coming in off the bike.

A couple of fast guys ate much quicker than Brooke did at Local Yogurt and they were able to breakaway. Brooke is a super fast biker, but she got stopped by a train and several lights and this caused a huge pack to form and she said it was impossible to break from them. She did eat the bbq at lightening speed and got ahead of a bunch of her pack, and was able to come in around 9th place (there were 70 total teams).

I'm stretching while waiting for her to tag me in T1.


And here's the tag.


We did a practice run of this pizza a couple of weeks ago and I was kind of slow eating it. The crust was very hard so I already had a strategy of dipping it right into water to make it soggy and easier to go down. I wasn't sure how much water they would have so I brought my own water bottle just in case. Here's what I had to eat.


Only 2 slices! We had practiced with 3 so this was really, really good. I also had my game face on and was ready to eat it fast!

The full table of pizza awaiting the racers.


Here are a couple of the first few guys eating.


Here I am running into Broad Street Pizza.


A couple of shots of me eating.



And here's some video. I downed the pizza in 1:30 and passed several other teams!




Now I had to run 1.5 miles to the pool. I went super hard - like sub 6min pace hard.


Here's some video of me running. Nothing too interesting happened here, except for the guy trying to stay with me at the beginning. Not happening today, dude! :)



On the run I caught everyone except for 2 guys. The first guy's team had a huge lead, but I came in with the 2nd guy to the pool. People laughed at me on Friday morning at master's because I brought an inner tube to practice jumping in and getting in the tube fast, then stroking down the pool. Well let me tell you - this made all the difference!! I got our team into 2nd place because of my superior inner tube skills. (we had to walk on the pool deck, by the way, and yes, I jumped in fully clothed. I was not going to waste time taking my shoes off. I told you we were dedicated.)


Here's some video of the pool. This video is pretty funny.




Next up is Alysia. Here are a couple shots of her running.




Here is her eating place.



And a shot of her eating.

Video of her eating.



Pic of 2nd place runner.


After running-eating-running, she tagged Kari, who ate the Mexican dish.

Video of Kari eating.



We were in 4th place when Alysia tagged Kari (the 3rd leg was by far the toughest and longest, and the top teams had some fast runners). No matter for Kari though, as she easily hunted down 3rd place and passed him quickly.

Kari finished her run at the Durham Athletic Park and we all ran in to eat the final thing - dessert. Two Loco Pops (popscicles) and 2 cupcakes. The cupcakes were bitesize and luckily for this round we could help each other out. This was really good since Kari had just gotten done eating and running. Brooke and I downed the cupcake quick and then helped Alysia and Kari finish off the loco pops. At the very end, Kari shoved the last little bit at Brooke who bit off a big chunk. A tiny piece fell to the ground and she picked it up and threw it in the garbage. The volunteer said, "Uh uh, that's not going to work." Without batting an eye, Brooke immediately dug in the trash, got the little piece and ate it! She said it had luckily fallen on a paper plate...I told you we were serious about this! I LOVE my team - best group of girls ever. Nicolai actually got all this on film, but I don't have it. She definitely gets MVP for the team.

Eating the dessert.

Here's the first place team - next year they're going down!


Here are a few finishing shots - 3rd place!!





Great finishing video! The 2nd place team and then us :)



We got bronze medals - they were macaroni stringed with marshmallows covered in bronze spray paint.


Full team pose post race, all wet and sweaty.


Team with coach.


High fiving the second place team.


After the race, the local news interviewed a bunch of racers. They even interviewed Matt and the reporter was laughing so hard at him. At the end of the interview, the reporter said, "Well, Coach, your team finished 3rd today. What are you going to do differently next year?" Matt answered without missing a beat, "Side stretches. Lots and lots of side stretches." Unfortunately, it didn't make the evening news.


And finally, the top three teams at the awards ceremony. I think we surprised a lot of people :) Thanks for reading about our antics :)