WANTED: Bedside rack for juggling clubs

"Many customers are buying one for each side of the bed." I nearly lost it when I first heard that.

They should design something like this for juggling clubs. I could work on my 3-club patterns before I even get out of bed. And if an intruder comes it – BLAMMO! – a club to the head. The Canadian answer to the shotgun.

How many drops?

Here's a question I get all time as a joggler: How many times do I drop? Riyaad Ali just asked me this in a comment from yesterday's post about Perry Romanowski 50-mile joggling world record. Perry had only four drops during the entire race.

Here's my progression in the marathon:

• Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon 2005: 20 drops
• Boston Marathon 2006: 14 drops
• Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon 2006: 8 drops
• Salt Lake City Marathon 2007: 4 drops
• Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon 2007: 2 drops

My typical drop rate these days in about one every 25K. That's about one drop for every 18,000 catches. My 10K world record was drop-free.

Albert Lucas, who once held the marathon joggling record, has joggled several marathons without a single drop.

I drop a lot in training because I'm usually doing tricks.

One thing's for sure: the more you think about not dropping, the more likely you are to drop a ball.

Romanowski smashes 50-mile joggling record

Big news in the joggling world: Perry Romanowski broke the 50-mile joggling world record yesterday in Chicago. His time of 8:23:42 eclipsed Ashrita Furman's mark by nearly half an hour. To top if off, he only had four drops. What a feat!

The fall joggling plan

This photo of 5-ball joggling champ Owen Morse is one of the best joggling shots I've ever seen. As he competes at the 1988 International Jugglers' Association festival, you can see the look of intense concentration on this face as he maintains a perfect 5-ball pattern while sprinting. That combination of speed and coordination is what makes joggling (in my unbiased opinion) the greatest sport in the world.

My plan for the fall is to improve my base running speed with some track work. At the track, I'll also be working on my 5-ball joggling. If I can find a track race that will accept of joggler, I want to go for the 5,000m joggling world record of 16:55 sometime during the winter.

Since I'll be running lower mileage over the next few months, I'm going to use my extra time to look for an advertiser for the Mango velomobile. If anyone knows a company who would be interested in getting their brand on a non-polluting, health-promoting, head-turning vehicle, inquiries can be sent to joggler1@gmail.com.

Wisconsin joggler going for mile record

When I first started The Bloggling Joggler, I thought I'd probably run out of joggling-related news after a few months, but here I am nine months later and the updates keep pouring in.

Here's a great piece on a new competitive joggler on the scene. Tyler Wishau is going after the joggling mile record of 4:42:36, set in 2003 by Will Howard. This will be an exciting one to track.

Hangin' with Haile in Motor City

(Photo: Detroit Free Press)

A few minutes before the start of Sunday's Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Marathon, the race coordinator called me forward from the first corral to the start line. For a couple of embarrassing minutes I stood there all alone holding my 2:47 pace sign, with several thousand runners staring at me (or so it seemed).

The elite women that I was pacing were then ushered to the line from their warmup area, along with the elite men and their pacer, a small man with a big smile named Haile Gebrselassie. While I was in the midst of briefing the elite American women on my pacing strategy to help them quality for the U.S. Olympic trials, I turned to see Geb strolling to the line with his characteristic grin. We exchanged a quick smile and a nod before I finalized my pacing duties.

When the gun went off, my mind was entirely on getting through the first mile near the 6:22 pace I had to maintain for the whole marathon, but looking back, it's amazing to think that I was lined up at the start of a marathon not two metres away from one of – if not the – greatest distance runner in history.

A wicked pace

(Photo: Detroit Free Press)

The place: The 2007 Detroit Marathon.

My job: To run even splits of 6:22 per mile for a 2:47:00 marathon to pace the U.S. elite women looking to qualify for the Olympic trials.

The race: Haile Gebrselassie, who now – as Adeel puts it – holds the world record for the fastest non-joggling marathon, was there to pace the men's leaders through 10 miles. I saw him at the start but didn't get a chance to talk to him. I was too busy focusing on the task at hand.

I got the small group of elite women through the first mile in just over 6:30. After that, some pulled ahead a bit and I tried to run even splits. At the half I was behind by about a minute, which I had lost with a few slower miles early on.

At about 17 miles, I regained the exact pacing for 2:47 and stuck with it for the rest of the race. There were hopeful trials-qualifiers with me at various points of the race, and it pained me when I had to let them go, but this train had to keep it moving.

Holding onto those 6:22 miles proved to be more of a challenge than I expected because there was a fierce headwind for last five miles. I was carrying a pacing sign that said "2:47" that produced some serious wind drag and I had been using up a lot of energy encouraging and talking to other runners along the way, so I was really fighting it in the last few miles.

With one mile to go, I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up the pace. It was going to very close. Then I as approached the finish line, I heard the announcer yell: "Here's the 2:47 pacer, and look at this, he's going to be in at EXACTLY 2:47!!! How perfect a pacer is that?!"

Sure enough, the clock struck 2:47:00 as my foot hit the mat. It was a great feeling to get that one right on, but I wished the two women behind me could've been there with me. Laurie Knowles ran a 2:47:46, but she had qualified already in another race. I was really hoping that another top American runner, Marybeth Reader, would make in under 2:47. She made a valiant effort to fight through the wind, but I had to leave her at about Mile 22 and she finished in 2:50.

I can barely walk today. My legs are feeling the effects of two tough marathons only three weeks apart, but the Detroit pacing experience was something to remember.