There I was, seated last in a line of media members who for the next three minutes or so would become amateur competitive eaters.
And maybe that was where I went wrong. Maybe I should have gotten myself in the competitive eating mindset that morning or during the prep session where I signed a waiver that I didn’t read.
We were trying to be the first to down eight shrimp doused in the famous, fiery St. Elmo cocktail sauce. I say “trying” pretty loosely, though, because this wasn’t my first time eating competitively, and past experiences indicated I would be better off just enjoying my time on stage and keeping the sauce off of my new long-sleeve shirt.
I had fun and kept clean.
It’s difficult to say how many shrimp I actually ate because they were butterflied, and the mental energy it took to stave off the heat of the sauce left little ability to keep an accurate count as I shoveled and chomped what is actually very delicious shrimp.
I participated in the second leg of a four-tiered eating competition. It all led up to the actual professionals — including Joey Chestnut — throwing back shrimp as though it had been pureed.
It was part of a huge tailgate event for the Big Ten football championship game later that night, so there were hundreds of Ohio State University and University of Wisconsin fans pouring their mid-afternoon drunken souls into an eating competition.
I can only speak for myself as someone who’s constantly seeking affirmation, but that was inspiring.
By the way, Chestnut won the competition by eating 10 pounds of shrimp in eight minutes, about eight pounds less than when he set the world record at last year’s event.
FOX 59 and CBS 4 anchor Nick McGill won the media competition. I heard him say he had only ever eaten one St. Elmo shrimp before, so perhaps going in blind made him impervious to the heat.
Despite a poor performance, I will consider myself lucky if I get to compete in more eating contests in the future.
I love competition, and when it becomes evident within the first 15 seconds that my chances of winning — or even staying close — are effectively zero, I’ll turn my focus to the food and the fans and the feeling that it doesn’t matter.
Contact staff writer Tyler Fenwick at 317-762-7853. Follow him on Twitter @Ty_Fenwick.
