As I drooled all over myself, taking small amounts of water from an absurdly sized cup, a guy behind me kept yelling, “Small bites! Small bites!” The sweet taste in my mouth was quickly followed by the sourest sour, the two diametrically opposed flavors triggering my gag reflex, which I continually resisted …

Oops, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain:

Last Friday, I entered my first competitive eating competition, but not by choice. As part of Carnegie Deli’s Pickle-Eating Contest, our company decided to have a “friendly” competition between two of its publications—Las Vegas Weekly, for which I work as associate editor, and Las Vegas Magazine. We’d be one of the “undercard” bouts of the day, with two teams of five trying to see who could eat the most full-sour kosher dills in five minutes.

Weekly Pickle Eating Contest

Now, I’m no slouch in the eating department. Far from it. I’ve developed quite a reputation among my Weekly colleagues for my fondness for all-you-can-eat sushi, where I routinely put down roughly $80-$90 worth of fish—and still have room for dessert.

Thing is, that kind of eating isn’t timed (well, they give you an hour at most sushi places, but I never require that much). It’s more a capacity type of eating. Up until last Friday, I had never tried eating as much as I could of any type of food within a prescribed time limit like, say, five minutes.

But apparently I was out of the office as teams were being selected, and given my reputation, I was “volunteered” as a contestant. Upon discovering this, I mildly protested, but all the time I was intrigued, even excited, by the prospect of how much I might be able to actually eat. So although I griped and moaned, secretly I couldn’t wait.

Upon arriving at the Mirage, it became clear that many took this competition far more seriously than we did. Our opponents at LVM all wore headbands and wristbands. Hell, one guy who competed just before our match wore a pickle costume! My Weekly group—composed of managing editor Spencer Patterson, writer Erin Ryan, and advertising reps Donn Jersey and Kacie Turpenen—didn’t have much in the way of creative costumes, but we made up for it in team spirit. Well, okay, we all wore Stunner sunglasses. But that was it.

As we took our seats, in front of us were two plastic bowls, each one filled with pickles. We learned that one bowl equaled one pound, and that each bowl contained roughly five pickles. We were given the ground rules—no “reversals,” if you know what I mean, and you had 45 seconds to swallow anything left in your mouth after time was up, lest your team be docked a quarter of a pound, which is significant.

Some dude, supposedly a “coach” to the newbies, walked behind us and told us to take small bites, with the proviso: “Time chewing is not time swallowing.” Deep words, but I took it to heart. My strategy would be the tiniest bites I could muster while still shoving as much pickle in my mouth as possible.

And we were off. The first bite of pickle was shocking in how un-crisp it was—almost mushy, with only the skin providing any kind of “snap” in my mouth. This was not what I was expecting, as was the ultra-sour aftertaste of these babies. Oh lord, this was not going to be easy. Stuffing myself I can handle. The flavor of the pickles proved to be my major stumbling block. As I took deliberate, moderately sized bites, I fought the gag impulse almost immediately. That was making it harder to swallow, but by the first minute I’d figured out that small sips of water made that far easier.

By the end of the second minute, I found myself in a nice rhythm, beginning to get a bit braver and shoving larger sections in my mouth. This led to the “small bites!” admonishment, which actually threw me off my rhythm. Thanks, “coach.”

With one minute left to go, I knew that the key was to get as much pickle in my mouth as time ran out, knowing I had 45 seconds to swallow. So I shoved with all my might, feeling the gag reflex triggering again. The acrid taste of the pickles was making this job as difficult as possible, and I began to realize the level of commitment competitive eating takes. Those guys probably hate a lot of what they have to eat, but they soldier on. And so would I.

When the dust settled, I had accomplished more than I thought possible. I figured I’d get down four to five pickles, but somehow I managed to eat six. A pound and change! Sweet! As I looked at my teammates’ bowls, I realized that I was almost alone in my feat. Only Erin Ryan ate more than I did, with seven pickles. To Erin I say—stud. Spencer Patterson managed five pickles, Donn Jersey almost finished an entire bowl, and Kacie brought up the rear, but put in a valiant effort all the same.

Then came time to determine the winner. As the Carnegie employees picked up our bowls and weighed the remainder, I realized I could have tipped the scales a bit by squeezing out pickle juice onto the tablecloth as I munched. At least one other of my teammates employed this strategy, and as I quickly learned, that could have been significant—we lost to LVM by just over three ounces, which roughly equates to one pickle.

Damn!

Yeah, the Weekly crew was a bit bummed by the result, but hey, there’s always next year. Now that I know what I can do, I’m anxious to see if I can top my own personal best.