Reporter sinks her teeth into pickle-eating contest

I ate so many pickles and no part of me felt good about it.

After anticipating it for a full year, I finally debuted as "œPickle-Me Elmo" in Bagel Street Deli's annual pickle-eating contest.

My start time was 4:20 p.m. My friend Molly and I were in the second heat along with roughly eight other pickle-lovers. (Go to "Read More" after watching this video)

Contestants are given 10 minutes to eat as many large... correction, very large... pickles as possible.

Molly and I arrived with approximately six minutes remaining in the first heat.

The quaint South Court Street deli was hopping. The master of ceremonies sounded more like an auctioneer than anything.

Each contestant was assigned a seat and a scorer to cheer him or her on and record how many pickles the contestant consumed so the emcee could keep the audience informed.

The audience was nuts. You literally could not speak to the person next to you without screaming.

A little girl, about 6 years old, occupied the final seat. She was adorable and was done with three-fourths of a pickle with about a minute left. I cheered for her so loudly that I may have scared her out of eating the final fourth of her pickle.

The winner of the first heat gobbled eight pickles in 10 minutes.

I was pumped up, ready to top her.

I took my place in seat two with Molly to my left. My name was written on the board: Pickle-Me Elmo. Molly's was The Picklenator.

We started off well "“ feeling like pros eating two pickles at once, one in each hand.

After two full pickles, I began to fade as someone a few chairs down pulled away from the group.

I began work on my third pickle but accepted defeat with only a bite left.

Good thing I did or I might have ended up puking in the alley as I'm fairly sure more than one person did.

Molly finished four; I was really proud of her.

The best part of the whole experience was being stopped by a man I have never met on my way out of the deli. He told me he was cheering for me, and I had let him down. I told him I'd get 'em next year.

We'll have to see about that.