Running and Juggling on Vacation

A lot of us lead busy lives and spend our days running around juggling our demands. Sometimes we need to an escape to get away from it all. But when I'm on vacation, I just keep running and juggling. This past winter, we took a rare getaway to Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. It was -34 C in Toronto when our plane took off and +30 in the DR when we arrived. Perfect weather for beach joggling.

Fairfield Inn and Suites Marathon Juggler Commercial

There's a new version of the Fairfield Inn and Suites commercial airing now for the hotel chain's Fairfield 100% Guarantee campaign.



I'll be staying at a Fairfield in Chicago in a couple of weeks for a certain 26.2-mile running event, hoping to prove the fact that I'm "pretty much guaranteed to never drop the ball," and to demonstrate convincingly that "marathon juggling" is a real thing. More on this soon.

Joggling Beer Mile in 8:48.77

"Choggling" – it's a thing: I smashed my joggling beer mile PB by more than 2 minutes on August 10 at the Toronto Classico Beer Mile, running, juggling and chugging my way to an 8:48.77 finish.



ESPN's Darren Rovell tweeted the story to his 1.47 million followers.

And then – OMG!!! – I made it on TMZ.com with the awesome headline "Beer Mile Racer Busted for JWI (Juggling While Intoxicated."

I wrote up a story HERE about the "choggling" race for Canadian Running's website. Short version: I had a bad bottle opener, I really need to work on my chugging, and it's really hard to run while juggling and burping. 

Next time, I might try juggling three in one hand as I chug the beer.

Joggling on French-Language TV in Amazing TFO Canada Segment

This video shoot I did for TFO Canada's "24/7" show features some of the best joggling footage ever recorded. It took more than eight hours to film in several cool locations around Toronto. The directing, photography and video editing are excellent. My French, not so much. You can also watch it on TFO's website HERE. Enjoy.

Joggling Next to Drake (Again!) in Metro News

I finally got around to submitting the paperwork for my 2014 Guinness World Record for fastest joggling half-marathon, including a couple of awesome photos from Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon staff. Here's hoping one of them makes it into the book. A few weeks after I sent through my official claim, the certificate arrived in the mail from London.

My daughter snapped a shot of me holding the certificate, which I posted on Twitter, and a few hours later, Metro News picked up the story.

I usually take the subway to work and joggle home, and the next day, on my subway ride, I opened Metro to find my own ugly mug smiling back at me.

This marks the second time that I have appeared in print next to Drake. Here's the first time, in Toronto Life's Eco Meter.

What does this mean? Maybe it's a sign that I need to run up the CN Tower while juggling and then joggle around on the ledge at the top, as Drake looks on from his perch? #joggling #VIEWS

Joggling With a GoPro

I gave the new GoPro Hero4 Silver a test with some Dube glo-ball joggling.

The Year in Joggling 2015

It was a huge year for joggling. I think more people in 2015 than in any other year discovered that joggling is “a thing.”

Here’s a recap of some of the year’s biggest moments in running while juggling.

Perry Romanowski capped off 2015 with a mind-boggling joggling streak of 2,599 days and more than 10,000 miles! Perry has likely joggled further than anyone, ever.

Quebec City hosted the International Jugglers Association joggling world championships. Gabrielle Foran, who is working on her PhD in chemistry at McMaster University, defended her title in the mile and 800m. Gabrielle also annihilated the women’s 5K joggling world record in 2015 with a spectacular 18:12.

Gabrielle Foran (Photo: John Rennison, Hamilton Spectator)

No woman has ventured into the marathon distance in several years. Dana Guglielmo, the former 5K record holder from New Jersey, has mentioned moving up to the marathon. She has joggled a 1:35 half-marathon and was training hard in 2015, so maybe 2016 will be the year? Regardless, Dana, who was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when she was 17, has been an inspiring ambassador for arthritis research.

Speaking of Dana, she was featured prominently in an excellent history of the sport of joggling in Huffington Post: “The Inventionof Joggling, the Goofiest Sport in History.” I can’t argue with that. 

Michael Bergeron of Halifax, Nova Scotia, joggled up a storm in 2015, blasting a 1:28:28 half-marathon at the Blue Nose race in his hometown.

Michael Bergeron

Bocaranga, Central African Republic, became the joggling capital of the world, thanks to American aid worker and joggler Richard Ross. The war-torn nation’s kids became international joggling superstars, proving that peace is possible in the region, and that joggling is more than just a pointless gimmick.

Joggling duo Bob and Trish Evans appeared on the DizRunspodcast to discuss their joggling records. 

Joggling appeared on Digg with a video of Eric Walter’s 55-second 400m joggling record with the headline: “Joggling is either the best sport or the worst sport.” (Spoiler: It’s the best.) 

The Connect Run Club Podcast introduced their listeners to joggling with a full-length interview with me. 

In what New York joggler Chris Pert described as "arguably the biggest bummer in joggling history," the New York City Marathon made the utterly disappointing decision to ban joggling in 2015 for "security" reasons. This was a major bummer for me, but it was even worse for longtime NYC joggler Jack Hirschowitz, who had joggled the past seven NYC Marathons without any problem. The story, which began with a post on this little blog, exploded with a feature in the New York Times.

Funny Or Die published one of the greatest odes to joggling, perfectly capturing the banality and beauty of the sport. 

Barry Goldmeier joggled multiple marathons juggling deflated footballs dressed as Tom Brady. The New York City Marathon clearly did not enforce the joggling ban as Barry took his Tom Brady act through all five boroughs. I also took a set of beanbags through security at the athlete’s village (I needed them for a media photo shoot at the race finish). 

Barry Goldmeier joggling deflated footballs.

Joggling got a crazy amount of national network TV coverage thanks to heavy rotation of the Fairfield Inn and Suites commercial. No one believed that “fastest marathon juggler” was a real thing, or that there could possibly be more than one person who did this. My TweetDeck search for “marathon juggler” lead to some hilarity, and a mean tweets joggler edition.

Chris Pert got mistaken for “the guy in the commercial” many times while joggling through Yonkers.  Sorry, Chris.

What a year. What a thing this joggling thing is. And 2016 is already shaping up to be epic for the thing that is joggling.