The voracious, the victorious and the vomiting

Tossing his crutches aside and hopping up the stairs, Tom Place throws his hands onto the Bell Tower in jubilation. Place, a graduate student in mechanical engineering, came in at a time of 1:09:39, and even though Place didn't quite make the time limit of under an hour, he has something else to brag about -- he finished the Krispy Kreme Challenge on crutches.

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One thousand three hundred forty-one people showed up to run for the third annual Krispy Kreme Challenge, a charity race where competitors have to run two miles from the Bell Tower to Krispy Kreme, eat a dozen doughnuts and run another two miles back within an hour. Proceeds go to the North Carolina Children's Hospital. Participants included N.C. State students, students from other UNC system colleges, high school students and members of the community.

Suffering a high ankle sprain from a basketball accident Wednesday, Place said he still wanted to find a way to run the race. After the injury, he ate a dozen doughnuts to train. Also,Êin an effort to find a way to compete with his injury, he constructed homemade crutches Thursday from aluminum, old tennis shoes and stuffed animals as arm cushions.

While some participants thought the hardest part of the race was scarfing down the dozen doughnuts, Place said he thought otherwise.

"The doughnuts were a welcome break from crutching," Place said.

Different competitors had various strategies for completing the race.

Before the race, Tyler Beck, a sophomore in accounting, said his strategy would be speed.

"I'm going to shove [the doughnuts] down as fast as I can before I puke," he said.

After not eating doughnuts in two years, Bobby Mills, a junior in political science, said he managed to not vomit after eating all 12 doughnuts and still win eighth place in the challenge.

"You smash the six together and you put them in a pool of water," Mills said about how he was able to stuff down the doughnuts.

Another approach students like Lindsay Hyneck had was to smash the doughnuts together. Hyneck, a junior in business management, said the first five doughnuts were easy to devour, but only finished eight and a half.

Other competitors like Hank Howie, a freshman in history education, said he had been running for two weeks in preparation for the race.

"The run up there [during the challenge] was worse than the run back," he said. "After I threw up, it was good."

Chuck Day, a senior in nuclear engineering, said he participated in the race because of the "glory, and [he] wanted the shirt."

"The doughnuts are by far the hardest part -- the sugar," Day said.

He said he in no way regrets competing in the challenge because it was for a "good cause."

University officials like Chancellor James L. Oblinger and Tom Stafford, vice chancellor for student affairs, were spectators at the challenge.

"It's an ongoing tradition that's here to stay," Stafford said. "Everyone wants to be in [the challenge] or see it."

Suzanne Gordon, a member of the Board of Trustees, also made an appearance at the race.

"I just like the students, and it seemed like a neat thing to do," she said. "Plus, I love Krispy Kreme."

According to Gordon, not as many people threw up as she expected.

Community members like Marc Blum, a 55 year-old diabetic, took part in the race. Blum was a part of a team called "Doze Nuts."

"I'm doing it for all the diabetic people out there," Blum said.

Although Blum only consumed seven doughnuts, he completed the race in just under an hour.

Bernard Thomas, a sophomore in communication, came to the Krispy Kreme Challenge after staying up at the Campout.

"It's a good idea to have two crazy events within 18 hours," he said. "It's unique to campout and get up, and run four miles."

BJ Fisher, a senior in landscape design, completed the race with his roommates.

Fisher, who finished the race in 54 minutes, said his strategy was to eat until he saw the bottom of the box.

"Watching other people throw up was what made me sick," Fisher said.

Auburn Staples, a senior in geology, won first place in the race. He finished with a time of 24:32 and was the first person to reach the halfway point of the race- Krispy Kreme.

"I knew I needed to get there as fast as possible because I have trouble eating doughnuts," Staples said.

He said his goal was to beat his time last year, but when he was running back to the Bell Tower and looked at his watch, he realized he could win first place. He won a dozen doughnuts, a gift certificate to the Great Outdoor Provision Co. and a doughnut medal.

"I'm not sure what I'm going to do with [the medal]," he said. "But I am proud of it. I worked hard for it."

Greg Mulholland, a senior in computer science and one of the founders of the event, said the challenge could not have gone better.

"The best part about today was when we started the race and you could see the wave of people running toward Krispy Kreme," Mulholland said.

He said although he does not miss running the race himself as he did the first year, the sheer number of people running it made him proud and said he would like to see the number of participants in the following years get to around 2,000 people because there will be a point where Krispy Kreme cannot make enough doughnuts.

"[This year's challenge] went awesome," Mulholland said. "Everything went smoothly. No one had anything bad to say. Everyone was proud -- at least I was."

Mulholland said he believes this will be a long-standing NCSU tradition "as long as people are willing to do it, and as far as [he] can tell, people are willing to do it."

Curtis Edwards, a freshman in civil engineering, said the race was "brutal."

"My next doughnut is next year," he said.