Sunday, March 15, 2009

i heart competitive eating

i love competitive eating. it's a real spectacle. it's exciting and a little disgusting to watch. and it's fun for the whole family.
there's a feeling of empathy all spectators feel for professional eaters that doesn't exist in other competitive sports. i don't have any idea what it's like to get tackled, score a home run or slam dunk a basket ball. but everyone knows what it's like to eat too much, and witnessing people eat past the boundaries of sane and safe consumption is a horrific thing of beauty.

so when mark "the human vacuum" lyle (ranked 5th in the world according to AICE)announced he would be setting out on a pre-retirement "adventure in gluttony", i knew i had to watch.

as a warm up to defeating such behemoths such as the dagwood and the thurmonator, this weekend mark entered in an all you can eat coney contest put on by the dublin skyline chili.

the contest:
30 minutes
as many coneys as you can eat
no vomiting
the winner gets free skyline for a year (52 certificates for a 3-way & coney)
$20 entry fee goes to a local food pantry -way to go skyline!

mark came out swinging, polishing off 12 coneys in the first 14 minutes:
the crowd immediately began to buzz as people realized mark wasn't your average competitor:
one contestant was especially cute, and a fierce competitor to boot!:

about 20 minutes into the contest, it became apparent that mark would be the winner. he slowed down a bit and watched the runner up, who was stalled around coney number 10. mark was feeling good, speculating that he thought he could probably do 25 coneys if he needed to.
when it was all said and done, mark won by putting down 15 coneys. the runner up ate 11 coneys.

after being awarded the "free skyline for a year", he graciously gave it to the little girl who did such a great job of competing earlier.

i've got to say, this was a really fun event. the kind folks at skyline did a great job putting it on and raised $265 for a local food pantry. it was nice to meet mark and chat with him a bit. i'll be following up shortly to talk more about the IACE, mark and the details of his next conquest.

on a side note, i really spend much more time on twitter than blogger these days. i'm mostly tweeting about & twitpic'ing what i eat with other random thoughts thrown in. i've been (and will be) tweeting the food events i attend. so if you don't tweet, give it a try and check me out.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

skyline would be my last meal. 5 way and 2 coneys with onions