I'm Michal "The Joggler" Kapral of Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, and I run marathons and other events while "joggling," an actual sport that combines jogging (or running) and juggling. I hold the Guinness World Record of 2:50:12 for the fastest marathon while juggling three objects. (I also chewed gum every step of the way.)
Showing posts with label 5-ball joggling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5-ball joggling. Show all posts
I found the perfect 5-ball joggling training area in Port Hope. It’s a 500m stretch of newly paved bike and pedestrian path with no overhead trees and almost no other people. The other day I ran back and forth along this route to do some roughly timed 5-ball jaunts. I still usually drop about every 100m, but if I’m not worried about cars or other potential obstacles, I can often make it further.
Midway through the 7km 5-ball training session, I glanced at my watch just before I started another half-kilometre interval along the path and boom, everything just clicked and I cruised the entire 500m without dropping a ball. I looked at my watch just after I stopped and it was somewhere around 2 minutes and 5 seconds, so about a 6:30 mile, and right on Matt Feldman’s 5-ball joggling mile world record pace. I did a little celebratory dance and continued on. I clicked off a bunch of other solid runs after that, including this one that Dianne filmed near the end of the session.
Our new neighbourhood in the town of Port Hope, Ontario, is a great place to work on 5-ball joggling. I’ve been tacking these sprint sessions onto the end of my non-joggling runs, hoping to eventually get good enough for a decent 5-ball 400m, 800m, mile or 5K.
Maldives: The destination paradise of sun, sand, coral reefs, aquamarine shores – and soon – joggling! The family and I will be visiting the Maldives in October, where I'll attempt to become the first person to race a 10K while juggling five balls every step of the way for a new Guinness World Record. Read all about it:
Addu, Maldives aerial view (Photo: Ibrahim Asad)
Multitasking in the Maldives! Kapral to Run 10K While Juggling
5 Balls for a New ‘Joggling’ Guinness World Record
TORONTO – JUNE 24,
2019 – Putting the “world” in Guinness World Records, Michal “The Joggler”
Kapral of Toronto, Canada is taking his beanbags and running shoes to the Indian
Ocean destination of the Maldives in a quest for a new world record in the sport
of joggling – running while juggling.
On October 5, 2019, Kapral, 47, will attempt to become the
first person to run 10km while simultaneously juggling five balls every step of
the way. The record attempt will take place at the Coca-Cola runinaddu
event in Addu, the southernmost atoll of the world’s flattest country.
“Joggling sparks joy in people everywhere I go, so I can’t
wait to showcase this sport in the Maldives for some record-breaking history
almost halfway around the world from my hometown,” Kapral says.
Kapral holds the world record of 2 hours 50 minutes and 12
seconds for the fastest marathon joggling three objects, set at the Toronto
Waterfront Marathon in 2007. He also set the unofficial record of 2:55:25 for fastest
joggling marathon without dropping a ball, at the 2016 Chicago Marathon.
There is no current record for the 10km distance juggling
five objects, but Kapral’s goal is to break one hour. The five-ball 5K world
record is 27:06, set by Matt Feldman of the U.S. in 2011. Guinness World Records
rules say jogglers must be juggling the cascade pattern every step of the way
forward, and in the event of a drop, must return behind the drop point before
continuing.
“When you’re running while juggling five balls, every mile
feels like a marathon,” Kapral says. “The five-ball 10K joggling race is going
to take some next-level hand-eye-arm-leg coordination, endurance and focus.”
Kapral’s Guinness World Record attempt is being supported by
the Maldives Marketing and Public Relations Corporation (@VisitMaldives) and the race
sponsor, Total Fitness Group. Kapral’s juggling ball sponsor, Sport Juggling Company, is creating
custom multicoloured beanbags for the occasion.
Despite being a nation of nearly 1,200 islands and 26
atolls, the Maldives has a thriving road racing and running tourism scene, with
about a dozen races per year across the country, including several marathons.
It's been a while. I've been busy joggling life. But fear not, joggling enthusiasts, because the sport continues to flourish, even if I haven't documented here. Jogglers have set several world records since my last update.
I took some time off because of an Achilles injury and some bad eczema flare-ups, but I'm back to training for the 5-ball joggling 10K world record. Here's a compilation of my 5-ball joggling training and racing (drops edited out):
Zach Warren captured some pretty cool GoPro footage during my 5-ball joggling Guinness World Record attempt at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon.
I'm just going to throw this out there: Sometimes when you set ridiculously challenging goals for yourself, you will fail. That's exactly what happened to me at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon last Sunday. My goal was to set a new Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon while joggling five objects.
There was no current record, but the Guinness records-keepers decided through some calculus that 4 hours 40 minutes was the time to beat. This doesn't sound very quick, but here's the thing: running while simultaneously juggling five balls is exceedingly difficult. To a non-joggler, I might put it like this: joggling a marathon with three balls is like running a regular marathon, while joggling a marathon with five balls is like running a marathon hopping on your left foot only for the entire 42.2km. It's exponentially harder the further the distance.
