My plan to reclaim the marathon joggling title

Today's joggling plan: Rest and drink some beer (Mill St. Tankhouse Ale)

At last September's Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, I set a new Guinness World Record for joggling in a time of 2 hours, 57 minutes and 44 seconds. Two months later, Zach Warren, who seems to be making a habit out of this, smashed my young record with a sizzling 2:52:15.

So the question is: How does this Bloggling Joggler plan to shave 5 1/2 minutes off his previous time? Here is the plan:

1) Pray to the wind gods for a less gusty marathon day.
2) Switch to smaller, lighter beanbags – harder to catch but easier on the arms.
3) Use Zach to help pace me to a faster time.
4) Train harder – so far, so good.
5) Improve my juggling skills.
6) Avoid losing 2 minutes at the end of the race by frantically scrambling to pick up dropped beanbags while trying to joggle through a dark underpass (this happened in Toronto).

That should do it.

Thanks to USA Today's sports blog for mentioning The Bloggling Joggler today:

"Our apologies for not getting to the "bloggling joggler" today, but best of luck in your marathon showdown. Multitasking is getting out of hand these days. It's hard to keep focused on your wow what a goal for Barcelona new publishing system takes permalinks apple juice."

I really hope my fingers don't fall off tonight

Today's joggling plan: 6 miles (home from work, with 5 2-minute intervals)

I'm on my way for a 6-mile speed joggle home from work in a few minutes. It's -22C with windchill. Joggling into a cold wind makes your fingers freeze no matter how many pairs of gloves you wear, because you can't scrunch your fingertips into your palm to keep them warm.

I plan to use mental strength to ward off the frostbite, and maybe a bit of yelling and screaming.

I'm doing speed intervals today, which will make things even more challenging. Running fast while juggling can be tough because as your arms pump faster to generate more speed, you can end up tossing the balls much too high. You have to correct this by holding onto the beanbags a little tighter and releasing each one just a touch later than usual. Once you gather up speed, you also have to start tossing the balls further forward so they don't collide with your nose. And with my big nose, I need to be especially mindful of this.

Off I go...

Bloggling on Google

Today's planned joggle: 6 miles (home from work)

A recent Googling of the word "bloggling" puts The Bloggling Joggler's blog at No. 2, just behind a site for people with mental illness (somehow fitting). This is somehow very exciting to me. There are very few jogglers in the world, and there are even fewer blogglers, but I'm going to keep joggling, juggling, joggling and bloggling until my arms, legs, fingers and brain ache.

Now, I'm off for my commute, a 10K "easy" joggle home from work – or as easy as it gets running through downtown Toronto while juggling and wearing a backpack.

Run, Joggler, Run!

Today's joggling mileage: 23 miles (one espresso stop and one stop to visit parental units)

A few years ago, before I started joggling, I used to keep track in my training log of the number of times someone said to me: "Run, Forrest, run!" If there are any non-runners reading this, please never, ever say these words to a runner. We have all heard it at least 6,000 times and it wasn't even funny the first time.

Looking back at my training log, there were some days when I got three or four Run, Forrest, Runs over the course of a single 10-miler. Maybe there was something about me that attracted more Run, Forrest, Runs than other runners -- all I know is that I got really sick of it really fast.
Much to my sheer delight, when I morphed into The Joggler, the Run, Forrest, Runs came to an abrupt and merciful end. Now I get a much wider variety of comments from pedestrians and drivers.

As The Joggler, I do still occasionally have to contend with jokes about balls. Note to any non-jugglers reading this: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, TRY TO CRACK JOKES ABOUT BALLS TO A JUGGLER OR A JOGGLER. They are just as weary of this as runners are to the dreaded Run, Forrest, Runs.

Today's training run was a killer. Twenty-three miles of joggling is never easy and today I maintained a pretty good pace – most of it at about 6:30/mile and the last two miles with a tailwind at 5:20/mile.

And I remembered to wash my hat.

Guinness World Records assessing The Joggler's 10K claim

It's great to see that The Bloggling Joggler has some readers (or skimmers, at least), including some from Europe and China. I will do my best to keep you entertained and informed about the world of competitive joggling. If you find me boring and pedantic, then you can always go visit the world's only other joggling blog: Just Your Average Joggler.

