The top 2 finishers in yesterday’s beef patty eating contest at Meritone Family Festival in Connecticut can both be found in the bodybuilding.com forums. “Furious” Pete Czerwinski took first place by finishing 14 beef patties in 3 minutes and 14 seconds (video and pictures) and John Taylor, runner-up in the Nathan’s Hartford qualifier, was the only other competitor to finish his 14 patties in the 8 minute limit. Kara Walker won the amateur contest in her first competition.

(From The Big Lead) Yahoo’s hockey blog, Puck Daddy, has an interview with Krista Lander about her preparations for competing against two members of the Odessa Jackalopes minor league hockey team in Fuddrucker’s one pound burger challenge. Ms. Lander is the sports anchor for CBS 7 and the contest will be a part of “Krista’s Sports Challenge” segments in which she competes against local athletes in various activities. The contest is expected to be televised on Thursday.

Randy Thomas and Renaldo Wynn are not the only Washington Redskins to have participated in eating contests. In a post for the Yahoo! sports blog Shutdown Corner, Chris Cooley writes about his competitive eating experience:

The Ritz Carlton in St. Louis has the most unbelievable bacon I’ve ever tasted. Not only did I love the bacon, everyone on the team was blown away by the taste. Three or four of us decided to forget all other foods and have a bacon-eating contest. I won with 39 pieces and was was sick on the floor for the next hour in the visitor locker room. We tried to keep up with the contest, but no other bacon was up to par with St. Louis.

I’m not saying that someone can go on the McDonald’s “Super Size Me” diet and be a great athlete, but so much more goes into the sport than what goes into a player’s body. Someone might assume that a healthy eater would be a much better football player, especially at any skill position, and I would almost have to agree with him or her. But, as I finish up my sixth Mountain Dew for the day, I have proved to myself that my diet has continually worked for me. I eat what makes me happy, but I put in a tremendous amount of hard work as well. I’ve thought about trying to change, but there is something to be said about four consistent and healthy seasons in the NFL (I have never missed a practice), as well as going to the Pro Bowl.

“Furious” Pete has started a forum thread on bodybuilding.com titled “Ask a Competitive Eater Anything” which has already reached 8 pages in about a day.

Juris Shibayama has a page on IFOCE.com in which he describes his exercise regimen.

Hall Hunt announces that he is going to start training for a marathon and has a report on the 10k he ran last weekend.

(Via Gazizza.net) Babe Ruth was not the only New York Yankee outfielder of the 1910s/1920s famed for his appetite. According to baseball-reference.com:

1919 - One of the most bizarre off-the-field incidents history takes place in Jacksonville, Florida. New York Yankees outfielder Ping Bodie competes against an ostrich named “Percy” in a spaghetti-eating contest! Bodie wins the competition when Percy passes out after his 11th plate of pasta.

Some accounts have “Percy” dying after the contest.

The Sponichi Annex reports that Natsuko “Gal” Sone went to the Chiba Lotte Marines training camp and ate pancakes with Marines manager Bobby Valentine, who formerly managed the Texas Rangers and the New York Mets. Valentine won a pancake eating contest by eating 120 pancakes when he was in college.

See also Sanspo.com, The Mainichi Shimbun

Gal Sone also observed Valentine’s Day by going to the Godiva chocolate factory in Belgium.