It would be a real blow if he didn’t cross the finish line. And not just for the play on words. This Sunday, Johan Swartvagher intends to take up the completely crazy challenge that he has launched for almost a year: at 38, the Angevin is preparing to run his first marathon while juggling three pins. A route of more than 42 km along the Loiredeparting from Saumur, during which neither his arms nor his legs will stop moving, except for the few tens of seconds necessary to refuel.
Among his strengths, let’s announce it straight away: Johan is a professional juggler. Among his weaknesses, he defines himself as “a poor amateur runner” and this distance, which he hopes to cover in 4h30, will be the longest ever covered. And what happens when you have to combine the two? Clack, clack, clack… Lulled by the sound of the clubs, Johan relies on this “coordination coming little by little” which we must above all avoid stopping. We look straight ahead and don’t think about our feet any more than we think about our hands.
“Rolling up the tarmac” with clubs
“The real difficulty is the wind, which could really undermine the test because it would require me to constantly readjust, causing real mental fatigue,” fears Johan a few days before the event. The objective: for the pins to fall as little as possible (because each time you have to stop, take three steps back, bend down) out of the nearly 40,000 throws that he should make. At least, unlike balls, they don’t roll…
This challenge, presented by the person concerned as “fun” or even downright “absurd”, is not that much. Because behind the physical performance, Johan has above all built a real artistic approach, concretized in a podcast (End it) of ten episodes, recorded during the runs and again on the big day. He questions in particular the links between the two universes, ultimately not so distant. “You need endurance, self-sacrifice, it’s something you do over the long term, and I think that’s what touches me,” says this father of two children, who imagines “rolling up the landscape and the tarmac” with his clubs, as the kilometers pass by.
“My one and only chance”
This race, this humble and determined man sees it as a spectacle, in which “the poetics of losers will also have their place, if necessary”. But this is obviously not the preferred scenario. “It’s a bit of pressure because it will be my one and only chance. This show will certainly be repetitive for me but for the public who will be at the side of the road, it will only last about fifteen seconds. I owe it to myself to be able to offer them.” The route will even be punctuated with figures, promises the artist in the fluorescent yellow costume. And this even though a painful blister recently appeared between his palm and one of his fingers.
But it’s not just for the spectators that Johan wants to go to the end. On the other side of the Atlantic, another “joggler”, as they are called, hopes for the success of those who follow in his footsteps. In 2016, the Canadian Michal Kapral entered the Guinness book after having completed a marathon juggling, with an incredible time of 2 hours 50. Friends, the two men had launched the challenge to travel the 130 km that separate Caen from Rouen in the same way three years ago. Johan was unable to complete the journey due to the sudden death of his mother. He then had… 42 km to go.