The Houston Astros take home the world series but Jonathan and I feel like the World Series winners.
After more than a year of practice, we have finally taken down the record for the “Most baseball catches in one minute by a pair.” We were both former baseball players (Jonathan was more accomplished than I was) but it took well over a year of regular practice to beat this record. We had to work on arm speed, accuracy, and transfer time. We eventually got our time from the ball hitting the glove to the ball out of the hand down below the average for a major league catcher trying to throw out a player stealing second. Our arm strength isn’t quite as good but coupled with accurately placed throws, the transfer time made up for it.
We’d have to space out our practice sessions because after a good day’s practice our arms would be sore 2-3 days. We had to rest like the pitchers do since we were each throwing a quarter as many times as a pitcher does in a game in a single minute! We also had to take a break after the 111 t-shirt half marathon since it injured my shoulder which required rehab for over a month.
I already had the samurai sword and I knew how to use it. I just needed to learn how to jump on a pogo stick with no hands. I bought my first one in preparation for this record attempt over 2 years ago.
The first pogo stick I bought was so small I just kept it for my <50 lb kids :). The second was much better and I got good at jumping on it with no hands. The problem was I used a rope to tie myself to the pogo stick and after 2 years I finally asked for a rules check and Guinness clarified that the rope wasn’t allowed. I needed to start over and figure out how to ride on one with no hands and no tie. The bigger pogo stick was far too large and boxy for my legs to grip so I ended up purchasing two more. The first bottomed out too easily and the next was perfect. I could grip it with my knees, it didn’t bottom out with small jumps, and I was able to stay on it with no hands after only a few more weeks of practice.
I was under time pressure since the neighbor’s crab apple tree was going to lose all its apples for the winter and there was no way I wanted to waste that much money and/or food on store-bought apples.
Jonathan was leaving town for a while as well so it ended up we made the attempt in the last possible hour on his birthday under artificial lighting since the sun had set.
After a couple of failed attempts, I finally completed a minute without falling off the pogo stick. The previous record was 39 apples sliced in one minute. Jonathan threw 74 apples, I sliced 63 of them, and 56 counted. Seven of the sliced apples were disqualified since they were thrown too early (before the previous apple was either sliced or hit the ground).
I broke this record 4 years ago as my 73rd Guinness World Records title. It was broken by someone else so I now reclaim it as my 250th Guinness World Records title with my first coming 7 years ago this month.
When I first saw the record 6 and half years ago it stood at 24 feet 7.6 inches. There was some ambiguity in the rules as to if you were allowed to cross the start line after the initial puff and they said no. That was reevaluated when Coby Cotton of Dude perfect was allowed to cross the start and blew the pea 28 feet 10.5 inches. I pounced and then got my pea to travel over 41 feet. That mark has since been surpassed with a single breath getting a pea to travel 52.83 feet leading me to set out to reclaim my record.
1 breath and several puffs later the pea had traveled 84.94 feet more than doubling my previous mark and increasing the current mark by over 60%.
The peas had to be fresh, non-frozen, and commercially available and I opened dozens of pods to find the most likely pea candidates and lined them all up to test each with a blow. After several rounds of tests, I had finally selected the perfect pea, and if the results are any indication, the selection process was a smashing success.
And they were all lit… for more than 30 seconds. Yes, a fire extinguisher was on-hand. Yes, it was uncomfortable – for more reasons than one.
My jaw was sore at the end, the fire was hot, I did wear eye protection, my shirt was covered in splattered wax at the end, and smoke inhalation was an issue I didn’t face previously when breaking this record.
It took almost 10 minutes just to get all the candles in my mouth and another 30 seconds to get them all lit. They then needed to stay all lit for 30 seconds for the record attempt to be valid. The weight of all the candles was intense and I had over 10 minutes of salivating making the candles slippery in my mouth. Only 5 seconds in I could feel them slipping out so I had to clamp down even harder and bite in with my teeth to keep them from falling out. I had a failed attempt at this record last December when the candles did fall out of my mouth after being lit so I was really hoping not to repeat that experience.
I was a little worried they weren’t all lit near the start since a few appeared to be sputtering from my angle. After 30 seconds I rotated the candles to ensure they were all properly lit and kept them going for 50 seconds to ensure I would get the record.
I spent nearly 4 hours with a guitar on my chin to crack this 1-hour 35-minute record.
I’ve held the record before and it stood at one hour. I walked over 3 miles around the track in an hour and 8 minutes before it fell off. I thought certainly I could go longer if I stood in one place. After an hour and 12 minutes and 40 seconds, the pain was too much and I took the guitar off my chin. I was so disappointed I had spent an hour and 12 minutes extending my own valid mark by only 4 minutes. And then I got more bad news. There was a run of 1 hour 13 minutes 25 seconds already in the books that wasn’t public when I went an hour 12 minutes 40 seconds. I was 45 seconds away from even having the record at all. I had to try again.
This time I made it an hour and 35 minutes before the pain was too great and I took the guitar off my chin. That was a lesson in pain.
One little mistake and it’s over. And that’s exactly what happened. The furthest distance traveled on a unicycle while juggling continuously is a beast.
I can juggle very consistently but when you add a unicycle to the mix it obviously makes it a lot harder. Most unicycles have a 20-inch wheel which means you have a lot of leverage when you press with your feet, the challenge there is they only go about 5 miles per hour. When you’re trying to cover distance it’s much better to have a bigger wheel so I bought a 36-inch wheel specifically for this record.
