This week I went for an endurance record that seems so easy, and yet turns out to be a bit harder than you might think. It’s a pandemic, after all, and if you’re looking for a solo activity to do, there’s not much that can beat this.

YouTube video summarizing my attempt.

When Buzzfeed tried to break this record, they took multiple tries to beat the minimum mark of 5 minutes 35 seconds… and they failed when they first tried.

I broke it in January of last year with a run of 15+ minutes when Josh Horton was the holder at 11 minutes 8 seconds, but then I started goofing off. My record was broken by the official holder of this record with a run of 39 minutes 49 seconds (that appears to have actually taken place before my attempt, but was adjudicated after). Josh Horton recently did a run of 40 minutes, but he didn’t follow the Guinness rules (8″ diameter minimum for the balloons) or submit it to Guinness (presumed).

I found an open gym, pumped up 3 balloons with air, and went for it. I was sweating within 5 minutes. This wouldn’t have been an issue other than I really like to head the balloons when they’re coming down near my forehead. I probably did it 15 times during this attempt, but every time I did, I got the balloon wet which made it heavier, then the evaporative cooling would cool the air inside and shrink the balloon just a little, meaning it had a higher weight to size ratio so it cut through the air resistance faster and fell a little faster (this may have been imagined though).

I had about 1 “save” per minute during the attempt (where I had to do actual work to keep them in the air). I kept the balloons high in the air above my head for most of the first 40 minutes. When they’re up in the air, it means I have more time to react to mistakes, but it also requires raising my hands above my head a couple of times per second. Do you remember when you were a child and had to raise you had to get the teacher’s attention? Do you remember how your arm would get tired and you had to hold it up with the other hand? That was for less than a minute of hand-raising, and your arm is a lot heavier now. I also got a sore neck from looking up for so long.

After I broke the record, I relaxed a bit and kept the balloons a lower so my arms could have a break and so my neck didn’t have to tilt so far back. I had to resort to kicking the balloons up a lot more and almost 1 hour, 13 minutes into the attempt, one of the kicks was just a little too far away and the balloon sailed away from me and hit the ground. The new official record will be 1 hour 12 minutes 50 seconds.

Thanks, Steve, for sticking with me. Sorry it didn’t take 2 hours, but also maybe not sorry it didn’t take 4.

I get to go back to my juggling roots for this Guinness World Record’s title. I have been off doing all sorts of crazy Guinness World Record’s this year but hadn’t done a single juggling record. It was overdue.

For this record, I had to stand atop a balance board that met strict Guinness regulations for size, material, and workmanship. And then I had to juggle – fast. Guinness set the minimum mark at 360 catches completed in one minute using the standard cascade juggling pattern (shower not allowed for this one). That’s a mark that even accomplished jugglers may have trouble completing while on solid ground.

After this run. It’s going to be nigh on impossible for a juggler to beat unless they apply themselves specifically to speed juggling for several months.

The board wasn’t allowed to touch the ground and I could never hold more than 1 ball in a hand at a time.

I’m surprised it only took me two full minute attempts to achieve this result. (The first time was about 450 catches which was good, but I really wanted to hit 8 catches per second). On the second run, I got 485 catches smashing the Guinness minimum, meeting my goal of 8 catches per second, and was even within striking distance of the overall 3 ball cascade speed juggling record of 502 catches in a minute I set in December.

What speed juggling record should I attempt next?

I thought this was going to be an easy record to break. Four seconds into my first practice, I realized it was going to be harder than I thought. In fact, after a full practice session, I put this one on the shelf for months not sure if I wanted to spend the time to be able to break it.

The record is for the longest time to keep 2 balloons in the air with the head. It doesn’t seem like it should be too difficult, but it’s deceivingly hard. One rule that makes it ten times harder is that you have to alternate hits on the balloons with the head.

This means to have to hit each balloon up consistently because if one goes much higher than the other, the wrong balloon is going to come down first. By the time you hit the other balloon back up into the air, the lower balloon is too low to get the head under. It also means that mid-air collisions are detrimental because they usually result in the balloon that was the last hit with the head sending the balloon you want to hit next up and the one you can’t touch right back down. That ended up being what got me at this end of this attempt. The balloons not only have to be hit up far enough apart not to hit each other, but they also have to be close enough to be able to have time to shuffle back and forth between them. The footwork reminded me of the last few steps to get into the perfect position to hit a tennis ball.

