New York Times: 3 Beanbags and 26.2 Miles

New York Times Joggling Article

New York Times reporter Sara Beck put together an excellent piece on 67-year-old joggler Jack Hirschowitz, who will be joggling his fifth New York City Marathon on Nov. 4. I was quoted a few times in it, calling joggling "a fringe sport for the odd lunatic." Lunatics in a good way, of course. 

Beck describes the rules of joggling and sums up quite succinctly the types of competitions: "Records have been set with five balls. Clubs are possible, but awkward. Knives are discouraged. Hurdling should be left to the experts."

I agree that joggling knives isn't advisable in a marathon, but on a treadmill is fine, right Tyler Wishau?

Zen and the Art of Joggling

Oh, the intensity of running 42.195K while tossing and catching beanbags 32,000 times. Photo courtesy of the Trapline Marathon.

Trapline Marathon: 1st Joggler and 1st Overall

The Trapline Marathon is no ordinary race. The starters' gun is a trappers' rifle (that was so loud we all froze at the line for a second of stunned silence before making our way forward), the start-line posts are made out of wooden snowshoes, there was a moose on the race course and moose stew served after the finish (a different moose, I was told by race organizers), along with a smorgasbord of other local delicacies.

The people in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador (how's that for a lengthy place name?) welcomed this wacky joggler with open arms and a good sense of humour and didn't even get mad at me when I won the marathon overall while juggling, in a time of 2 hours, 59 minutes and 32 seconds, and also set a course record.

I can say with near-certainty that this marks the first time anyone has won a marathon while juggling. I, of course, think this is pretty cool, however, the rest of the runners behind me might think otherwise. But I salute all of the runners in the full marathon, half-marathon and 10K at this spectacular race. And thank you to the hawk that flew half a foot in front of my face near the halfway mark for not making off with one of my balls. I salute you, too.

(Images courtesy of the Trapline Marathon)

The Bannister of Beer

The beer mile is getting a lot of press now that American Olympian Nick Symmonds is going for the world record. A video from TMZ shows Symmonds running a 5:15, which is very close to Canadian Jim Finlayson's world record of 5:09.
When I was the editor of Canadian Running, I assigned a feature article to Finlayson so he could tell the story of his record, and of his quest to break the magical 5-minute beer mile barrier. Here it is, one of my all-time favourite features in CRM, "The Bannister of Beer":

Next up for me: the joggling beer mile. Wonder what the record is for that one?

Matt Feldman Destroys 5-Ball Joggling 1-Mile Record

They say learning how to juggle five balls is 10 times harder than juggling three. When it comes to joggling with five, I'd say it's about 60 times more difficult than the traditional three-ball joggle.

Considering that, Matt Feldman's recent world record for the five-ball joggling mile of 6:33 is nothing short of astounding. Even better, there's a good video of it, so you can see how fluid his form is with the five-ball pattern on the run. Feldman makes it look easy, but trust me as one who has tried, this is reedonkulous skill.

Would this not be an entertaining Olympic event? Imagine a dozen jogglers and 100 balls flying around the track in an Olympic five-ball 1500m joggling final!

 

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?

Triathlon Juggler Joe Salter is Huge in Korea

Joe Salter shocked the world – even the hard-to-shock joggling world – when he managed to juggle his way through a triathlon in May. Since then, his video has gone somewhat viral (not quite Walk Off the Earth viral, but pretty good for jogging vid) and he's made an appearance on Good Morning America. Now a Korean TV show is apparently trying to convince him to swuggle (swim and juggle) across the Han River, which is about 1.7km across.