About 59 people did doughnuts April 23rd on Broad Avenue.
But they weren’t in cars. They were on foot.
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts were served when runners completed two and half miles of the five mile race at Donuts & Dogs, a fundraiser for Streetdog Foundation, a nonprofit that, according to its website, “rescues and rehabilitates dogs from the streets of Memphis.”
Runners ate a certain amount of doughnuts midway in the race depending on what tier they were in, says Brett Healey, a former Memphian now living in Raleigh, North Carolina. They ate three, six, or 12 doughnuts after two and a half miles.
You might say these people like to eat and run.
Six years ago, Healey created the “unofficial Memphis version” of the race, which is based on one held at the University of North Carolina. “The first year was just a handful of friends getting together. The second and third was for Breakaway Running.”
They took a break during Covid. “And came back last year for Streetdog.”
Healey lived in Memphis five years, where many Memphians remember him for his competitive eating in contests ranging from hamburgers to meatballs to Moon Pies. The doughnuts race “had just gained so much momentum over the years. So many people involved and such good reception.”
So, he continued to organize the race after he moved. “I couldn’t let the race die. The show must go on.”
Healey didn’t run in this year’s race. “I just needed to run the event without having to do any physical running.”
Tim Guarino was the overall winner with a time of 41 minutes and 38 seconds.
An estimated $2,000 was raised for Streetdog Foundation, says Melanie Pafford, who founded the organization with her husband Kent in 2009.
Sean Powers participated in his first Donuts & Dogs April 23rd. Powers, lead trainer and manager of Shred 415, a Downtown workout studio in Peabody Place, and his girlfriend also are owners of a rescue dog, Beans. “I ran my first marathon in December for St. Jude,” Powers says. “Now, I try to find fun races to get back into training mode for the next marathon.”
Donuts & Dogs sounded perfect. “I’m completely obsessed with food and I love to run and dogs are awesome. So, I put all three together.”
Powers began practicing for the run about two weeks ago. Using Gibson’s Donuts, he says, “I picked up a dozen and for every mile I would run, I ate two doughnuts in between.”
He began with “three miles and two doughnuts in between.”
Everything went great. “Lucky for me, I have a stomach that’s steel. I can eat anything I want. The biggest thing is I wanted to be ready for the sugar overload that was going to happen. Prep my body for any cramping or anything that might occur.
“Two days before the race, I ate two doughnuts, ran five miles, and then I ate four doughnuts. So, I completed the six.”
Powers opted for the six doughnut race instead of the dozen doughnut race. “Twelve was really fun or cool, but I didn’t want to ruin my day.”
So, on race day Powers slipped his size 11 feet into his Hoka Clifton 9s and hit the road. He finished the race just under 45 minutes. “I think a couple of people finished before me.”
And, he adds, “I probably would have finished a little faster, but I started cramping up on the second half of the last mile. Those doughnuts hit pretty hard at that point.”
But Powers had a blast. “The best part was when we got to the doughnut eating section after we finished the big lap. Egging each other on to get the doughnuts down. How hard they were. I did see a couple of people throwing up on the second lap. I didn’t want to get an upset stomach and waste the environment of it.
“After the race was done I wanted to enjoy the actual event. Meet some other people that were there.”
Following the race, Powers sampled and bought some of the spices from the locally-owned Spice Krewe team, which had a booth at the event. He plans to use some of their spice for his barbecue team, Pigs Gone Wild, at the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, where he’s a head cook.
In addition to buying spices, Powers says, “I visited the dogs they had up for adoption. Just kind of enjoying the charity of it. The run, for me, was for fun. After that, I wanted to show more support.”
Was he able to eat later that day? “Oh, yeah. Absolutely.”
Powers says he ate chicken and rice. “I would say maybe an hour after when my stomach settled down from the doughnuts. I knew I had to get proper food in me. About an hour after the race I was able to eat perfectly fine.”
