Marathon Man: Grad Student Keeps Balls In Air for 26.2 Miles

Harvard students are known for keeping multiple balls in the air, but Zach Warren has taken the skill to a whole new level.

Warren, a Harvard Divinity School student, set a Guinness World Record for the “fastest marathon while juggling three objects” with a time of 3:07:05—an average time of 7:08 per mile— at the Philadelphia Marathon on Sunday, Nov. 20. The previous Guinness Record was held by Canadian marathon runner Michal E. Kapral, who completed the course in 3:07:46 earlier this year.

Warren said running while jogging—known as joggling—“makes the world a little more magical of a place.”

Warren joggled in the race as part of an effort to raise $10,000 for the Afghan Mobile Mini-Circus for Children, where he studied laughter’s healing power. He said he also aims to break the Guinness records for “fastest 100 miles on a unicycle” and “most miles in one hour on a unicycle” to complete his fundraising drive.

“Running, juggling, and raising money for charity all have one thing in common—heart,” he said. “The point of joggling a marathon to raise money for kids is about cardiac fitness and sharing heart.”

Warren said that running the marathon without hands presented some challenges.

“At mile 20, a bug got stuck in my eye, and there’s nothing I could do except blink a lot,” he said.

He added that keeping the balls in the air the entire time wasn’t easy. Guinness rules dictate that if a joggler drops a ball, they must return to that spot before continuing.

“Around mile 14, I had a gel pack, my hands got sticky, and the balls started sticking to my hand,” he said. “In a one-mile period, I dropped the balls about a dozen times.”

Will D. Kemeza, a divinity school student who ran alongside Warren for part of the race, said spectators were excited by Warren’s joggling.

“People all along the road would point and say, ‘hey, a juggler,’” he said. “Everybody was laughing as he’d go by—the value is entertainment.”

Warren said that while some marathon runners worried that he made them look bad, others enjoyed the diversion.

“Running a marathon is ridiculous enough,” he said. “To see a juggler just makes it that much more fun.”

To train for the marathon, Warren ran an average of 8 miles a day and worked up to a 20-mile run the week before the event. For an extra burst of energy, he ate chocolate cake the night before the marathon.

According to Warren, adding juggling to jogging takes practice but is not impractical because juggling and joggling have the “same arm motion.” Both involve moving your arms “back and forth, right-left, right-left,” he said.

Kapral, the previous record-holder, said that while he had not been aware that Warren broke his record, he was not surprised and would like a rematch.

“I’d like to challenge him to race head-to-head in a race sometime,” he said. “We’re obviously almost exactly the same speed. Maybe the Boston marathon?”

Although Warren has brought publicity to joggling, long-term jogglers doubt that joggling will catch on beyond its current scope of interest.

“Joggling will always appeal just to a fringe group,” said William R. Giduz, joggling director for the International Jugglers’ Association, an group founded in 1947. “It’s been around since the ’80s and has never taken off to hit the big time.”

Warren advised would-be jogglers to join the Harvard-Radcliffe Juggling Club.

“There are lots of cute juggling nerds awaiting new people,” he said.