Aug 29, 2003
The Fastest Time for a Marathon (26.2 Miles) and 50 Miles
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In 1989, Ashrita set another record by joggling for 50 miles in the time of 8 hours 52 minutes and 7 seconds.
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No, I didn’t make this up! Joggling, which is juggling while jogging, is a well-established and highly competitive sport. In this case, the record is for juggling 3, balls but there are categories for 5 balls and even 7 balls. You are allowed to drop the balls but you have to scramble around and collect them and then go back to where you fumbled, thereby losing precious time. Obviously, the key to this discipline is concentration.
In 1988 I trained for 6 months for the marathon record which at the time was 3 hours and 29 minutes. Some acquaintances tried to discourage me from attempting the feat, saying it was too difficult. But, of course, that motivated me even more to go for it. Before the event I sent out notices to the media, and one of the New York daily newspapers covered my last practice session. On the day of the marathon, the article came out with a large headline proclaiming “Queens (NY) Man Goes for the Jugular.” Unfortunately, on that day in May in Flushing Meadow Park in Queens, the temperature climbed unexpectedly into the high 80’s and I burned out around the 20-mile point. After all the publicity, which also included T.V. coverage, I felt pretty embarrassed.
Aug 29, 2003
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In Bali
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The idea for landrowing came to me during a boring training session on an indoor rowing machine. “Why not put wheels on this thing and tool around the neighborhood?” I wondered. So I called up my friend, who is a welder, and we went to work on transforming my brand new Concept II Ergometer into a road-worthy vehicle. Several weeks later, with much anticipation, I took my first lap around a nearby track and – the contraption disintegrated!
I was a little disappointed, but I figured that at least I sacrificed my rowing machine in the name of science. However, a short time later, in the spring of 1987 while visiting Germany, I spotted an aerodynamic version of my failed experiment in the window of a sports store. I got wildly excited, but finally calmed down enough to buy the machine from the startled shopkeeper. A couple of months later, I set the first “landrowing” record by traveling 68 miles from New York to Philadelphia along the New Jersey Turnpike with a police escort the entire way. The police really enjoyed the novelty of the event, and at one point started singing “row, row, row your boat” over their loudspeaker!
Jul 22, 2003
I’ve always been intrigued by Stonehenge but never felt any great compulsion to go there until about a month ago. Suddenly, I was just dying to visit the historic site in England and set a record there, so when the opportunity recently arose, I jumped at the chance. My enthusiasm was only slightly dampened when I heard that Stonehenge can be quite windy at times.
The wind at Stonehenge probably doesn’t concern most people, unless they’re trying to fly a kite (unlikely) or attempting to break the Guinness record for standing on a Swiss ball, which is what I decided to do. I always practice for this record indoors because it’s hard enough to balance on the ball even without any distractions. I knew that balancing outdoors at Stonehenge, in a stiff breeze, would be a constant struggle to adjust to the varying velocity and direction of the wind. Dealing with comments from the stream of tourists would be a further challenge, but somehow it seemed like such a perfect fit- trying to stand on a ball for the longest time next to those massive stones that have been standing in a circle for more than 5,000 years.