422 drops to glory?
Leading up the race, my training had gone quite well. I practiced running 100m, 200m intervals joggling five balls, and worked my way up to being able to do some 400m joggles around the U of T Varsity track without dropping. But my average drop rate was still around every 100m, which is 422 drops for the marathon. I still thought it might be manageable, but knew based on timing my 100m joggles that a 4:40 marathon would be almost impossible.
Lucky for me, I had a chance do some training with five-ball joggling record-holder Matt Feldman, who is incredibly quick at the 400m, mile and 5K.
I also had lunch with five-ball joggling legend Barry Goldmeier, who regularly runs large portions of marathons while juggling five beanbags.
The week before the race, CTV News and CP24 ran stories about the record attempt.
I still can't stop laughing at the fact that I secured a sponsorship from the best cinnamon bun shop in Toronto. Thank you, Rosen's Cinnamon Buns for supporting my joggling dreams. A huge thank-you as well to Cheryl Sayers from Sport Juggling Company for the amazing Sportball beanbags.
Joggling jitters
Zach arrived from D.C. on Friday and we toured Toronto riding BikeShare bikes on Saturday, which was probably not the best thing to do the day before trying to set a world record. I hadn't seen Zach in 10 years, when we raced each other at the 2007 Salt Lake City Marathon. I discovered that he's still one of the greatest people you could ever meet.
Zach has worked as a circus performer, and is an expert juggler. The night before the marathon, we went out to practice some joggling to see how close he should follow during the race. Zach tried five-ball joggling and actually had some trouble with it. I realized that all my training had actually worked. I had developed a new skill (perhaps not the most useful skill in the world, but still...).
Race day. My nerves were joggling big-time, since I still didn't know if this record was even possible. It was very difficult to tell during my training how the race would play out, since I trained on a track, or on an empty stretch of road in my neighbourhood. Zach and I lined up in the slowest corral for marathon finish times of 4:30 and slower. I decided to start near the front of this group, thinking if I got a good clean start, I could stay up front in the clear and avoid the crowds. But just before the horn sounded for our corral's start, a bunch of runners shimmied in front of me and Zach, and I suddenly found myself squished in a large crowd.
I was immediately in a panic, trying to maintain the high tosses of the five-ball juggling pattern. I dropped several times right near the beginning, and scrambled to regroup right away so I didn't interfere with the runners behind me. This caused me to drop even more. I was exhausted almost right from the gun, and it just got worse from there. On the bright side, the spectators were loving it, and Zach shouted encouraging words to pull me out of my panicked state. It was still crowded up until about 3km, but by the time I had slowed enough to have some space to juggle, my energy was sapped. I felt like I had already run a marathon. I should've started at the very back and not worried about trying to run 4:40, but it was too late.
Give me a hand
My hand injury turned out to be a muscle tear.
In my frenzy, I somehow managed to injure my left hand, which began to hurt more and more with each toss. I hit 5K in 46 minutes, already 13 minutes behind schedule. Zach told me, based on my stride length and toss rate, that I would be making 130,000 tosses and catches for the marathon. It's going to be a long day, I thought. The next 5K took me 56 minutes. My hand was now in serious trouble, shooting pain up my forearm with each toss and catch. By the 13K turnaround on Lake Shore, I had entered survival mode. "We're going to finish this," Zach said. "My flight doesn't leave until tomorrow."
Close to my break point at about 15K, the race film crew showed up. Wonderful, I thought. Everyone can watch me fall apart. And they did. As I inched forward a few steps at a time, the camera crew remained. I thought about all the people who had donated to SickKids Foundation, I thought about the sick kids, and I thought about how lucky I was to be out there doing this.
The commentary on the race video is priceless. Canadian Running editor-in-chief Michael Doyle says it looks like a slow form of torture, and he was right!
Things were not going well at all.
I thought I could just will myself through the rest of the race, even if it took 15 or 20 hours. But just before the 17K marker, I knew my hand was too damaged to go on. I got the five-ball pattern going, joggled to the 17K sign, caught the balls, turned to Zach behind me, and declared, "Joggler out." At this point, we were in last place in the entire race of 18,000 people, followed by a line of police cars.
Zach said we should continue to run the rest of the marathon without juggling, and I agreed, though I secretly planned to bail at the half. A couple of kilometres later, we ran past three mounted police officers. Zach ran over to them and, employing his deft social skills from a decade of living and working in Afghanistan, he convinced them to gallop behind me on a final joggle. It was quite the scene. I ended up joggling at a good clip, as the clack of the hooves sounded altogether too close behind me.
