I made Guinness World Records’ Best of March! It was set in Feb or 2017 but this one took a while to get approved and out of the backlog.
This is after making Best of January earlier this year.
Running EGGcellenty
I’m proud of my alma mater today.
The Borah High School Track team was as supportive a group as I’ve ever had. They cheered me on, they ran with me, they cover the whole track with encouraging words.
But I’m most excited because they listened. They heard that if they believe they can get better at something, they can. They heard that I “wasn’t smart enough” for the gifted program. They also heard what I did at Borah and that I went to MIT. They heard that STEM jobs are some of the best paying and that they should consider STEM as a career or at least understand coding. And they heard that even if they don’t think they can do something now, if they believe and work hard, they can in the future.
The record for “fastest mile with an egg on a spoon in the mouth” fell today. The previous record of 9 minutes 29 seconds was passed by an 8-minute 2-second mile run. I might have broken 8 minutes but I chose an ill-advised 400-meter “race” with some students while I juggled and they did 400-meter repeats. I had only jogged for 200 meters warming up when I ran a 67 second 400 meter while juggling with a group of students. Unfortuanlty that triggered my asthma which probably cost me at least 3 seconds.
Thanks for the support!
(FYI – the title came from my yearbook title award-winning wife, so it must be good, right?)
Breaking the Mile (Record)
On Wednesday, April 4th at 4:45 PM at the Borah High School track I will attempt to run the smoothest mile possible. I will have a raw egg balanced on a spoon that I will be holding in my mouth.
If the egg falls off the spoon the attempt is over immediately.
The current record for “Fastest mile carrying an egg on a spoon in the mouth” is 9 minutes 29 seconds. That doesn’t sound too hard until you think about how to run without your head bouncing at all. Did I mention if the egg falls off the attempt is over? Did I mention the egg was raw? Tying to clean raw egg up off a track is not easy (or fun).
Feel free to come check it out. I’ll be giving a short talk to the track team just before the attempt.
World’s Fastest Juggling
I’m often asked a variant of this question: What’s my favorite Guinness World Record? Which is the hardest? Of which record are you most proud?
This one.
World’s Fastest Juggling.
It’s defined as the most juggling catches in 1 minute. Like most people, I take the most pride in the things I have work the hardest on, and I have practiced for this record for nearly as long as I’ve been setting Guinness World Records.
After assembling the timers and witnesses at Cradlepoint on a Wednesday afternoon, on my first try, I got 556 catches in one minute beating the previous mark of 502 catches in one minute by over 10%.
When I first ran across this Guinness World Record in 2015 the mark stood at 422 catches in one minute. In my mind, it was nearly untouchable. But then I approached breaking the record with a growth mindset I practiced with a vengeance. I believed I could break the record and spent countless hours on deliberate practice. I broke it in June of 2016 with a run of 428 catches in one minute to lay claim to the tile title of World’s Fastest Juggler. To date, I know of no one who has passed this mark using the cascade juggling pattern. I subsequently hit 472 catches in 1 minute in 2017 as the first minute of a 3 minute Guinness speed juggling run. Today I publish the video with 495 catches -the first known run of over 8 catches per second.
The Guinness World Record mark is now 556 catches in one minute.
Guinness actually has 2 three speed juggling records: “Most juggling catches in one minute (3 balls)” and it implicitly required the use of the cascade juggling pattern. This is the record I previously broke. They also had a similar record for “Most juggling catches in one minute (3 objects)” that explicitly called out that any juggling pattern could be used, so the faster shower pattern was allowed and it stood at 466 catches in one minute. Guinness recently accepted an application for the fastest 3 ball juggling using the shower pattern after previously rejecting other applications using it. In the meantime, JISCON (Juggling Information Services Committee on Numbers) only counts the high throws in the shower pattern as “catches” so the 556 Guinness “catches” would only count as “278” catches.
I contacted Guinness to let them know of the inconsitancy and they determined they were going to stick with their decision to allow the shower juggling pattern for the 3 ball record. Eleven months of practice later I can lay claim to both Guinness World Records using the shower juggling pattern (556) and the JISCON record with the cascade pattern (495) for speed juggling.
I filmed the 3 ball cascade record at lunch earlier in the week after a quick 2-mile run (while juggling) on the treadmill to warm up.
I then broke the 3 ball shower Guinness World Records during a live event with witnesses and a news station present. I broke it on the first try which was good since I got so excited during the attempt my arms nearly turned to jelly.
I invite challengers to these records as I love a challenge and I know I can go faster and just need the motivation to do so.
Snapping Cucumbers
I was down in LA today presenting on the new FirstNet public safety LTE network for first responders with Cradlepoint in partnership with AT&T/FirstNet. As part of the event, I added a Guinness World Record attempt to keep things light. I talked about the importance of STEM education and also the power of having a growth mindset.
The record was for most cucumbers snapped in 1 minute. The previous record was 118 and I needed to do just 1 more rep on the forearm workout before attempting this as I got exactly 118 as well. Fortunately, that ties the previous record and is good enough to make the Guinness World Record title claim. It took several reviews of slow-motion video to confirm the exact count.
