Guinness World Records certificate unveiled!

Today's joggling plan: 10 miles

Here it is: the Guinness World Records certificate for the 10km joggle. This one has a shiny Guinness sticker in the bottom right that my other certificates don't have. Hopefully they'll put this record into an upcoming Guinness Book. It would be a great promotion for the Longboat Toronto Island Run.

I joggled home yesterday right after eating a big dinner out at a restaurant. I'm usually pretty good at running right after eating, but a large meal and two glasses of wine – Malivoire Pinot Noir and Kenwood Pinot Noir – made me queasy. I was joggling with my old Exerballs that weigh about five times more than the small Higgins Brothers beanbags, and I really have no idea how I joggled an entire marathon in 3:07 using these. They feel great to juggle, but my biceps were burning after about 10 minutes.

Look Mom – The Joggler!

Today's joggling plan: 6 miles (home from a restaurant)

One of the highlights of being a joggler is watching kids' reactions.

On yesterday's joggle home from work, I was doing speedwork and joggled at full throttle past a mother and her daughter, who appeared to be about seven or eight years old. As I approached, I heard the mother say "Look at that! That is cool!" And after I had passed by, I heard the daughter say "I know Mom, that's The Joggler!" Somehow this young girl had heard about me, but not her mother.

In general, the kids have a much less restrained reaction to joggling than the adults. They do a lot of yelling and exclaiming at high volume, which always makes me laugh. The other day, I joggled past a long lineup of teenagers outside some kind of concert venue. One guy near the front of the line pointed at me as I joggled toward them and yelled, at the top of his lungs: "The man is running and juggling!!!" Suddenly, the whole lineup erupted into cheers and applause. I couldn't believe it: the exact demographic that I expected would taunt, jeer and possibly beat up The Joggler were clapping and cheering. Toronto rocks.

My wife called to let me know that my Guinness World Records certificate arrived in the mail today for the 10K joggling record. When I get home tonight, I'm going to raise it above my head and let out a barbaric Braveheart yawp.

Joggler not a normal neighbour

Today's joggling plan: 6 miles (home from work)

My neighbours think I'm nuts.

They thought I was eccentric even before I began my joggling career, because I was running all the time. They'd be out fixing up their houses or trimming their hedges or doing some other normal thing, and I'd be heading out for a run, usually wearing a tiny amount of clothing, as we runners are apt to do.

Now that I'm The Joggler, things have gone even further off the "crazy neighbour" charts.

A typical scenario: My neighbour and I are both heading out the door at the same time.

"Hey Michal," the neighbour says. "I'm going to play hockey with the boys and then it's off to a pub for a few brewskis afterward."

"Cool," says The Joggler. "I'm going to go running while juggling these three yellow beanbags for three-hours wearing short shorts in the middle of the winter ... alone. See ya!"

Joggler feels the weight of Canadian pop culture on his shoulders

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

My legs and shoulders are both feeling pulverized today after yesterday's 24-mile joggling jaunt. Today's joggle will be a very easy recovery run.

Unfortunately, my backpack will be heavier than usual because I bought a few clothes at lunchtime that I need to cart home, and I also need to take home my book – JPod by Douglas Coupland – so I can read it on the subway tomorrow. So far, JPod is good, but even the paperback version is a little above the weight limit for a joggler's backpack.

Since I began running home from work, I've chosen both my wardrobe and reading materials based on weight. Heavy jackets and pants are out, as are thick-soled shoes. Vikram Seth, Wally Lamb and Tolstoy will never find their way into my knapsack.

I started up a discussion on Running Mania about runners who commute on two legs, so I know I'm not alone here.

Joggling beanbags seek out muddy puddles

Today's joggling mileage: 24 miles

It's hard to joggle for 24 miles. It's even harder when you've enjoyed one too many tumblers of Scotch (Lagavulin 16-year-old) with your brother-in-law the night before. Despite these challlenges, I managed to drag my sorry Bloggling Joggler butt out the door.

The Sunday long joggle began slowly and tentatively, but eventually progressed into 6:30/mile race pace.

For some reason, I was all thumbs today; I must have had about 30 drops. Some of them were caused by me trying to do various juggilng tricks, but many of them were just careless. And it seemed like every time I dropped a ball, it would roll into a dirty puddle. The route was mostly clear, but there were some puddles left by melting ice. My beanbags enjoyed baths in most of these.

"Holy...!" "Oh my...!" "What the...!?"

Yesterday's joggling mileage: 10 miles

It's all about the speed. Last night's 10-mile joggling extravaganza included 6 x 1 mile speed intervals with two minutes of jogging (joggle jogging?) in between each. I got a rush out of blasting past pedestrians and hearing little snippets of exclamations, like "No waaay!" "Cool!" "You rock!" "That guy's...!" "Holy...!" "Oh my...!" and "What the...!?"

You may be wondering why I log my distances in miles rather than kilometres, given that I live in the metric nation of Canada. (You may also be wondering why I spend such a significant chunk of my life trying to set obscure Guinness World Records, but that's another issue that I'm still trying to resolve in my own mind.)

The main reason for using miles is that joggling 10 miles seems much more manageable to me than 16 km. Kilometres simply psyche me out. Joggling is quite bit harder than running, so I'd rather have larger units of measurement. A 20-mile long joggle – piece of cake. A 36-km joggle – forget it, too many units.

The other logic of measuring in miles is that four laps around a standard outdoor track equal one mile (or just shy of a mile, if you want to get technical), so it makes things easier to calculate in terms of track workouts. Even when I'm doing intervals on the road, I usually think in terms of half-mile, one-mile and two-mile intervals.

And finally, the Salt Lake City Marathon is in the U.S. – that stubborn non-metric holdout – so I might as well get used to setting my pace in miles. I remember the first time I ran the Boston Marathon after training in kilometres, having no clue whether of not I was on pace. I recall crossing the 10-mile marker, looking at the clock thinking: "I have no idea what that means." What it meant, I would discover much later, was that I was running way too fast, and would end up completing the historic road race looking like a very sick, inebriated geriatric.

It's official – The Bloggling Joggler is the fastest 10K joggler in the world

I'll raise a pint to this: Despite my lack of video footage, the representatives at Guinness World Records have officially accepted my 10K joggling world record. My time of 36 minutes and 27 seconds surpassed the previous record by five minutes.

Thank you to my official witnesses, especially to Roger Moss, who ran the whole thing next to me or just behind me and was able to verify that I joggled every step of the way, and that I ran it "clean" (ie. no drops).

As a member of the Longboat Roadrunners, I was happy to set the record at the historic, beautiful and flat Longboat Toronto Island Run.

Here's what it says today on my online Guinness World Records account:

Fastest 10km while juggling three objects -
men

Congratulations! Your record has been approved and a
certificate has been
sent to the address provided in your profile. If you
you need to order
additional certificates, please use the option on the
right.