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.)
"Choggling" – it's a thing: I smashed my joggling beer mile PB by more than 2 minutes on August 10 at the Toronto Classico Beer Mile, running, juggling and chugging my way to an 8:48.77 finish.
ESPN's Darren Rovell tweeted the story to his 1.47 million followers.
I wrote up a story HERE about the "choggling" race for Canadian Running's website. Short version: I had a bad bottle opener, I really need to work on my chugging, and it's really hard to run while juggling and burping.
Next time, I might try juggling three in one hand as I chug the beer.
This video shoot I did for TFO Canada's "24/7" show features some of the best joggling footage ever recorded. It took more than eight hours to film in several cool locations around Toronto. The directing, photography and video editing are excellent. My French, not so much. You can also watch it on TFO's website HERE. Enjoy.
I finally got around to submitting the paperwork for my 2014 Guinness World Record for fastest joggling half-marathon, including a couple of awesome photos from Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon staff. Here's hoping one of them makes it into the book. A few weeks after I sent through my official claim, the certificate arrived in the mail from London.
My daughter snapped a shot of me holding the certificate, which I posted on Twitter, and a few hours later, Metro News picked up the story.
I usually take the subway to work and joggle home, and the next day, on my subway ride, I opened Metro to find my own ugly mug smiling back at me.
This marks the second time that I have appeared in print next to Drake. Here's the first time, in Toronto Life's Eco Meter.
What does this mean? Maybe it's a sign that I need to run up the CN Tower while juggling and then joggle around on the ledge at the top, as Drake looks on from his perch? #joggling #VIEWS
It was a huge year for joggling. I think more people in 2015
than in any other year discovered that joggling is “a thing.”
Here’s a recap of
some of the year’s biggest moments in running while juggling.
Perry Romanowski capped off 2015 with a mind-boggling joggling streak of
2,599 days and more than 10,000 miles! Perry has likely joggled further than anyone, ever.
Quebec City hosted the International Jugglers Association
joggling world championships. Gabrielle Foran, who is working on her PhD in chemistry
at McMaster University, defended her title in the mile and 800m. Gabrielle also annihilated the women’s 5K joggling world record
in 2015 with a spectacular 18:12.
Gabrielle Foran (Photo: John Rennison, Hamilton Spectator)
No woman has ventured into the marathon distance in several
years. Dana Guglielmo, the former 5K record holder from New Jersey, has mentioned
moving up to the marathon. She has joggled a 1:35 half-marathon and was training hard in 2015, so maybe 2016
will be the year? Regardless, Dana, who was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when she was 17, has been an inspiring ambassador for arthritis research.
Michael Bergeron of Halifax, Nova Scotia, joggled up a storm in 2015, blasting a
1:28:28 half-marathon at the Blue Nose race in his hometown.
Michael Bergeron
Bocaranga, Central African Republic, became the joggling capital of the world, thanks to American aid worker and joggler Richard Ross.
The war-torn nation’s kids became international joggling superstars, proving
that peace is possible in the region, and that joggling is more than just a
pointless gimmick.
Joggling duo Bob and Trish Evans appeared on the DizRunspodcast to discuss their joggling records.
Joggling appeared on Digg with a video of Eric Walter’s
55-second 400m joggling record with the headline: “Joggling is either the best
sport or the worst sport.” (Spoiler: It’s the best.)
The Connect Run Club Podcast introduced their listeners to
joggling with a full-length interview with me.
In what New York joggler Chris Pert described as "arguably the biggest bummer in joggling history," the New York City Marathon made the utterly disappointing decision to ban joggling in 2015 for "security" reasons. This was a major bummer for me, but it was even worse for longtime NYC joggler Jack Hirschowitz, who had joggled the past seven NYC Marathons without any problem. The story, which began with a post on this little blog, exploded with a feature in theNew York Times.
Funny Or Die published one of the greatest odes to joggling,
perfectly capturing the banality and beauty of the sport.
Barry Goldmeier joggled multiple marathons juggling deflated
footballs dressed as Tom Brady. The New York City Marathon clearly did not enforce the joggling
ban as Barry took his Tom Brady act through all five boroughs. I also took a
set of beanbags through security at the athlete’s village (I needed them for a
media photo shoot at the race finish).
Barry Goldmeier joggling deflated footballs.
Joggling got a crazy amount of national network TV coverage
thanks to heavy rotation of the Fairfield Inn and Suites commercial. No one
believed that “fastest marathon juggler” was a real thing, or that there could possibly be
more than one person who did this. My TweetDeck search for “marathon juggler”
lead to some hilarity, and a mean tweets joggler edition.
Chris Pert got mistaken for “the guy in the
commercial” many times while joggling through Yonkers.Sorry, Chris.
What a year. What a thing this joggling thing is. And 2016
is already shaping up to be epic for the thing that is joggling.