Don’t expect anyone to juggle hatchets, torches, or pitchforks.
But a field of jugglers - or rather “jogglers” - will juggle three balls as they run five kilometres in the upcoming Guelph 5K Joggling Championships. It happens on the morning of Saturday, June 24.
The juggling run began in 2013 as a fun event for University of Guelph students who also happened to juggle. The skill is made even more challenging when doing it in motion. For that first event a small number of jugglers were up to the challenge of mashing a distance run together with juggling.
The event was taken up a notch in 2015 when U of G chemistry PhD student Gabrielle Foran, an accomplished juggler and runner, set a world 5K joggling record with a time of 18:12. She had previously accomplished a 5:58 in the mile at a world championship event, making her the women’s three-ball mile champion. She has won several championships since.
A video of Foran’s 5K feat shows that, from certain angles, it is not immediately evident that the runner is juggling at all.
Foran uses road hockey balls modified by drilling a hole in each one, adjusting the weight with barley seed, then filling the hole with caulking.
In another online video she said the juggling motion coordinates very well with the rhythm and arm movements of running.
Emily Moore is a Guelph 5K Joggling Championships organizer. This year’s race, she said, follows a 2.5K route around Kortright Road W., Rickson Avenue, Oak Street, and Gordon Street. She expects curious residents from the neighbourhood to come out and cheer on the runners.
“It started off as a casual competition between a few students, and over the last few years it has grown a fair bit,” Moore said. “But at the most, we would have about 20 competitors.”
Runners have to juggle continuously throughout the distance. Balls will be used in most cases, but there may be one or two runners who get creative. One year a juggling unicyclist took part, and a juggling roller-blader might get in on the action this year. A 10-year-old boy who has been juggling for a number of years will also compete.
If a ball is dropped the runner must immediately return to where it was dropped, pick it up and start running and juggling again, Moore explained.
“They must be juggling the entire time, and they are not allowed to stop,” she said. “There is a lot of mind/body coordination.”
The June 24 competition is from 9-11 a.m.
“It would be nice if we could get more people out watching,” Moore added.
