Joggling A Marathon
08 Jul 2025 fitness
Summary
- What: 2025 Buffalo Marathon
- When: Sunday, May 25, 2025
- Where: Buffalo, NY
- Distance: Run 26.2M
- Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/14592749372
- Finish time: 5:10:22
Discussion
Sometime within the last year or so, I discovered joggling and it struck me as something particularly quirky and challenging—right up my alley. I added “joggle a race” to my bucket list and got back to whatever I was doing, most likely a YouTube rabbit hole.
Months later, I attempted joggling for the first time during the Lockport 10 race. Surprisingly, it was easier than I thought. (The running candence and the juggling cadence actually line up quite nicely.) Then and there, I decided that I wanted to joggle a full race, start to finish, by the end of the year.
With not much else on the calendar, the Buffalo Marathon struck me as a good opportunity to try long-distance joggling. So, I decided to give it a shot. I wasn’t originally planning on joggling the whole thing, but the first half marathon went better than expected so I decided to keep going. Plus, I had promised a bunch of spectators that I’d joggle the whole way and I’m not one to disappoint.
It took me over five hours, but I actually joggled the 2025 Buffalo Marathon. To be clear, I had a bunch of drops and I stopped at the aid stations, but otherwise I juggled the entire time.
A few random notes:
- Spectators loved it. Almost everyone I passed cheered me on, expressed disbelief, and/or shouted jokes. (My favorite was, “Nice set of balls!”). Some kid told his friend, “He’s him.” Other participants were less enthusiastic, especially the ones I passed towards the end: “Oh, come on!”
- The trickiest part about joggling is not actually juggling, it’s seeing where you’re going. I relied on Zach’s guidance during the first half marathon and made a few wrong turns during the second half.
- Sunglasses are an absolute must. They prevent dry eyes (sometimes you forget to blink) and save you when the sun just-so-happens to be exactly where your looking while juggling.
- The farthest I had joggled up until that point was three miles. I should’ve trained better, because by the end of the race my forearms were killing me and I ended up with a minor case of tendonitis.
- All in all, it was a 10/10 fun experience that I never want to do again.
Life lessons:
- Embrace challenge: meaningful experiences happen outside of your comfort zone
- Drops happen: nobody is perfect, mistakes happen, pick yourself up and keep going
- Pace yourself: life is a marathon, not a sprint, slow and steady wins the race
- Appreciate the journey: don’t just rush to the finish line, smell the roses
- No one does it alone: behind every successful person is a society
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