We've contacted all the local media outlets and will be following up with them this week. I'll know more by the end of this week.

1/16/2007 1:40:29 AM

way over 300!

1/17/2007 6:40:53 PM

Haha. What the heck happened today?

1/17/2007 9:10:02 PM

Dude, almost 350. That's close to 100 in 24 hours. Did you guys put up the flyers or something?

1/18/2007 1:57:50 AM

so will everyone be running at once?

and if we choose to be a casual runner, can we still attempt to eat a dozen donuts?

[Edited on January 18, 2007 at 4:12 PM. Reason : .]

1/18/2007 4:06:33 PM

shields27: Our plan is to have everyone run at once. We are going to bring the *very serious challengers* to the front because they will be breaking away from the pack very quickly. Our intention is to group the casual runners towards the back to begin with, because we are giving obvious preference to those people going for the full challenge. Casual runners can overtake challengers and vice versa, no problem. And the casual runners will still get to the Krispy Kreme store in time to see the mayhem there.

About your second question: we created the 'casual runner' category for two reasons. First, we know that not everyone wants to eat a dozen doughnuts for a variety of reasons, but they still want to run the course and participate. Second, it helps us predict how many boxes of donuts we need to buy from Krispy Kreme. We are not budgeting a dozen doughnuts for each casual runner, it's infeasible.

If you want to go for the full challenge knowing full well what it entails, then sign up as a challenger.

Hope this helps.

1/18/2007 4:18:28 PM

so if we don't think we can make it in an hour but think we want to try to eat the whole dozen...shoudl we sign up as a challenger?

1/18/2007 4:22:17 PM

Yes

1/18/2007 4:40:58 PM

over 400!

1/18/2007 6:26:59 PM

To what do you attribute this explosion in registration? The site has been up for months.

1/18/2007 6:53:10 PM

over 450! 100 registrants in just 24 hours

we think its most likely due to the 19th being the last day a t-shirt is guaranteed. however, we don't know if this explosion will end. people were likely hesitant to register in december since Jan 27th was far away. but now people are confident in their schedules, and are willing to commit with the registration fee.

1/18/2007 11:46:00 PM

^^ probably that epic documentary you made and posted to YouTube

(http://youtube.com/watch?v=AuFqTODukMU)

1/19/2007 12:29:45 AM

Can alumni participate?
What about the general public?

1/19/2007 4:10:43 AM

^ Yes, anyone can participate. Send them to http://www.krispykremechallenge.com to register.

1/19/2007 8:33:32 AM

the vomit on that video was unnecessary, especially the close up after the fact, especially right before I'm going to lunch

1/19/2007 12:05:31 PM

Quote :

"Registrants to date: 499 "

1/19/2007 12:23:37 PM

now over 500...about to reach 550

1/19/2007 4:21:57 PM

This will be great.

1/19/2007 6:46:03 PM

This thing has gotten to be huge!

Have you guys notified the city about this yet?

500 people gathering would seem like to Po-Po is gonna get involved even if it's to just handle traffic.

1/19/2007 7:06:21 PM

Dude, where have you been? The streets are getting shut down.

1/19/2007 7:10:40 PM

Any IE majors looking for a fun senior design project? I'd be glad to tell you the logistical complexities of this event. It's intense.

1/19/2007 7:52:42 PM

so how do you plan on ensuring that 450 contestants actually eat their dozen donuts?

1/19/2007 7:56:41 PM

I say, if they cheat, that's on them. It's not like there's a cash prize. I really don't understand how anyone can derive satisfaction from a false victory. Last year, you had to turn in your empty box and get your number checked off. It's hard to give them away to someone else, because not many participants want to eat more than a dozen. Therefore, you'd either have to dump them, or give them to some bystander.

1/19/2007 8:01:05 PM

Will it pass 600 tonight?

1/19/2007 8:54:06 PM

Yeah, I think it will. We generally get a big increase in the evening hours.

We're going to have volunteers there to distribute donut boxes and they are going to have a marker with them. As challengers finish, they'll need to show us their empty box and then we mark their race number so the people at the finish line know they ate the donuts.

We are going to allow the hardcore challengers (those who want to shoot for under 35 minute time) to get to the front of the pack at the start. They better be serious though. Since they'll get to the store really fast, we'll be able to watch them a lot closer.

About 25 minutes into the race, there is going to be 600 people at the store. If any of those people cheat, yeah we may not catch them, but it's not like they are going to be in the top 10 anyway.

Don't cheat.

1/19/2007 9:04:54 PM

Quote :

"Don't cheat."

Does the total number of registrants have to be updated manually?

