When I heard about the Doughnut Dash my first thoughts were “awesome, I can combine two of my favourite things… fitness and the eating of sweet stuff”. Little did I know just how sickly sweet those fateful doughnuts would be, and how little I would feel like running the last kilometre after having gorged myself on five of Gregg’s best.

Team Doughnut Dash

Joining me for the race, 5 kilometres with a doughnut to eat for every kilometre, were Jo, Laura and Louise – just some of the lovely people I’ve met through joining CrossFit Raeda. We made our way to Colchester, ready to take on the challenge in aid of Kidney Research UK.

I prepped by skipping breakfast, the obvious antithesis of a typical healthy start to race day, and psychologically built myself up for the sugary feast I was about to endure.

Jam-Filled, Iced Hundreds and Thousands

Wow, what a treat! There we were lulled into a false sense of security with the promise of simple ring doughnuts when we were greeted with our first delight. It was chewy and gooey and extremely yum. The perfect way to start a 5k! We grabbed our first sticker and were on our way.

Chocolate Iced Sprinkles

Around half a mile later we met our second doughnut… mmm chocolate! Who doesn’t love chocolate? The first doughnut took longer to eat than we’d planned for, but this one didn’t last as long. Queuing for a sticker took a little bit of time, but that just helped us chew properly before heading off for the next portion of the run.

White Icing Overload

A slightly longer stretch between doughnut courses this time and we enjoyed a jog along the river in the lovely Castle Park. We reached our third doughnut stop and it was a corker… a ring doughnut completely smothered in white icing with chocolate drizzle. This one took a while, and with two doughnuts prior, made me teeth ache! But we wouldn’t be defeated – off we ran to reach the start of our second lap.

Plain Glazed

What a relief. After a hard half a mile from the sugary, sticky mess of doughnut three, a plain glazed ring doughnut was welcome. The volunteer at this stop must have recognised the look of despair on my face as he handed me a slightly less sugary doughnut to complete this leg. Louise’s stickers had started to fall off of her race number, but the friendly volunteer gave her some fresh ones – I think he could tell from her face that she’d eaten them all! We paused for a little longer than before to devour this fried doughy goodness and set to work.

Caramel Iced, Custard Filled

What a doozy. They certainly saved the most sickly doughnut for last. Having doubled back around the river again we had a good amount of time to run the worst of the stitch from the fourth doughnut off, but the thought of one more just made us all want to cry. We spent the next few moments trying to see which of the ducks in the river looked most hungry…

As we reached the last stop, the volunteers were actually apologising as they handed the doughnuts out! This was in stark contrast to the first few stations where they were smiling as our eager faces waited to be fed. Now I love a bit of custard, and I’m sure at any other time this would have been a tasty treat, but right now I wanted to hurl it into the distance and pretend it didn’t exist.

Finishing Straight

The last section of the race was definitely the hardest. On one hand we knew we were done with the doughnuts and could just push on, but on the other hand my head was spinning with the sugar rush, and every step made me want to burp… yep, lovely.

We rounded the final bend and picked up the pace heading to the finish line. A pretty cool doughnut shaped medal awaited us – I barely remember taking this photo as the sugar drunkness had well and truly kicked in.

Overall the race was so much fun. I’m not one to shy away from novelty races with a Santa Run, Zombie Evacuation and Men’s Health Survival of the Fittest under my belt, but this was definitely one of the most surreal races I’ve completed. I think the race could be improved by removing the sticker element – there really wasn’t any need for them as I’m pretty sure no-one would take the “race” seriously enough to try and cheat, and they just caused queuing that could have been avoided. However, from the organisation, to the fab medal, right down to the doughnuts, it was a great race and definitely a unique one.

Would I do it again? I don’t know… Will I ever eat a doughnut again? Hell yeah! Maybe just not for a while.

For more information about the race please head to http://www.doughnutdash.org.uk/ Thank you Gregg’s for all the tasty doughnuts and thanks to Jo, Laura and Louise for joining me in this stupid, but extremely fun race!