24 hour pickleball marathon

NEW PORT RICHEY News July 2011 --

Babe Ruth and the 60-home-run season. Roger Bannister and the four-minute mile.

Certain athletes are forever associated with groundbreaking accomplishments. Even after their records are surpassed, they are forever remembered for being the first to reach an epic milestone.

It isn't likely that "Justin Lawrence, Jeff Baker and the 24-hour pickleball marathon" will ever have quite the staying power that Ruth or Bannister hold in the pantheon of sporting achievement.

But for the time being, those two young men can bask in the knowledge that pending the approval of the folks at Guinness World Records, they have set a genuine benchmark for a growing sport.

Last Saturday night, Lawrence, 25, and Baker, 18, stepped into the gym at the New Port Richey Recreation and Aquatic Center, where they both work, and took to the pickleball court. They stayed there until 9:47 p.m. Sunday, establishing a world record for continuous pickleball playing.

Pickleball is a fairly new — and until recently, relatively obscure — member of the racket sport family. It was created in the mid-1960s in Olympia, Wash., and was named for the dog of one of its inventors. It is played with hard paddles and a plastic whiffle ball, on a court about the size of a badminton court with a waist-high net. The rules are similar, though not exactly the same, to those of tennis.

Though it pretty much remained a cultural phenomenon of the Pacific Northwest for some time, pickleball has found a following across the U.S. and in other countries over the past 20 years. With a slower-moving ball and a smaller court, it is less demanding than tennis, making it a game people of all ages and levels of athleticism can enjoy.

Lawrence and Baker were already familiar with pickleball when the recreation center began offering the game a few months ago. Lawrence quickly latched on to an idea that would help promote the center while he got to pursue his lifelong dream of getting into Guinness Book of World Records.

When he tried to look up what the existing world record was for nonstop pickleball play, he found there wasn't one, so he contacted Guinness and asked what it would take to create a category. The response, Lawrence said, was that they would recognize a marathon of at least 24 hours. The players would have to play continuously, with five minutes of break time per hour, which would not be included in the record time.

When Baker and Lawrence started, they initially had a little trouble remembering to pace themselves.

"We definitely started off a little too hard," Lawrence said. They had to remind themselves to curb their competitive instincts. After a while, though, something strange happened. They found playing too leisurely was fatiguing in its own way.

They discovered the best strategy was to keep changing the pace, playing fairly casually but with occasional bursts.

"It actually helped to play harder," Lawrence said, especially as the time began to drag.

Guinness requires a lot of documentation before it recognizes a record, including time logs with witness statements, video and more. When they finished, they were sure they had surpassed the 24-hour threshold — some people there were saying 24 hours, 20 minutes; Lawrence thought it might be closer to 25 hours.

He said they would have to study their submission materials to Guinness to figure out exactly what their world-record time is.

Of course, records are made to be broken, and once that magic number is in the books, Lawrence knows it will be just a matter of time before hotshot pickleball upstarts come forward to challenge their record.

When that day comes, he and Baker will have to decide whether they will try to reclaim the record. Whether it happens six months or 10 years from now, they will always have the distinction of being the ones who set the standard for pickleball players everywhere, and being first at something is an accomplishment that can never be surpassed.

Note from Grant:

This would be cool if we could pull 36 hours or more of pickleball in Abbotsford, BC...who's ready???????????????????