1/19/2007 9:10:20 PM

Yeah, unfortunately we have to manually enter it. We didn't quite get our registration system robust enough to handle this many registrants with ease. One problem is that in order to handle registrant payments in-house, we need to apply for and get a SSL certificate, which costs $$. And it takes some effort to integrate PayPal like that.

After this year's race is done we're gonna totally revamp the website implementation...get this event its own hosting (instead of using mine) and all that stuff set so registration goes right into a database.

This year we are seeing a 700% increase compared to the last year in terms of the # of registrants before race-day. And that number is going to rise. So being just a bunch of students doing this, we're still learning how to do things. But it's exciting!

[Edited on January 19, 2007 at 9:17 PM. Reason : more info]

1/19/2007 9:15:41 PM

Add chip timing to next year's list of considerations, because I think it's going to be tough to record times for this many folks manually.

http://www.championchip.com/

1/19/2007 9:19:28 PM

I might have missed it, but can the shirts be shipped?

1/19/2007 9:23:23 PM

Yes, give us your mailing address when you register (there is a text-box on the paypal page where you enter your t-shirt size, write this here too) and we'll mail them after the race.

If you could register as a casual runner though, it will help cover the shipping cost. That'd be great.

1/19/2007 9:27:31 PM

Indeed, 610.

1/20/2007 1:14:43 AM

I hope it can get this big in greenville.

1/20/2007 1:50:29 AM

So on race day, do we just show up with a printout of the PayPal receipt? And what time should we plan on being there?

I am totally out of shape so please don't make too much fun of me. First race over 800m and first race in 20 years (yikes).

1/20/2007 11:28:22 AM

Hollister, great question. We're gonna post that info to our website later today once we finalize it all.

Registration tables will open at 8am on race-day. We recommend getting there very early to avoid long lines. A bunch of people are gonna stroll up at 8:45am. Our organizing team is preparing to be able to process 800+ people in just 30 minutes.

Bring your PayPal receipt as a backup. You will find the table/line of your last name and when you get to the front tell the person there your name. They'll find your race number, get your t-shirt, and hand it to you. We'll have a box of safety pins somewhere for you to attach it to your shirt.

We are also planning on having a pre-check in table on Friday, the day before the race, somewhere near Talley for people to get their race number and t-shirt ahead of time.

I'll post more details as soon as they are finalized.

1/20/2007 12:20:23 PM

Pre race check in you say...

1/20/2007 4:42:24 PM

Yeah. We're planning a pre-race check in so we don't get swamped on the morning of the race. We know that despite saying the check-in tables will be open at 8am, the vast majority of people are going to roll up at 8:45am. We're assembling a platoon of volunteers to help process that many people in a short amount of time.

1/20/2007 5:34:45 PM

So since you can now check in the day before, things have changed. I have a few friends coming in from out of town to participate. Can I check in for them Friday?

1/21/2007 8:53:55 PM

Yeah, that should be fine. Just tell us their names and what t-shirt size they have. I'd also recommend to bring a paypal receipt printout, just in case. We're going to have printouts of our registrant database but you can never be too sure.

1/21/2007 9:06:47 PM

Why don't you have the pre-race check in in the brickyard?

I've seen people do a post race "oh shit we didn't have the shirts in time" post-race shirt pick up there before.

[Edited on January 22, 2007 at 1:03 AM. Reason : d]

1/22/2007 1:03:30 AM

yeah we'll be in the brickyard

1/22/2007 1:21:06 AM

score. Don't even have to make a special trip

1/22/2007 5:49:22 PM

registered

[Edited on January 22, 2007 at 6:36 PM. Reason : pre-register friday in the brickyard? what time?]

1/22/2007 6:31:25 PM

Check the main page. Should easily hit 750 tonight.

http://www.krispykremechallenge.com/

1/22/2007 8:31:10 PM

what percentage of those who signed up do you think will actually be there?

1/22/2007 11:05:27 PM

Tough call, not really sure. It'll definitely be their loss though. We haven't talked about what to do with the shirts of people who don't come on race day or pre-race check in. We put out a table on the brickyard for 3 days after the event last year and people still didn't come by. We'll have one or two days at most, but after that we'll just sell the extra shirts to people who want them.

1/22/2007 11:45:48 PM

in my event planning/recreation programming class i THINK we were told to expect 15% of people not show on the average. but $15 is a fairly large amount to waste so i would expect better attendance than the average.

1/23/2007 8:52:20 AM

<---- registered

1/25/2007 5:00:51 PM

haha, i like how the ece department is a sponsor

1/25/2007 5:19:08 PM

broke 1000 today

1/25/2007 6:24:12 PM

holy fucking shit, that is a lot of people.

1/25/2007 6:27:54 PM