LEXINGTON, Ky. – An ER physician in a Lexington hospital who is a member of Ashland Avenue Baptist Church has set a Guinness World Record by running the fastest mile while dribbling two basketballs.
The feat by 41-year-old Michael Dodd was accomplished on a running track in Nicholasville last November. He ran the mile in 8:28.31.
His family — wife Amanda, Lucy (13), Grant (11), Annie (9) and Sadie (6) — cheered him on. The Dodds are expecting their fifth child.
Dodd related that his children watch “Dude Perfect” videos on YouTube, and when he watched one last year which featured several attempts to break world records it sparked an idea.
“One of the records that they broke was running the fastest mile dribbling two basketballs, and I told my kids, ‘I could definitely break that record,’” he told guinnessworldrecords.com. “I played college basketball, and I run two or three times per week, so I knew this was a great opportunity to break a world record and become a hero in the eyes of my children by besting the Dude Perfect guys.”
David Prince, pastor of preaching and vision at Ashland Avenue, remarked that “he (Dodd) and his family are amazing.
“Michael Dodd has always been an Olympic champion type of servant at Ashland Avenue Baptist Church. But I never knew he had this kind of amazing skill. His kids and wife will never forget their dad taking on this kind of challenge and accomplishing it. Neither will his pastor. He can run a mile faster dribbling two basketballs faster than his pastor could finish half a mile with no basketballs.”
For Dodd, basketball is in the family’s blood. His father was a college basketball coach. When Dodd was born, the family took pictures of him with a basketball in his crib.
He concedes that it took considerable practice to get to the point of breaking the world record. “I feel like the key was trying to get in a rhythm by keeping the same pace and not speeding up or slowing down. It felt more natural to me to do alternating dribbles rather than dribbling both balls in unison.”
He stumbled a few times during the run, but was able to recover and keep the balls bouncing. “I knew that a world record was on the line so I had to recover quickly, keep calm, not panic and not lose my composure,” he said.
“I was really hoping to break eight minutes, but I was excited to be able to break the record with time to spare! My kids were so excited. They were so proud to tell their friends that their dad was a world record holder.”
In addition to being a physician and now a Guinness record holder, Dodd also collaborated with Kathleen Rehner to produce the children’s book “The Ant and the Bear” in 2020.
Dodd originally wrote the book in 2017 to help his oldest child adjust to sharing her parents with siblings.
“I thought I would just be able to share with them, they’d be able to read it — hopefully learn something from it,” Dodd told a Lexington television station.
A few days later at church, he mentioned the book to Rehner — knowing she was an artist. She had never illustrated a book before but said she had always wanted to.
She worked the next year and a half to bring Dodd’s characters of “Grant the Ant” and “Daisy the Bear” to life.
Dodd received a text from her “out of the blue” where she asked him to look at her illustrations. “My jaw hit the floor when I saw what she had done because they were unbelievable.”
The book is available on Amazon and other outlets.
This article originally appeared in Kentucky Today.