Here’s the 1-minute summary.
If you’re wondering about the lack of a post on yesterday’s fastest juggling attempts, I’ll have more on that soon.
Some pics from the event.
Reclaiming the hardest record
On Wednesday at 2:30 PM at Cradlepoint I have an interview with KBOI 2 news about promoting STEM education and then I will attempt to reclaim the most difficult Guinness World Record I have ever set. It is the one I have practiced for on a weekly, if not daily basis for more than 2 years. On Wednesday, I will attempt to become the fastest juggler in the world by re-breaking the Guinness World Record for “Most Juggling Catches in 1 Minutes (3 balls)”. The current record is 502 catches in 1 minute.
You may ask, don’t you already claim to be the fastest juggler in the world? Yes… but. On Wednesday I remove the but. The but right now is that Guinness recently changed the interpretation of their rules to allow the shower juggling pattern to be used for speed juggling vs the cascade pattern. The juggling community still only recognizes the cascade juggling pattern and I still hold that record at 472 catches in 1 minute. When I first broke this record it stood at 422 catches in 1 minute. I upped it to 428. The rules changed and it jumped all the way to 502 catches in 1 minute. I would just assume hold both to remove any dispute.
In the shower pattern, the balls move around in a circle and 2 throws and catches happen nearly simultaneously vs the cascade pattern where each ball is thrown up and over to the other hand one at a time. For the last 11 months, I’ve been practicing with the shower pattern to get it up to speed since before all my speed juggling and blindfold speed juggling has been dedicated to mastering the cascade pattern.
Best of January
I’ve never been in a YouTube video with over 375,000 views before. I’m glad they caught my excitement after I broke the record.
Egg on the Face
Today I lined up for my first gun-start 100-meter dash since… actually, I don’t think I had ever run a competitive 100-meter dash. In elementary school, I ran the 60-meter dash and in junior high, I ran the 800-meter and 1600-meter.
The gun was right next to my ear and I jumped off to the fastest start I’ve ever had. This is a problem when you have an egg on a spoon in a mouth. It immediately bounced off the spoon off my hands and into the grass. Fortunately, it didn’t break and I started again.
The previous Guinness World Record was 21.94 seconds. I ran it in a smooth 18.47 seconds – one of my best runs ever. I was cheered on by the Capital High School track team after talking about the power of having a growth mindset and not placing artificial limits on themselves.
Thanks to the team!
100 Meter Scramble
As Usain Bolk knows, the 100-meter dash is the gold-standard distance for determining the fastest in the world. On Tuesday, March 13 I will attempt my first 100-meter record at the Capital High School Track at 3:45 PM to become the fastest man in the world (carrying an egg on a spoon in the mouth). I hope to crush the current record of 21.94 seconds before the egg gets crushed (and I have had more than a few eggs get crushed during practice. In fact, today alone I lost three eggs but one of those was due to my 22-month-old son’s proclivity to attempt to emulate his father and a mother who thinks nothing would come of a 22-month-old getting into a package of raw eggs 🙂 ).
If successful, this will be my 39th world record.
The plan is to give a short talk to the Capital High School track team about having a growth mindset, the importance of STEM education, and then break the record.
Why My Neck Hurts
Tonight I balanced a 27-pound bicycle on my chin for 6 minutes 1.70 seconds.
But that’s the not answer to why my neck hurts. My neck hurts because we have a shortage of trained engineers, scientists, and technology leaders and more critically we have a dearth of students who believe they can succeed in technically challenging fields. I want to change that by espousing the power of a growth mindset.
Tonight the Discovery Center of Idaho had their “30 Years of Discovery Science with Style Gala” and I gave a short talk on my journey through the Idaho public education system and it leading me to MIT and how having a growth mindset has put me on the verge of breaking my 40th Guinness World Record.
I donated a local inspirational educational talk and juggling show for the live auction and it ended up being so popular I was asked if I’d do another. I was happy to oblige and they raised $6,000 (thank you donors!)
I told my favorite Discovery Center story which is how I took my senior prom date there and we had a blast. I then recaptured the Guinness World Record for Longest Duration Balancing a Bicycle on My Chin. The first time I broke it a year and a half ago I balanced the bike for 2 minutes 36 seconds. It was the most I could do. It has since been broken twice and stood at 4:15. If you had asked me if I could balance it over 6 minutes after breaking it last time, I would have said no. A growth mindset is a very powerful thing.
Fun fact: Yesterday I ran a mile in 5:58 (bat balanced on a finger) and today I went 3 seconds longer with a bicycle balance of 6:01.
A big thanks to the Discovery Center for having me out and all the help from Ashton, Alissa, Kent, Cody, Adam, Penny, Michael, and Ralph! Thanks also to Ken’s Bicycle Warehouse for providing the perfect bike that was heavy enough to meet the Guinness requirements but not a half pound more.
