As the trail running and the cross country seasons came to an end a couple of my senior runners challenged me to a "Rulon Burger" (yes....named after that Rulon Gardner) eat-off contest. Never one to turn down a friendly competition I sought out Andi's blessing and went for it. Though much more spontaneous I decided to take it on just like a hundred-mile race-one bite and fry at a time. To thoroughly appreciate the stupidity of my decision one needs to understand what the Rulon Burger challenge includes. This is basically it. You have to eat a 1.5 lb. burger, a family order of fries, and a 44 oz. drink in under 20 minutes. If you do you get to sign your name on the wall, an Olympic champion Rulon Gardner shirt, and most importantly the 18 bucks worth of food is free. I also wanted to be the only guy under 230 lbs. to ever accomplish this dastardly feat. We all congregated at the "Burger Barn" after school. While everyone waited for the food we strategized. We were informed that we could leave 1 vegetable off the burger and we quickly decided that the lettuce, for pure volume, would have to go. When we all received our food we chopped the burger into 4 parts and quickly got started. For the first 6-7 minutes I felt like Kobiyashi (sp) reincarnated. I buzzed through the burgers before Cody and Skinny were even halfway done. The fries proved to be a bit more daunting. I kept slamming fries and slurping lemonade until I just couldn't take any more. Growing up my mother swore I had a hollow leg, I never wanted something to be so true in my whole life. It seemed that each fry was tickling that dangly thing in the back of my throat and every time I'd swallow-it would just sit in my mouth because there was no more room and no place for it to go. Finally with about 10 burnt fry stubs left, well, my body rebelled. Luckily I made it to the bathroom before $18 worth of food came back to haunt me. I am recovering well from my injuries. The bruises to my pride and the heckling of my athletes are almost not visible anymore and I no longer feet like I had swallowed a whole watermelon. I'm also thinking about trying it again. And that sounds about as wise as taking on an undefeated Russian in the ring, snowmobiling without proper winter clothing, or flying an airplane over Lake Powell...
7 comments:
I'm thinkin maybe I could do this. I usually stay away from burgers and meat in general but I am capable of eating huge quantities of hamburger when I want to. Next time I drive through Star Valley the Rulon Burger challenge will be at the top of my list of things to do.
Ty, I think I heard somewhere that (if you're under 230 lb) you should only try this in the 24 hour window after successful completion of a 100-miler.
Bruce Copeland
Bruce,
That's my plan for next year-Post Bear 2009, the Rulon Burger and I will tangle again...I'm already making the mental and physical preparations necessary.
Rulon is no longer my "hero" - you have the dubious honor of being my new Afton hero!
Ha! Binge and Purge, binge and purge....how did the rest of the skinny white boys do?
didn't even come close...
Now, if we could get Gladys' to do a huge reuben sandwich challenge at the Bear finish. We would have something! I could probably eat about 20 of those things at the end of that race. Chow On.
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