There are few things I will get up before 5 a.m. to do, but apparently one of them is running part of a marathon in the rain and eating doughnuts at different stops.
Today, April 2, I participated in the Dunkin’ Donuts Marathon, which was created by Pemberton Running Club leader Trent Swanson. We had awesome personalized bibs with doughnut names (mine was “Vanilla Junkin”) courtesy of Joey DiCarlo of DiCarlo Digital Copy Center, and the doughnuts were all free, thanks to Dunkin’ Donuts.
It wasn’t an official race that the general public could sign up for or anything, but it was certainly legit. We even had a photographer: Mike Perry.
Since I just ran a marathon two weeks ago, and just because a marathon is a pretty big deal, I didn’t want to run the full marathon, and I almost missed out on this awesome experience because of that. I was originally not going to participate because I didn’t want to run a full marathon, but I’m so glad I did!
The group set off from the Dunkin’ Donuts on Route 13 not too far from Salisbury University. It looked like people were generally eating more than one doughnut while we were there, so I decided to start out with two: a chocolate glazed and a chocolate-frosting-with-rainbow-sprinkles one. Although I guess I could have given it a try, I did not want to eat a cream-filled doughnut because I’d be running.
As we assembled at the store around 5:30 a.m. or so, I thought it was funny to look at the bewildered faces of some people. One guy in particular was sitting at a booth and looked extremely confused.
During the beginning of the run, it was pouring. Trent had printed out maps, but mine quickly was useless given all the rain.
I could hardly see. Not only was it dark, but I was wearing my glasses and it was raining so hard. I just kept my eye on the colored lights ahead. Although I was the last runner, I made my way to the next Dunkin’ Donuts, the one in the Fruitland Walmart. The group was still there, and after I had a vanilla-frosting-with-rainbow-sprinkles doughnut, we headed off to the next stop.
It took 3.5 miles to get from the start to the Fruitland Walmart Dunkin’ Donuts. Our next Dunkin’ Donuts would be the one off of Tilghman Road, near Route 50. I was again in the back, but I was a little closer to the other runners this time. We assembled again by Fratelli’s, and then I ran to the next Dunkin’ Donuts with Trent and Chris.
That Dunkin’ Donuts was 11 miles in to the course, and there I had a chocolate-frosted doughnut. I hadn’t had issues running after eating the doughnuts, but this one did seem extra sweet. I cannot recall a time in which I’ve ever eaten four doughnuts in one day. I don’t even think I had eaten three doughnuts in one day before this.
I was on the low end when it came to doughnuts. At that point, there were people who had already eaten nine!
I decided to turn back at that point, as I had originally been thinking I’d do 10 or so miles. I ran back to the first Dunkin’ Donuts and ordered an iced coffee — I was not in the mood for another doughnut. That ended up being free as well.
I was impressed by the friendliness and helpfulness of the Dunkin’ Donuts staff. One of the employees refilled my water bottle, and they were all so nice and accommodating. I left a tip at the Dunkin’ Donuts I was at and returned to the other two locations I visited to leave tips.
Although this run was nicknamed the “Barfley Marathon” before it began, I am happy to report that I did not throw up.
The whole run was pretty wet. Sometimes it was raining more than other times, but even when it wasn’t really raining, I went through so many deep puddles that I stopped caring about my wet shoes and socks.
The run seemed to go by very quickly for me, and I had a lot of fun. With my run back to the original Dunkin’ Donuts, I ended up running 15.2 miles and eating four doughnuts.
It actually wasn’t my first doughnut run — I did do a shorter run and eat one doughnut during it for National Doughnut Day, and I ate a Dunkin’ Donuts munchkin during the Baltimore Marathon — but this was a totally different experience.
I also ran with a selfie stick and sent out some tweets during this run.
It was worth getting up early for!
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P.S. Thanks to Trent and Chris for talking with me about my last name and its rhyme with Dunkin’ Donuts during the run — it helped me come up with this headline!
She Runs by the Seashore 