Marathon joggler recounts the long road to exhaustion

by Todd McLeish

In an attempt to tie Michel Lauziere's marathon joggling record (Montreal marathon with no drops!), I decided to joggle the Ocean State Marathon (Rhode Island) in November.

 

Though I've been running for about ten years and juggling equally as long, but only combined the two a few times. Prior to preparing for this race, my longest joggle was five miles. I 'didn't have much training time, so I made a quick jump in my daily workout from four to eight miles and began to joggle the whole distance. Living and working in a college community, I expect the unexpected, but in no way could I have anticipated the response my joggling would cause.

 

Students consistently tried to make me drop the bean bags by methods from humorous to lethal. I was run off the road by cars and bicycles and taunted for over an hour by the football team as I ran around a track.

 

On race day I was nervous, mostly about the start. Packed in with 2,000 runners, I was worried about bumping into people. To avoid that I started at the back of the pack. It worked well, because the runners near me were so excited about the concept of running with a joggler that they gave me all the room I needed.

 

The first two or three miles were at a nine-minute pace - slow for me, but I couldn't get through the pack. It did give me a chance to talk with other runners, however. Most guessed joggling was a way to keep my mind off the boredom, and all laughed and cheered me on in amazement. The most moving experience of the race came from the thousands of spectators lining the course. Many encouraged me personally, calling out to "the juggler. "

 

The bigger the crowd, the louder the cheer. Since the course consisted of three laps, everyone anticipated my arrival on the last laps. They asked about my progress amidst snapping shutters.

 

During training, I wondered how I could get water without stopping. A friend ran alongside to try squirting water in my mouth from a bottle, but kept missing. So I decided to try to go without drinking for the entire 26.2 miles. But I couldn't. At the 10 mile marker, I stopped juggling long enough to take a big gulp, and continued

to do this every couple of miles.

 

At exactly the 16 mile marker, cheers turned to sighs as I dropped a bean bag. Less than a half-mile later it happened again as I maneuvered around a series of potholes. By that time my knees were sore and I felt as if I were losing control of my motor skills, but from that point on I didn't drop again.

 

The "wall" talked of fearfully by marathoners wasn't as solid as I expected it to be. It didn't hit me suddenly, but came on slowly over a distance of a couple of miles. At the 20th mile I had to stop and walk. But I continued juggling and began to run again in about 100 yards. During the next four miles I walked a total of about a mile, and had to stop juggling twice to give my body a break.

 

I was no longer worried about the joggling record. I was worried about my health! I needed water frequently and was afraid of hypothermia due to 20 mile-per­hour winds in the 50 degree weather along the ocean course.

 

With two miles to go and the four-hour mark approaching, I picked up the pace and was able to end the race with a sprint to the finish line. It was over in 4:08.37. Thank God! 862nd place. Never in my life had I been so totally exhausted. Though it wasn't a record-breaking performance, I felt pretty proud. Four years ago when I first thought about someday running a marathon I was looking for an activity that demanded every ounce of energy in my body. In joggling I found it!

 

Guinness challenge for speedy jugglers

Swiss juggler Mark Steiger claims to be the world's fastest juggler, and sends in these statistics to back his claim: 4 and 5 ball shower - 100 throws in 11.7 sec. (8.55 throws per second); 7 ball cascade - 100 throws in 13.8 sec. (7.25 throws per second).

 

Any jugglers who believe they can equal or surpass this accomplishment or have a measurable speed record of their own should contact Gene Jones, Guinness World Judge for Juggling, at NY, NY 10040. Guinness will probably list juggling speed records soon and Jones would like to get some competitive numbers to evaluate.

 

Corrections

The last issue of Juggler's World ignored the IJA convention club juggling numbers challenge event. Winner of that event was John Gilkey of Los Altos, California, with 11 throws of six clubs.

 

The translator of the article on "Scenic Club Passing" in the last issue was incorrectly listed. The translator was Velva Walden.