Wacky Sporting Champions

Guinness World Records has a new ebook dedicated to "Wacky Sporting Champions," including the basketball spinner from Benjamin Fingerhut's documentary, Breaking and Entering. I wonder if any jogglers made it in there?

A Sickly and Scrawny Boy

Benjamin Fingerhut's documentary Breaking and Entering recently screened at the historic Vickers Theatre in Three Oaks, Michigan, generating this writeup in the regional paper. This passage gave me a good laugh, and it's not far off.

There's Canadian Michal Kapral, whose obsession with the Guinness Book of World Records started when he was a scrawny and sickly young boy, dreaming of being an elite athlete. He grew up to become a gifted runner and juggler, and combined the two to become one of the best "jogglers" in the world.

With chronic asthma, allergies to virtually every food and airborne particle and general skinniness, I was a scrawny and sickly looking young laddy.

Great reviews for Breaking and Enterting in NY Times and Variety

Filmmaker Benjamin Fingerhut's excellent documentary about Guinness World Record breakers is hot on the filmfest circuit and just received a couple of great reviews from Variety and the New York Times, both of which mention my friendly joggling rivalry with Zach Warren.

My wife got a kick out of the Variety review of Breaking and Entering: "Fingerhut depicts a kinder, gentler form of rivalry in his chronicle of Michal Kapral , a marathon "joggler" (one who juggles while jogging), who sets a record, only to have it broken by Zach Warren. The two men become friends, inspiring each other to greater and greater exertions for charitable causes, while Michal wonders how much longer he can pursue his completely profitless hobby to the detriment of his financial obligations to the wife and kids."

The New York Times review: "There’s definitely no place for mockery in the case of the jogglers Michal Kapral and Zach Warren, who can each run a marathon, juggling three balls the entire route, in under three hours. When you can do that, who needs Guinness." While I appreciate the writer Mike Hale's compliment here, I disagree - there must always be a place for mockery of joggling. What kind of imbecile runs a whole marathon while juggling?

Breaking and Entering documentary 2009

Breaking and Entering movie poster

Plot: Explores the lives of would-be record-breakers as they pursue their dreams of fame and fortune, sometimes both, usually neither.

Joggling in record-breaking documentary

Today's joggling plan: rest (5-ball juggling practice, no running)

The Joggler will appear alongside other record-holders, including a guy who rips phone books in half and a human cannonball, in an upcoming documentary called "Breaking and Entering".

The crew will be filming me and Zach in our duel at the Salt Lake City Marathon next month (next month, whoa!).

Follow this link for the movie trailer.