I heard back from Guinness World Records about my 10K joggling world record claim, and they were hoping a had video footage of the whole race. Because the Longboat Island Race is on a narrow footpath, this wasn't practical, so I relied on independent witnesses to certify the record. The Guinness rep told me he will continue to assess my claim without video. I hope the record gets certified because that race really hurt and I don't want to go through that again.

Today is sunny and the streets look clear, so a nice 8-mile joggle is in order.

Hatless joggler heads into storm

Yesterday's joggling mileage: 10 miles (into a 50 km/h headwind, ice pellets and a foot of snow on the ground)

Equivalent number of miles based on effort: 3,642

It was a dark and stormy night...

And The Joggler was determined to complete his training run.

A big winter storm hit Toronto yesterday. It made news headlines, some of which I wrote myself at work (as a news editor for Captivate Network). After work, I was training a client in the west end, then I planned to joggle home through the downtown core and into the east end where I live.

In the afternoon, my wife called me and strongly urged me not to run home. My client called asking if our session was still on. I was ready to train and ready to run, but little did I know that this would be one of the most difficult joggles ever.

After the training session, I put on my backpack, took out my beanbags and set out for home. As luck would have it, I was heading directly into a 50 km/h headwind with ice pellets and blowing snow, and sometimes a foot of snow on the ground. I had wrongly assumed that shops and restaurants would have ploughed their sidewalks.

With the slippery terrain, I felt like I was running the wrong way on one of those moving platforms you see at airports. Every step forward took me three-quarters of a step back. The wind felt like a sumo wrestler was continually pushing me backward. Plus, the stacks of wet snow on the ground meant the footing was roughly equivalent to running on piles of lumpy, day-old oatmeal mixed with carpenter glue. My feet were juggling as much as my arms.

It took all the concentration in the world to keep juggling. Often I had to jump one way as I reached in the other direction to grab an errant beanbag that was swept up in a sudden gust of wind. I could barely keep my eyes open because of the ice pellets and snow, but just managed to make out the yellow balls being tossed around by the wind.

To make matters worse, I had no hat. Two days earlier, my trusty toque had fallen into a muddy puddle and I hadn't washed it yet.

As I ran across the Bloor Street Viaduct – a bridge that spans Toronto's Don Valley – the street lights went dark. A car on the other side of the road drove through such a big puddle that the water sprayed all the way across two lanes of traffic and hit me in the side of the head where my hat should have been.

Over the edge of the bridge, I saw an endless line of cars sitting bumper-to-bumper on the Don Valley Parkway. Despite being partially soaked by the passing car and struggling to move forward as I juggled into the wind, I was very, very happy to not be sitting in a car stuck in a traffic jam. I felt liberated. I also felt kind of insane.

Back at home I got Dianne to snap the picture (above) of me joggling down our street. I needed photo documentation of this run – it was a joggle for the ages.

Joggling tricks of the trade

When the Around the Bay Road Race signed me up with an elite number (yes, The Joggler managed to get himself classified as an elite – a breakthrough in recognition for the sport) they put "Joggler" as my profession on the form. This gave me a good chuckle since I have yet to gain a single penny for my efforts (excluding the many thousands of dollars in donations to A Run For Liane). But someday, who knows, I might get a good sponsor.

I recently put a pitch in to Wrigley to see if they want to sponsor me as the ultimate multi-tasker. I offered to chew gum as I run a marathon while juggling.

And now for some joggling tricks. You can do pretty much any three-ball trick while you're running, but some of them work much better than others because of the natural arm swing that goes with the running motion. Plus, you can add some extra fun stuff when you're in motion.

1) The Hydro Wire High Toss: This is one of my favourites. When you're joggling down the street toss a high ball up and over a hydro wire and resume joggling when the beanbag comes down on the other side.

2) Mills' Mess Zig-Zag: Mills' Mess, a pattern where you continually cross and uncross your arms as the balls float around in an infinity sign, works really well on the run. If you run in a zig-zag pattern, it works even better.

3) The 3-Up Running 360 Pirouette: This one is really hard (for me, at least). You toss all three balls high up in the air, then jump up in the air and twirl around in a 360, like a figure skater. Right at the landing you catch the three balls and resume juggling. If you want to see what a juggling pirouette looks like standing still, check out this hilarious video by Jason Garfield.

4) The Road Sign Bounce: Find a good solid road sign and toss a ball forward into it as you're running towards it. When the ball bounces off pull into into your three-ball cascade and keep running. You can also do this one sideways into walls.

Someday I'll get these onto YouTube. There's not nearly enough joggling on YouTube.