Before I write up an article about the race, here's a snippet from the Salt Lake Tribune's online edition:
Just short of a world record
Joggler Michal Kapral came within a minute and a few seconds of the world
record by finishing the Salt Lake City Marathon in 2:53:28.
The record for "fastest marathon while juggling three objects" is 2:52:15,
set at the Philadelphia Marathon in November 2006 by Zach Warren.
On Saturday, Warren clocked in at 2:57:02. Kapral and
Warren stayed with each other for most of the race and alternated leads. From
miles 12-15, Warren had the lead. Then Kapral was ahead for the next two miles.
For about five miles, the runners were even until Kapral took advantage when
Warren took a water break. At the 22-mile mark, Kapral took off.
"At the 24th mile, everything went blank. I was hallucinating. I just
couldn't move forward," Kapral said. "Focusing on juggling, it did help me
relax, but at some point, it does get frustrating. I just wanted to throw the
balls on the side of the road."
Warren hit that point of frustration, too.
"It's psychological warfare," Warren said. "It's so tempting to give
up. I was feeling terrible at mile 12." Even though there is
a rivalry between the runners, there's also respect. "It was
a really good battle," Kapral said. "It was back and forth."
Elite athletes coordinator Larry Barthlow said Kapral would have gotten a
world record Saturday if it wasn't for the altitude.
"He probably lost five or six minutes because of the altitude," Barthlow
said.
3 comments:
It did seem ambitious to break the world record at a higher altitude marathon like Utah. You should try the Arizona marathon in January. That's a pretty quick course.
Great work none the less.
Just Your Average Joggler
Perry, 44
It is amazing! I cannot imagine the work you must put in to juggle and run at those paces. Very honoured you left a message on runningmania re: Sporting Life 10K for me and remember first watching you at the Docks last year in the 5K. I was impressed at that distance but marathon (over and over) is unbelievable. Well done!!
Michal, you are truly amazing. If you get a chance, please visit my running web site, Faithful Soles. I would love to feature you as our "Runner of the Week" in the very near future. I think our members and visitors will be amazed at what you do, so let me know what you think about the idea.
Also, I have a categorized and searchable running Blog Database on there and would appreciate it if you would link your blog to it. Again, what you do is so unique it would really add a lot. Thanks.
Post a Comment