Joel Strasser of toothpicks in his beard fame (3,500) came and acted as a timer. He’s from the Boise area but now lives in Oregon. He was back for the holidays. The previous record was 1 minute 9 seconds and I had my best run of 3 minutes 40 seconds.

Thanks to Bob and Tom Show for providing the balloons. They send them for a different record attempt but they ended up being too large for the Guinness rules on that attempt but they worked great for this attempt.

I can’t quite believe I actually did this. Out of the 130 Guinness World Records I’ve broken, this one seems the most impossible to me.

In the last 6 years of tracking my runs on Runkeeper when I started training to break a Guinness World Record, I have run nearly 4,000 miles. About 3,000 of that has been while juggling. The first record I was training for was the fastest half-mile juggling. I injured myself and pivoted to longest duration blindfolded juggling which ended up being my first Guinness World Record’s Title Broken. That was 4 years ago. Today I ran one more mile combining the sills and this time I did it while not just juggling, I was also blindfolded. The final result: 7 minutes 54.22 seconds. I also broke a second Guinness World Record during the attempt – details below.

No one has ever been able to complete a mile juggling blindfolded before but Guinness set the minimum mark to beat at 8 minutes 35 seconds to recognize it as a record. The rules require juggling to happen during all forward progress. If you drop a ball or catch two in the same hand, you have to go back and start juggling again.

I was running about 6:45 mile pace and dropped a ball in four different spots: 0.15 miles, 0.25 miles, 0.6 miles, and 0.75 miles. The hardest part is accelerating after a drop so I ended up with 10 total drops because I had 3 and 0.25 miles and 5(!) at 0.6 miles. I completed the first half-mile in 3:45 (on pace for 7:30) so the 5 drops hurt my time.

I had 2 runners, Dusty and Jonathan, on either side videoing (and providing footstep sounds to keep me on track) and Chris was behind me calling out numbers 1-5 letting me know where I was on the road. Three meant the middle, 2 a little left, 4 a little right and 1 and 5 were extreme left and right and I needed to adjust quickly.

Running blind is highly disorienting. In practice, I got to blink every 10-20 steps which let me reorient myself. On the treadmill, I would keep my eyes closed longer but I had my belly up against the bar so I had a physical guide.

I took one warmup mile to get the cameras and cars and guides some practice and get my body ready for the attempt and it took a little over 10 minutes. Then I went for the real thing. It went about a well as I could have hoped but I know I could do a lot better (sub 7 on a great day).

The 2nd Guinness World Record I broke was for the furthest distance traveled on foot while juggling blindfolded. It’s a record I currently hold at 100 yards. I went between .25 and .6 miles without a drop covering .35 miles, or over 600 yards beating this one by a factor of 6.

This week I start my 2019 series on “The World’s Fastest Juggling”. I have about a dozen official Guinness World Record attempts planned for this series. The first will be one of the “easiest” as no one has ever been able to break the Guinness minimum mark of 200 catches of 3 NBA Basketballs in one minute.

I’ve been working on it for a few months and made an official attempt at the Lake Hazel Library here in Boise, Idaho this week after speaking to about 75 kids and parents about the power of a growth mindset and the importance of STEM education.

I’m honestly surprised the record-a-week basketball-juggling-as-his-profile picture Josh Horton hasn’t tried this one. I didn’t put nearly as much effort into this one as for the rest of the dozen attempts I have planned so I’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t at least make a run at this one.

This was my 3rd year breaking a record for the summer reading series at the Lake Hazel Library. I actually made 2 different record attempts but the first was unsuccessful even though I’m the previous record holder and the new record was only one more that I achieved previously.

There are certainly important things to keep in mind and try to get over 200 catches per minute while juggling 3 basketballs, but I’ll let those trying to break this figure it out.

Good luck!

In the news: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2019/08/12/Idaho-man-sets-Guinness-record-for-juggling-basketballs/6171565625606

Who knew fire swords were even a thing. I’ve often been asked if I’ve juggling flaming knives. I used to answer… “I juggling knives, and I juggle flaming torches, but they’re not the same thing.” Now I can say, “Well, yes I have.”

