So, I believe I have found the career I will fall back on if the US Army or any other career I choose doesn't work out. This career is... COMPETITIVE EATING!
You think I'm joking, but I'm not. It sounds kind of stupid but check this out... Number 1 ranked competitive eater, Joey Chestnut, makes on average 60K a year. And all he does is EAT. Dream job? Uhhh, yes.
Its not as easy as it sounds though. Believe it or not, a lot of training goes into this uncommon sports job. I never really thought about doing it until I met and ate against the pros at my first eating competition. A lot of them were just average guys that liked to eat, and make money while doing it. Even if I don't fall back onto it, it would be cool to do it part time while doing whatever I'm doing in life to earn some extra cash and some free food. Plus, there is always that fun, competitive experience.
The reason I started looking into this was because of conversation at work that sparked up about competitive eating and the IFOCE AKA the International Federation Of Competitive Eating. Me and some co workers were talking about the records made and broken for certain foods. Myself and 2 of my co workers decided to take on a giant burrito after being hyped up about the talk. That story is in a blog below that I created last year... Later on while browsing the IFOCE site, I had found a link on the website about Jose's Flauta competition that was being held and thought about entering. I didn't exactly tell my co workers until later because I wanted to make sure I was going to go through with it. I didn't really care if I won... I really was just going to do it to say that I did actually do it; for the experience.
So I signed up and went to Jose's in La Jolla for the Prelims, not expecting to really do well at all. I was up against about 5 other people. The rules were pretty simple: Eat as many flautas in 4 minutes. Now, I had never had flautas before so I thought I was at a definite disadvantage. I had my friend Brian to be my counter and was ready to take down some chow! The competition started and I was slow to start. I was on number 4 by the 1 minute mark and the rest of my opponents were around 6 or 7. It was time that kicked it into gear and just went for it... Time was running down and I had about 30 seconds left. My jaw was hurting and I had about 13 flautas down. I decided.. "Eh, screw it..." and just started shoving flautas in my mouth like crazy. There was a rule that was said at the beginning, if you can get them in your mouth when time runs out, they will count. But you must eventually swallow them and not puke them up. Time ran out and I was awarded second place with 18 flautas. It was just enough for me to advance to the Finals against the Pros!
The day of the Finals I was a little nervous. I was going up against guys that really knew how to eat. I'm talking about Eric 'Badlands' Booker, Bad Ben Monson, Eric 'The Red' Denmark and the number 1 competitive eating champion, Joey JAWS Chestnut. I was nervous, a little sick, but ready. I even got interviewed by a couple news groups which was pretty cool. Then the competition started...
I must have not had my A game that day cause I was not doing good at all... Not much to tell except I had 8 minutes to eat as many as I could. By the end of the competition, I had ate 23 flautas. Now, if you check out the IFOCE website for the results, it says I ate 21, but I did in fact eat 23. Because the site says this, it put me in last place for results. I don't really care, but the fans of Macho Borracho (my eater nick name) need to be told the truth! Anyways... The winner was actually Bad Ben Monson who put down 65 freakin flautas. It was an upset over Joey Chestnut because he was definitely favored. I myself had drank too much water while eating so I was feeling pretty damn full. Something I don't really tell other people about my story is afterwards, I went into the alley and had myself a "reversal of fortune" but felt a lot better afterwards with a pint of Newcastle in my hand.
So it was a fun experience and I want to build my IFOCE resume with more feats and competitions but I gotta do is sparingly. I'm looking to do 2 eating challenges before I leave San Diego for the Army. One of them is at the Broken Yolk Cafe called the Iron Man challenge. Basically this huge 12 egg omelet which mushrooms, onions, chili and cheese, a generous pile of house fries and 2 biscuits. That one will be crazy hard... Then the other is a 30 inch pizza at a pizza place called Luigi's. But I get to do this with a friend so I'm sure it will be a lot easier. Then who knows after that... What I do know is that I had fun doing what have accomplished so far and hoping to build on it, one bite at a time ;) lol. Cheers.
To see more pictures of the eating competition, check out the rest of them in my facebook album -------> Jose's Flauta Eating Championship Album
Also, check out Jose's for great food, great service and a full bar!
Jose's Restaurant Website
