Imagine consuming 31 Krispy Kreme original, glazed doughnuts while participating in a 5K road race. Broken down, that equates to consuming 6,200 calories and 372 grams of fat – all while running just more than 3.1 miles. As crazy as it sounds, 31 was the number of Krispy Kreme doughnuts consumed by Ames resident Bill Kinney during the 2005 Doughnut Run.

The annual Doughnut Run, sponsored by the ISU Triathlon Club, will take place for the fourth time at 9 a.m. Sunday in Brookside Park. The run typically draws crowds between 150 and 250 people, with 160 participating in last year’s race.

Laura Riley, club president and senior in animal science, said the race is similar to any other 5K race, except runners can have time deducted from their overall finish time by consuming various quantities of doughnuts along the way.

“We give prizes to the people with the lowest overall time, as well as to a male and female that eat the most doughnuts during the race,” she said. “Last year, the woman that ate the most was a pregnant lady from Ames.”

Jessika Barber, last year’s female doughnut champion, could not be reached for comment, but downed an impressive 19 doughnuts during the course of her run. It took her 65 minutes and 29 seconds to finish the race, but her adjusted time with doughnut deductions was 47 minutes and 59 seconds.

Andrew Carney, club secretary and senior in agricultural engineering, said not all participants hoard up on doughnuts, but the vast majority try to eat a few.

“We usually get a handful of serious runners that just run and don’t eat any doughnuts, and then we have a handful of people that try to eat more than 20 [doughnuts] – but most people fit somewhere in between. You really need to eat at least a few doughnuts to make it significantly help your time,” Carney said.

Last year, the club ordered 1,500 doughnuts to use during the race and about 1,200 of them were consumed by participants and volunteers.

Carney said the doughnuts are picked up from Krispy Kreme in Des Moines the morning of the race, so they’re as fresh as they come.

“We get them fresh. We use Krispy Kreme because it has a certain marketability with it. They’ve also been very generous and donate most of the doughnuts every year,” he said.

Gabriel Wilson, sophomore in microbiology, was last year’s second-place finisher and said the race is definitely a unique running experience.

“It’s kind of a sprint to each doughnut station. I didn’t throw up – but I had to try pretty hard to keep them down,” Wilson said.

He said each of the doughnut stations is themed and run by various ISU organizations, including an ISU Police Department-run station where police officers hand out doughnuts.

“It was really funny,” he said.

In order for runners to deduct time for doughnut consumption, they need to keep the doughnuts in their stomach until after they cross the finish line. Carney has never seen anybody hurl, but Riley said she’s seen one man get sick to his stomach.

“The first year we did [the Doughnut Run], the guy that set the eating record got across the finish line and came over to eat another doughnut,” Riley said.

“He had already eaten 28 or 26 or something, and I guess he couldn’t handle another one. He barfed them all out. It was disgusting,” she said.