While on vacation at Camp Perkins nearly Stanley, Idaho (which has 270 days of the year drop below freezing) I broke the world record for “most throws and catches of a fire sword catches in 1 minute” (and 30 seconds while I was at it). The previous record was 62 and I got 64 catches (and 28 was beat by 29 in my first 30 seconds… 30 seconds of practice sure helped me a lot) even with multiple drops and a singed finger. (I really should have practiced more with fire and accounted for the wind).

I lit the stage on fire once (the lighter fluid dripped on stage and when I dropped the sword it caught fire).

In the news:

https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2019/07/09/Man-throws-catches-fire-sword-64-times-in-one-minute-for-Guinness-record/5201562695890/

Today I has the honor of presenting the breakfast keynote at the International Associate of Venue Managers Region IV Conference in Boise, Idaho.

I juggled, balanced, and told my story of failure after failure. I didn’t let failure define me, however, and each time I failed I bounced back and learned from my mistakes.

I closed the presentation by making a live Guinness World Record attempt on stage. It’s always a bit risky to try a GWR live, but I decided to go for it after a few months of practice.

The record was for longest duration juggling whilst standing on a Swiss ball. I’ll admit, standing on the Swiss ball doesn’t make the juggling much harder. Juggling, however, makes balancing on a Swiss ball MUCH more difficult. I was shocked how difficult learning to balance on a Swiss ball was compared to the balance board or unicycle. The first time I tried getting on the Swiss ball I just about broke my toe falling off. Today, it took me 3 tries to even get on it.

The previous time to beat was 7-minutes 30 seconds. I made it 10 minutes 51 seconds before my feet got so sweaty they slipped off and the attempt was over.

For the first 7 and a half minutes, you could hear a pin drop. After I broke the record I opened it up for Q&A and was able to take my mind off the pain in my feet muscles by answering questions from the audience.

I broke my second Guinness World Record’s title of the year by keeping 3 balloons in the air for more than 11 minute 8 seconds (previous record).

I was in Las Gatos, CA at the Cradlepoint office after a hard day of 5G workshoping and then raised my arms in the air. This record looks deceptively easy but turns out be a quite tricky. I was also in an enclosed space which ended up being my downfall. At 15 minutes 34 seconds the balloon hit the door ending the attempt.

I had several kicks to keep the balloons up when one got away and I didn’t have time to get my hands under it. After breaking the record I started goofing off and tried it with one hand for a while, I also headed balloons, jumped up to hit them and smacked them a lot higher than necessary to keep them afloat before the yellow one hit the door after an errant kick.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

After I was done a couple fellow Cradlepoint employees tried and lasted about 10 seconds each. By the end I was dripping sweat and the next day my arms were so sore I could barely reach them above my head.

The record was originally created by Buzzfeed and the broken by Josh Horton.

Three years ago at the Cradlepoint Block Party, I set my first Guinness World Record. The next year I set my 10th. Last year I broke my 23rd. Today I broke my 74th and 75th Guinness World Records. Half of me is in disbelief that it’s that many, and half of me remembers all the hours it’s taken to get here.

Today, the first record I broke was for the most juggling catches while standing on a balance board while blindfolded. The minimum mark for this new record was 15 catches. On my 3rd try, I got 52 catches. Next up was the longest duration juggling while standing on a balance board. The record held by professional and impressive Niels Duinker was 17 minutes 21 seconds, I went 31 minutes 20 seconds. I have been putting off breaking this record for a couple of years since I met Niels on a Disney cruise several years back and he tipped me off that there were professional quality juggling balls that I wasn’t allergic to (I’m literally allergic to 70+ juggling balls that I own!).

The hardest part of balancing and juggling blind is not what I expected. I have several blind juggling records and am likely one of the most experienced blind jugglers in the world so that was relatively straight-forward. I’m also pretty good on a balance board and can juggle five balls while balancing on it for several minutes. What I can’t do for very long is simply balance on the board with my eyes closed. If I practiced that more on that particular skill I suspect I could juggling blind for a couple minutes vs 13 seconds.

Thanks to Cradlepoint for being so supportive of my efforts to promote STEM and to all the individuals who helped out. Thanks also to witnesses, timers, photographer, and family who help make it all possible.