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It was Mardi Gras earlier this week, the annual celebration held before the beginning of Lent.

Personally, I don’t really know much about Mardi Gras, since I don’t celebrate it and I don’t observe Lent either. But I do know the day goes by a few other names as well, including “Fat Tuesday” and “Shrove Tuesday.” And, according to an Associated Press article I read, also sometimes called “Pancake Day” in parts of the United Kingdom.

Back in the day, the tradition was that people would cook a lot of pancakes on the day before Lent in order to use up their kitchen’s eggs and butter before they temporarily gave it up for the next few weeks.

But what actually caught my attention was the fact that Pancake Day is celebrated with a pancake race! The oldest pancake race in England even stems back as far as the 1400s.

Participants run the race course while flipping pancakes in a frying pan. I can only assume there’s a penalty for losing your pancake along the way. What makes it extra fun, however, is that some race competitors dress up in silly costumes too. The costumes for this particular pancake race in London represented livery companies (historic guilds or trade associations). The photos featured people in medieval clothes, one decked out in feathers, another as a chest of drawers, and one guy as an airplane pilot – complete with an inflatable plane around his waist. (That must have made pancake flipping much more difficult.)

The winners receive both a trophy and a frying pan.

Reading this story made me think about other silly competitions that people find themselves competing in.

I remember reading once about another strange food-based race in the UK before. That one was a cheese rolling race, taking place on Cooper’s Hill in Gloucester. It’s simple: competitors gather at the top of the steep hill and then chase after a wheel of cheese as it rolls to the bottom. Allegedly, the cheese can get up to speeds of 80 mph!

Some say the event has been going on for almost 600 years. No one knows for sure, but there is documented records of the race as far back as 1826. Today, people from all over the world come to race or watch. It’s a bit chaotic and people have been known to get a few injuries along the way.

The reason I heard about this race actually was because a recent winner of the women’s division was someone from North Carolina. Abby Lampe won in both 2022 and 2024, and she said the secret to her win was to simply “hurl myself down the hill and continue rolling.” Her prize was the 8-pound cheese wheel itself.

When I used to have TV, sometimes I would catch “The Ocho” on ESPN, which featured an assortment of the strangest sports you can imagine. Last year’s Ocho programming block – spread out over four days – included robot fighting, competitive speed cubing (imagine solving a Rubik’s cube really fast), the freestyle trampoline world championship, the Beard & Moustache championships (I know some people who could have competed in this), the American Wiffleball Association All-Star Game, corgi races, dog surfing, tire wrestling, slippery stairs (which somehow manages to sound like a parody of all these other competitions), and something called the “Microsoft Excel World Championship.”

I have no idea what a competition involving Excel looks like, but I can imagine it must be headache-inducing.

People can and will come up with the most ridiculous competitive ideas if given enough time and money. We just love any excuse to compete with one another.

I’ve watched a lot of Japanese television over the years, and it’s not hard to find some shows that feature a weird competition or two. There was one I used to watch where the celebrity contestants had to stand on a plank above a pit and answer trivia questions. Wrong answers made the plank retract until they eventually fell into the pit.

That’s pretty tame compared to others. Imagine playing hide and seek in an amusement park with dozens of “seekers” in costume trying to find you while you try to discreetly exit the ferris wheel. Imagine having to sample a bunch of sweets while hoping to avoid the one that’s secretly filled with hot sauce. Imagine biting into everyday objects (such as shoes or a door handle) in an attempt to find which ones are made out of chocolate.

Weird, right?

There are, of course, strange competitions held closer to home too though.

When my brother was a student at NC State University, he participated once in the Krispy Kreme challenge, which is an annual fundraiser for the UNC Children’s Hospital. They’ve raised over $2 million since it started in 2004.

Participants start at the Bell Tower on campus, run 2.5 miles to the Krispy Kreme, eat a dozen glazed donuts, and then run the 2.5 miles back. The goal is to do it all in under an hour.

It’s a silly challenge, but one that’s for a good cause! My brother said there is an option where you don’t have to eat all the donuts before you run back, though he did admit he ate five before he started his own run back to campus. He said it was a fun “bucket list” experience.

These are only a few examples of strange competitions around the world. But who knows? Maybe someone will come up with a new one right here in our area one day. You never know!

Holly Taylor is a Staff Writer for Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact her at holly.taylor@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7206.