There are moments in life — watershed moments — that tell a person something about themselves. For me, much of Sunday morning was one of those moments.

To paraphrase a line from Jack Black’s character in the movie School of Rock, “Those who cannot do, teach, and those who cannot teach, teach gym.”

Though I wasn’t teaching anyone anything on Sunday morning, I was the student in some respects, learning how out of shape I really am.

Maybe for me, the line should read; those who cannot do — write sports.

If I had forgotten, this was a quick reminder of why I laughed at my friends in high school when they asked if I wanted to join cross country with them. I said thanks, but no and now you’ll have to leave because I have to be at golf practice in 10 minutes.

My physical shape notwithstanding, there I was early Sunday morning, running in the 2004 Doughnut Run presented by the ISU Triathlon Club.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I was in a race of any kind, but the idea of eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts sounded good to me, so I signed up. You see, for every doughnut eaten during the race, a set amount of time was deducted from your final time, giving you incentive to eat more and more.

The first doughnut eaten was worth 15 seconds dropped from a runner’s final time and grew in 15 second increments until the runner had eaten four doughnuts. Each doughnut thereafter was worth another minute off, so obviously, the more doughnuts a person eats, the better his or her time would be.

A perfect plan, therefore, would be to run fast and eat a lot of doughnuts, but that could lead to massive health issues like sudden, violent illness.

At 9 a.m., the race began, and I plunged into the fray. The night before the race, I had asked my friend Dan Taylor — ISU track and field runner and former high school cross country champion — what my running strategy should be. He told me to start fast, build a lead and then as I got slower and slower from lack of training and ability, I would have a nice lead built for myself.

Looking back I’m not quite sure if he was being serious or if he knew the strategy would completely backfire on me and just wanted a good laugh. I’m sure the strategy would work great for him, since he goes out and runs just for the fun of it.

Taking off with the lead pack, my friend Joe and I started strong just like Dan had told me to. We quickly approached the first of eight doughnut stations, stepped off to the side and began eating. After downing a quick Krispy Kreme, we headed back onto the path, plunging right along.

Before we knew it, we were at doughnut stand No. 2, where more food awaited. Just like the last stop there was a quick intake of a doughnut before moving on.

It was somewhere between stop two and three that I began to realize what a silly idea this had been. I will freely admit I don’t get out to the Rec as often as I should, and my nearly two exerciseless semesters didn’t help my cause at all.

For the rest of the race I alternated between a jog and, yes, a walk. I see no shame in noting that I did walk some of the course because in my book, just finishing the race is a small victory in itself.

I don’t know what my time was when I crossed the finish line; all that mattered to me at the time was that the race was over.

The run was worth it; however, as the proceeds from the race will help the triathlon club pay for its national race in Arizona.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have a giant vat of IcyHot waiting for me to jump into.