It turns out it’s not as easy to ride as a 20-inch wheel. I had to relearn how to ride with far less leverage and try to average nearly 10 miles per hour (one rotation of the wheel takes you a lot further). I can do that for 30 minutes but then I lose circulation with all my weight seated in the same place. To regain circulation I had to stand up in the saddle which not only required me to learn a new skill, but it also tires out the legs shockingly fast. That’s not good when you’re trying to ride for a really long time. The more tired the legs, the more likely a mistake which ends the attempt. I had to build up endurance. I took 100 Peloton bike rides. I ran. And of course, I rode the unicycle while juggling. I rode around the neighborhood, I rode on the greenbelt path along the river, and I rode around the track.
After 4 years of preparation and 6 months of serious training, I was finally ready to make the attempt.
I started early on a Sunday morning and had to ride 20,000 meters to break the current official record of 12 miles and 18 miles to break the unofficial record. I ended up going a little further than both of them put together.
Despite 2 bugs in my eyes, wearing a hydration back in my mouth the entire time, gusts of wind, 3 near drops, wobbly legs, camera battery troubles, and general fatigue; it was over 3 hours and 20 minutes before I finally had 2 balls collide (just ever so slightly) that resulted in a drop and the end of the record attempt. I broke the previous official record of 12 miles by nearly 20 miles held by Jeremy Walker. (Jeremy also held the unofficial record of 18 miles but never submitted it to Guinness).
I rode 123 laps plus 270 meters for a total distance of 49,473 meters or 30.74 miles.
My hip flexor was so tight it got a small tear in it later in the day and I couldn’t run again for over a month.
Today I had the amazing experience of getting to appear on Live! With Kelly and Ryan for the Guinness World Records 2023 book launch in New York City. It’s been 7 years since I was on the TODAY show for the 2017 book launch and this experience was MUCH better.
Jonathan Hannon and I took on the record my brother-in-law Kevin and I did father’s day weekend for most marshmallows caught in the mouth shot off a homemade catapult (still pending adjudication but we got 59) and extended it with a lot more practice to prep for an attempt for a live national audience.
One of my fears came true and Jonathan Hannon ended up shooting more marshmallows in one minute than ANY of our practices ever. While our catch rate of 67% was below what we expected due to the speed, we were more than thrilled to break the (official current) record of 47 by 30 with 77 catches! There were video replay issues during the commercial break so the adjudicator could only confirm we broke the record and not the count when it came back for the live audience. After the broadcast, he got the official count of 77.
Our $.75 catapult make of household (popsicle sticks, mousetrap, rubber bands, and hot glue) items held up well and we walked out with a record.
I was able to talk about how I break records to promote STEM education and the importance of working hard (especially when you face challenges), how I work in tech at Cradlepoint, and the difficulty of filling those positions.
I was all wrapped up by 8:30 AM Mountain time and then worked the rest of the day from my remote office :).
I attempted this record back in 2019 and thought I surpassed the existing record of 16 balloons burst in the armpits with a run of 25 in one minute but I had too many disqualified because my hand was either touching the balloon as it broke or the balloons slit out of my armpit before breaking.
This time I found the solution: hang upside down. It still took multiple attempts and was nowhere near as easy as expected but I broke the record by breaking 26 balloons in my armpits in one minute. I took screenshots of every balloon in my armpit just before it broke with my other hand removed to be sure I get it this time.
The other trick to this record is that the balloons had to be bigger than the standard water balloons sold in stores so I needed to find some slightly larger water balloons to use.
After reclaiming the record for most matches snapped in 30 seconds it was only natural to claim the 1-minute version of this record. I broke
Snapping Matches
I lined up 200 matches since I knew I would be blazing through the matches like a wind-driven wildfire. What I didn’t know is how thorough I would be.
I successfully broke 83 matches in 30 seconds but had to disqualify quite a few before that tally was official since they don’t always break completely. It’s faster to move on to the next match if the previous one doesn’t break all the way on the initial snap than it is to try to separate two broken but still connected pieces.
After a 3,2,1 go I used by 2-hand snapping technique. After 1 minute I had snapped a lot of matches, but would it be enough to break the previous record of 107 in one minute? We first carefully removed all the matches that weren’t fully separated. Then we lined up all the broken bottoms and all the broken tops to create complete but separated matches. There were dozens disqualified but there were 140 fully separated. After a slow-motion review showed that 2 of them were snapped at the same time (not allowed), the final tally was 139 matches snapped in one minute.
This is not a good record for cold season, allergy season, or COVID season. I have had this application open for nearly 5 years and I finally found a season where I can blow my nose and have something other than snot come out. Don’t get me wrong, snot still came out, but after blowing my nose on a tissue several times and into nearly 100 balloons, the snot was pretty much gone.
The record was for the most balloons inflated with the nose in 1 minute. The previous record stood at 9. For the first few times I tried this record over the years, I could barely inflate one balloon since I couldn’t get a good enough seal on the balloon on my nose to actually inflate it. That coupled with copious quantities of snot in my nose led to me giving up before I got too far.
This time I wasn’t going to give up. I tried time after time after time. My fingers were fatigued from trying so many balloons, my nose was raw from all the rubbing, and I nearly fainted once because my 4-year-old son handed me a balloon he wanted to be inflated after a particularly hard attempt and it was a strong balloon that didn’t want to inflate. Fortunately, I was able to sit down before I fainted.
I got 9 balloons inflated 3 times before I finally got a run with 10 balloons fully inflated per Guinness regulations, tied with no holes, and released from my hands before the minute expired. After verifying the diameter of each, it was time to celebrate my clear nasal passages.
Promoting STEM education through my story and juggling
