No puking. No vomiting. No looking to Huuuuurl! ADVERTISING No puking. No vomiting. No looking to Huuuuurl! It sounded simple enough but those three rules announced at the race start would be the hardest to obey at Saturday’s Inaugural BioAstin
No puking. No vomiting. No looking to Huuuuurl!
It sounded simple enough but those three rules announced at the race start would be the hardest to obey at Saturday’s Inaugural BioAstin Pizza 5K contest.
Presented by BioAstin and Domino’s Pizza, a brave group of 25 participants readied themselves to run a mile followed by gorging on a large slice of cheese pizza – then doing it again, and again, as fast as they possibly could.
To add to the challenge, there were also a few minor details one had to keep in mind. The entire slice of pizza – including the crust – needed to be consumed before running, and absolutely no running with food in your mouth.
Just to visualize the eating process — along with getting a whiff of the cheesy aroma that heavily saturated the air — provoked a somewhat sickening feeling among spectators who came out to cheer on family and friends for the 8:30 a.m. start time. And of course, it was all for a good cause.
“We are always looking for ways to support a few non-profit groups here on the Big Island,” said Eddie Ombac, race organizer of the event. “The Kealakehe High School Waverider Tri Club and Sunrise Athletics in Hilo are both groups that encourage kids to live active and healthy lifestyles.
“I figured lets do something fun. We all heard of the beer mile but we don’t want to do something like that when we are supporting kids groups so we figured lets do the pizza mile. I contacted Domino’s and we were stoked that they totally wanted to help.”
Ombac added that they decided to go with plain cheese pizza but determining how many slices to cut the pizza was a bit harder so he posted his dilemma on Facebook. The decision came back unanimous – go with big slices – a pizza round cut into eight pieces instead of 12.
And now, after weeks of smack talk amongst athletes of who was “going down” at the inaugural challenge, it was finally time to put their mouths into action.
Mikey Brown seemed to have the best game plan. While everyone stood around joking with one another before the start, the Hawaii County Fireman focused his attention on fully warming up his running muscles right until the start of the race.
“Eighteen…nineteen,” laughed Kona’s Bree Wee as she watched Brown warming up. “I’m counting how many laps Mikey is doing. He looks pretty serious. We should be scared.”
After a quick countdown by race announcer, Eddie-O, runners furiously charged down Alii Drive – all with the hope of being crowned BioAstin’s first Pizza 5K World Champion.
After a few minutes, none were surprised to see Wee running back to the pizza tent in first, with recent Ironman World Championship finisher, James Resor, hot on her heels.
Wee grabbed a slice, then Resor. However, there was no mistaking Wee’s anguished face as she bent over to force it down before heading back out on the course again.
As other participants began to trickle in, Eddie-O once again reminded everyone; “No running with food in your mouth. We have volunteers that will check to see if you’ve eaten the entire slice before running.”
By the second, then final round, it was evident that Brown had a large cushion upon everyone else. With arms raised, Brown crossed the finish line as the first BioAstin Pizza 5K World Champion in an incredible time of 21 minutes and 57 seconds.
“I wanted to do more fun events and something semi challenging, but it’s hard to take this so seriously,” laughed Brown of his win. “My plan was I wanted to run fast and eat faster. I wanted to go at a 10K pace instead of a faster 5K pace that way I can at least digest it.”
Brown said that he was able to eat his first pizza in about 30-seconds. After that, his pace – both eating and running – slowed as it got harder and harder to push. But what gave Brown the edge over his competition. He credited his strategy on the way he attacked his pizza slice.
“I gotta give props to Dan (Gampon),” Brown said. “Dan told me to dip it (in water) and it worked. But don’t tell anyone in Hilo that because I’m racing Hilo’s version next week and I want to win that.”
As for being crowned a Pizza 5K World Champion, Brown laughed and said he wasn’t sure if he should feel good about that title. Wee agreed as she finished as first female in a time of 23:20.
“I feel absolutely horrible as this is probably the stupidest thing that I have ever done,” Wee said laughing. “But I just love challenges. We’ve never had anything like this and I wanted to support the Waverider Tri Club. And it feels great because I haven’t won a race in awhile so I’m feeling really good.”
Keauhou Veterinary’s Jacob Head (24:07) felt happy that he crossed the finish line feeling full but not sick to his stomach.
“I ran fast for the first mile, then just ate as fast as I could,” Head said of his game plan. “And little bits of water just to keep my throat lubricated helped. Having pizza in the morning, it was a tough one, but I liked it because it was exciting, new and fun.”
John Ferdico (27:14), who plans to compete in this weekend’s Honolulu Marathon, said that his pre-race strategy almost backfired.
“My strategy was, don’t eat dinner last night, don’t eat breakfast this morning, then run an easy 5-miles before the race,” Ferdico said. “But the problem was my stomach felt fine, but my legs hurt too much. I could definitely eat another pizza – in fact I’m still kind of hungry.”
Despite the new challenge, all would agree that the inaugural BioAstin Pizza 5K went down as a morning filled with lots of laughter, full bellies, and fun memories that will surely be told for many moons to come.
