Man Receives 9th Award For Average Marathon Time

Roy Schiff is finding it more difficult to find room on his walls these days.

“I treasure every one of them,” Roy said as he described how he won each of them. “This one,” He said, holding up a golden medallion held by a red, white, and blue striped ribbon, “I won by having the average score for diving in college finals. Coach said it was remarkable for someone with an average score up to that point make it into finals. And then to walk away with this baby. It was sweet.”

Now Schiff needs to find more room on his mantle for the gold Average Cup that he won for having the average time of 2 hours, 3 minutes, and 46.3 seconds for the Larry Bud Mellman Memorial St. Patricks Day Marathon in St. Ives, Ohio.

Schiff holds averages in six different individual sports:

  • Diving
  • Marathons
  • Model Rocketry
  • Skydiving
  • Surfboarding
  • Competitive Staring

He also holds averages in three different team sports:

  • Hockey
  • Synchronized Swimming
  • Tag-Team Hopscotch

Schiff looks forward to this spring, when he’ll begin training for another, less well-known, sport. Competitive streaking.

“There are several averages that I want to break,” Schiff said. “I hope that with some training I’ll be able to average them.”

Schiff doesn’t have any illusions of averageness, though. He realizes that it might take him several years of light training to average those records.

— Staff reporter — bs