Five years ago, Chris McCoy dreamed up a four mile race that would become a N.C. State tradition. Called the Krispy Kreme Challenge, participants run two miles from the Bell Tower on N.C. State’s campus to the Krispy Kreme store on Peace St., stop and eat a dozen donuts, then run back to the Bell Tower, all in under an hour. McCoy’s idea blossomed when ten participants completed the inaugural race on a dare in December 2004 (ironically, McCoy didn’t compete because he overslept on race day). Ben Gaddy, then an ECE sophomore, won the first race in 34 minutes and 27 seconds.

The Krispy Kreme Challenge presents runners with a  unique blend of difficulty, seemingly tailor-made for college students. After the first two miles, the Challenge’s signature doughnuts make the final leg of the participant’s journey a struggle to simply keep their stomachs settled. “The first two doughnuts are delicious, but then your saliva starts to turn into a syrupy glaze,” said ECE alumni and original organizer Greg Mulholland in a Sports Illustrated: On Campus article. “When you’re running back, it feels like the syrup’s coming through your pores.”

The striking contrast between eating doughnuts and running has certainly helped set the Krispy Kreme Challenge apart from other contests, but Mulholland thinks the Challenge serves a larger purpose, “N.C. State students, and even people in Raleigh, have been looking for traditions that haven’t died over the last fifty years. the Krispy Kreme Challenge could be the next true N.C. State tradition, and that momentum has given it a weight that some random race in a random city wouldn’t have.”

With these factors in their favor, Mulholland, Gaddy, and several others helped transform the Challenge from a quirky dare amongst friends, to an annual charitable event benefitting the North Carolina Children’s Hospital that draws runners and college students from across the nation. The fifth annual Challenge, held February 7, 2009, several years after the Challenge founders graduated, raised over $40,000 from its 5,519 participants and was taped by ESPN for the daily SportsCenter program.