The running juggler
‘Joggler’ trying to beat more records
Michael Bergeron is the rare runner who finishes a race with his arms just as sore as his legs.
Bergeron, 29, a naval warfare officer with the Royal Canadian Navy, is a joggler, an athlete who juggles while jogging, except you’re not really a jogger when your best marathon time is 2:40.
Bergeron took up running at 13, and picked up juggling at 15 when the school he was attending in Ontario offered a weekend of instruction in sports, improv or circus skills.
“I was in the circus category for a full weekend, and there I learned the basics of juggling,” along with the unicycle and stilts, he said.
Bergeron’s juggling skills remained fairly rudimentary until a Facebook friend challenged him to combine it with running. He did research online, then took to the streets.
“I went outside and did many laps of my neighbourhood, which is 800 metres, for about three months until I was comfortable enough to go outside the neighbourhood on busy streets,” he said. “The main thing is crossing intersections, you have to look both ways while juggling, going past runners, walkers, cyclists, cars, all the safety basics you have to learn.”
Juggling while running down the road is not the same thing as juggling in your living room. Apart from the obvious hazard of traffic, there’s also the pitfall of living where the streets are not always pristine.
“After the first couple of months that I trained in my neighbourhood I got used to not even looking at the ball,” Bergeron said. “I can juggle now and look you in the eye. It’s a skill that I developed which is really useful, because on courses in the Maritimes, there are potholes and you have to try to avoid them, so you have to see them.”
Bergeron’s been joggling in races for four years, marking his anniversary in this summer’s Navy 10K in Halifax, where he set a world record for the distance at 35:36.
“Every time I go to a race, the crowd gets really into it,” he said. “When you see someone doing
something ridiculous, they start cheering so loud. When I ran the Boston Marathon, that was the highlight of my juggling career because for three hours and 13 minutes, the crowd was all over me.”
That’s right, a 3:13 in Boston. While juggling.
Next on Bergeron’s agenda is an assault on the half marathon record, which he will attempt to break next month on a flat course on the Toronto waterfront.
“This is the course where the guy who got the world (record) in 2014 set it, so I’m hoping to break it there. The record is an hour, 20 minutes and 40 seconds. I did 1:20:50, so 10 seconds short, in May in Fredericton, but that was on half gravel, a tight course,” he said.
Race fans in Toronto might actually see two jogglers running side by side, both of them very fast, both trying to get in the Guinness Book of World Records.
“Two years ago (at the Bluenose Marathon) there was a guy named Graydon Snider who beat me in the 5K. He’s also coming to Toronto,” said Bergeron. “He’s never juggled a half ... but running he did a 1:09, he actually won the Bluenose and beat two Kenyans one year. He’s from Montreal but used to live here. Just running, he’s faster than me by a lot, but juggling I think we’re similar.”
Guinness records can be certified in one of two ways. Either you can have your attempt filmed, or a Guinness representative can be sent to watch in person, which is what will happen in Toronto.