Regular running
We continued on. Near the halfway point, we ran into my parents, my sister, Moira, and my niece, Kate. My mom reminded us that the course had a time limit of 6 hours. "A sub-2 half? We can do that!" Zach said, cheerfully. I put on my best smiley face, and off we went for another half marathon. We shared some good laughs with the walkers, and were ever grateful for the volunteers who remained at the scene to offer Gatorade and water to last runners and walkers. My entire body felt like it was falling apart, but somehow I found the strength to keep running. Zach hadn't run a marathon since our 2007 joggling duel in Salt Lake, and recently had back surgery, so he wasn't doing so well himself. But we chatted and laughed and joked our way through the rest of it.
I juggled for the last few metres across the finish line. Two of my beanbags hit the timing clock above the finish and thumped to the ground on the finish line. Seemed appropriate that these extra two balls fell at the end.
Post-joggle
Joggling five balls every step of the way over long distances is very hard. Ludicrous, really. I knew this challenge had a good chance of failure. But I emerged from the experience with an odd sense of excitement. I tried. I gave it everything. I juggled to the last catch possible.
I had the privilege of running with Zach Warren for 5 hours and 40 minutes, a great way to catch up with a friend after 10 years. I got to see my wife Dianne and kids, Annika and Lauryn at the end. Lots of people donated to SickKids, raising nearly $2,000. Zach and I posted a negative split of 1 hour 56 minutes and 31 seconds, possibly the largest negative split ever in a marathon. I joggled five balls of the race for 17K, which is likely the furthest anyone has gone for every step, returning behind the drop point after each drop. Zach and I had a chance to experience what it's like to be in last place in an IAAF Gold Label marathon. We met so many amazing people along the route. I got to joggle with a mounted police escort.
There was some pretty entertaining media coverage after the race, from Canadian Running, Men's Journal, Sky Sports, and the Toronto Star. The Twitter Moment for it was even shared around the world by Twitter Moments and Twitter Sports.
As joggler Bob Evans said to me on Facebook after the race, "There is no story without conflict. Your 5-ball marathon quest just got a lot more compelling. Keep going!" In this case, I battled the record, and the record won. This was captured perfectly in this screenshot of race video of me looking like a dejected gorilla.
Matt Feldman of Washington, Fla. set a new Guinness World Record for the fastest 5000m while joggling with five balls. The 18-year-old University of Florida student ran the 12.5-lapper in 27:06, eclipsing Billy Gillen's previous record of 28:11, set back in 1989.
For all the non-jugglers out there, juggling five balls is about 10 times harder than juggling three. Running while juggling five is, well, really, really hard. Joggling a 27-minute 5000 is a spectacular feat.
Due to my ridiculously long-lasting joggling, gum-chewing marathon feats, Stride, "the ridiculously long-lasting gum," has supplied me with a bunch of free samples.
I've tested Stride's Forever Fruit flavour on a few joggles and concluded that it's the perfect joggling gum. The flavour is not super-strong, as claimed, it lasts a long time, and most importantly, the chewability factor is very high - that is, it keeps a nice, chewy consistency for many kilometres of joggling.
So far, my unofficial role as Stride's joggling ambassador is really paying off. It's a new brand in Canada, and I've been converting many gum-chewers, who tell me two things about it: good gum, funny TV spots.
Hopefully, they'll launch Sweet Berry and Always Mandarin in Canada soon - flavours just launched in the U.S. I think I know what kind of gum I'll be chewing for my first 5-ball joggling marathon.
Will David Ferman usher in a new generation of young jogglers? This is an impressive 5-ball 100m performance from this year's IJA World Joggling Championships in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. You can see runner-up Barry Goldmeier (in the white shirt and black shorts) putting in a solid performance for a masters runner and marathoner.
Ferman's 5-ball joggling tosses are almost twice as high as mine. I think he could run a lot faster with a lower toss and a faster leg turnover. This has inspired me to head to the track and time myself for a 5-ball 100m, but I can't see myself breaking Owen Morse's world record of 13.8 seconds anytime soon. That is just ludicrous.
This photo of 5-ball joggling champ Owen Morse is one of the best joggling shots I've ever seen. As he competes at the 1988 International Jugglers' Association festival, you can see the look of intense concentration on this face as he maintains a perfect 5-ball pattern while sprinting. That combination of speed and coordination is what makes joggling (in my unbiased opinion) the greatest sport in the world.
My plan for the fall is to improve my base running speed with some track work. At the track, I'll also be working on my 5-ball joggling. If I can find a track race that will accept of joggler, I want to go for the 5,000m joggling world record of 16:55 sometime during the winter.
Since I'll be running lower mileage over the next few months, I'm going to use my extra time to look for an advertiser for the Mango velomobile. If anyone knows a company who would be interested in getting their brand on a non-polluting, health-promoting, head-turning vehicle, inquiries can be sent to joggler1@gmail.com.
