By Wilson Josephson, Allie Clark, Swimming World College Interns
TAVERNIER – Teams across the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference are taking a well-deserved break. Most have just finished final exams and are headed home before leaving for training trip, but Carleton Swimming (who is on a trimester system) has already traveled down to the Florida Keys for their training trip.
While there, they’ll compete against Kalamazoo College. But more importantly, the Knights will compete against themselves – in the annual Carleton Swimming Donut Challenge.
The Donut Challenge is an annual race during Carleton’s training trip. Participation was once mandatory for all men’s team members, but the event is now an optional competition for members of both squads.
The challenge is to race through a dozen donuts. Donuts must be eaten one at a time, and contestants must not alter the shape of the donut prior to eating it – they cannot, for example, compress the donuts into bite sized lumps prior to eating them. Also, to avoid disqualification, the contestants cannot throw up the donuts for 24 hours after completing their dozen.
There have been many impressive records set by both current and past team members in this challenge.
Benito Ramirez (‘14) won the donut challenge four years in a row and set the all time record of 2 minutes and 42 seconds last year. Alex Simonides (‘15) is the first Knight to attempt not one but two dozen donuts.
Will Sparks (‘16) is the only other person besides Ramirez to break 3 minutes in the challenge (2:59).
The first women’s team competitor was Jalean Plotz (‘00). Plotz ate a mixed dozen – meaning she had frosted, glazed, and filled donuts. Normally only glazed donuts are eaten during the challenge, so the variety may have been an extra challenge.
This year, head coach Andy Clark bought 17 dozen donuts to the team: 14 for competitors and three for general consumption.
Upon seeing the dozens in all their glazed glory, though, many challengers chose to compete in relay teams or to drop out entirely, leaving only 11 athletes attempting the full challenge.
There were a number of different strategies – from senior Alex Guy, who took her time and enjoyed her dozen, to the freshman class, who were perhaps overzealous as they worked through their first donuts. But this year, as every year, it was proven that the best strategy is to move through the Donut Challenge steadily, and to finish before your body can recognize what is being done to it.
Alex Mathson, last year’s third-place finisher in a time of 4:28, was this year’s odds-on favorite for the Donut Challenge title. And win he did, convincingly, in 3:35.
There was a moment of doubt early on, when freshman challenger Magdalena Glotzer matched Mathson through his first six donuts, but Glotzer made a classic mistake, not drinking enough water early on.
She fell off hard, struggling like the back half of a 200 fly, but was still the first finisher among the women.
Second place went to freshman Noah Brackenbury (5:09), who ate all of his donuts standing. Third was Aaron Schwab, the team’s gluten-free swimmer, who will no doubt regret competing this year.
Honorable mention also goes to Alex Braiedy, who paced herself through the beginning of the challenge and finished strong in 8:48, the second woman to finish, and to Jonathan Brodie, who competed from home, finishing in 6:39.
The complete results of the donut challenge are listed below:
Alex Mathson (m) — 3:35
Noah Brackenbury (m) — 5:09
Aaron Schwab (m) — 5:57
Jonathan Brodie (m) — 6:39 (unconfirmed)
Magdalena Glotzer (f) — 7:32
Kadin Woolever (m) — 8:05
Evan Lahr (m) — 8:21
Alex Braiedy (f) — 8:48
Alex Simonides (m) — 9:33 (first dozen – second dozen still unfinished at time of writing)
Evan Harris (m) — 13:13
Eli Danson (m) — 14:29
Alex Guy (f) — 21:12
Wilson Josephson and Allie Clark are teammates at Carleton College. Josephson is a junior butterfly specialist, while Clark is a sophomore who fills in multiple roles on the team.