I read this interesting story about how color can affect your brain. It turns out that when you need to do an attention demanding task you should be primed with the color Red. When you need to do something more creative, go with Blue.

So, the question occured to me, what is the best color for juggling equipment? 

Red or Blue

If you are working on a new trick, the best color to use would be blue juggling equipment.

If you are practicing a trick and trying to get better, then red equipment might be better.

Joggling with color

Of course, the your brain isn’t the only thing to consider when thinking about colors for joggling. You have to think about what color shirt to wear too. For a joggling a race, I’ve used the following colors.

1. Red
2. White
3. Blue
4. Yellow
5. Green
6. Purple

Of these, I think Red is probably best because it stands out the most and there aren’t a lot of people who wear red. However, purple may be better as there are even fewer people who wear purple. It just doesn’t stand out as much because it’s not as bright.

Most important though is that you should wear a shirt color that contrasts with the juggling bags. If they blend in you could pass people who wouldn’t even notice your joggling. Of course, if this is what you want then blend away.

What color shirt do you wear? Do you even think about it?

I was just tipped off to this video about a joggler who will be competing in the London Olympics.

Very cool! My favorite part of this video is when he talks about his German competition. I hope they film the event.

Yesterday I was interviewed on a podcast for WalkJogRun. I’ll put up a link when it airs. But I thought I would answer some of the questions that they asked here. I haven’t done talked about some of these in the past so I thought I would do it now.

Why did you decide to start joggling?

Mostly, I thought it would be amusing to cross the finish line of my first marathon juggling bean bags.

When did you learn to juggle?

Back in 5th grade. They brought these people in from Juggle Bug to do a school assembly where everyone learned to juggle. I really took a shining to it and obsessively practiced for two weeks straight until I finally got it.

Have you always been a runner?

I started running in 1992 as a way to help me live until 107.

Do you juggle through all your training runs?

Yes.

Do you ever get embarrassed?

No.

Do you ever go for runs without juggling?

I can’t remember the last time I did. Certainly not in the last 5 years

Do you ever get tired of juggling?

No. I love juggling. It makes running so much more entertaining and challenging.

I’ll save the rest for the podcast.

I stumbled on this video by joggler Tyler Wishau.  Pretty impressive.

I’ve never heard of this joggler before but he is the world champion of something.  I wonder what it is.  Anyway, he’s definitely got some skills.

Perhaps we could get him to do an interview.

I haven’t been on a treadmill in years but I used to joggle on them almost every day.  It’s all outside joggling for me now.  But not everyone.  Look at this unknown joggler on the treadmill.  He planned to go an hour but lasted about 13 minutes. Still a fine effort.

Anyone know who he is?

I can’t believe I missed it. On November 18, 2011 my streak of juggling and running every day reached the 3 year mark. That was 1095 days in a row of joggling. I don’t think there are many who can say that right? Actually, I wonder if Andy Swan still has his joggling streak going. If he is still at it, his streak would be over 1300 days. hmmm I’ll have to check with him.

Anyway, one thing I like to do is reflect on my streak stats at points like this. Here are some facts about the three year joggling streak.

Since starting the streak it’s been

Time Stats

Years: 3
Months: 36
Days: 1095
Hours: 580.75
Minutes: 34,842

Distance stats

Total Distance: 4259 miles
Average daily distance: 3.87 miles
Median distance: 3 miles
Most frequent distance: 2 miles

Achievement stats

Fastest workout – September 24, 2010. 2 miles in 11:56. 5:58/mile pace
Slowest workout – January 31, 2011. 1.9 miles in 27:46. 15:01/mile pace
Longest distance – January 16, 2010. 32.9 miles. Frozen Otter race
Shortest distance – April 25, 2010. 1.2 miles.

Total number of marathons – 7
Fastest marathon – June 6, 2009. 3:21:39. Sunburst marathon.
Slowest marathon – March 7, 2009. 4:07:43. Red Rock Canyon marathon

Other stats

Number of pairs of shoes – 8
Average shoe distance – 532 miles

It’s been a fun streak and I don’t really know how long I am going to keep it up. I have no real motivation to stop, plus it certainly keeps me motivated to workout every day.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Today I am in Boston and things happened such that I wasn’t able to get my run in until 10:30 pm.  That was cutting it pretty close but I made it.  My workout was awful as I moved pretty slow, but after a day of traveling, sightseeing, and hobnobbing at a scientific dinner meeting, it wasn’t surprising.

As I joggled outside along the dark Massachusetts sidewalks, I thought about why I didn’t have too many drops even thought there wasn’t much light.  It turns out over the years I’ve learned a little something about juggling at night.  Here are ways that I keep from dropping.

How to prevent drops while juggling at night

1.  Use the shadows.  While it’s possible to juggle in complete darkness, you almost never have too.  Rather there is some light in the sky that you can use as a contrast to your juggling balls.  If you’re having trouble with your regular pattern, throw the balls up slightly higher and use the contrast with the sky to keep track.

2.  Use lighter balls.  It’s always helpful to have bean bags which contain some light color.  The light color reflects dim light better and will aid you in picking up the pattern.

3.  Don’t look at the bean bags.  You should get to the point where you don’t have to look at the bean bags while you’re joggling.  And when you’re joggling at night, be sure to look through them.  Sometimes you can be fooled by the light and it will make you miss. Just don’t look directly at the bean bags and you should be ok.

4.  Use glow in the dark balls.   If your normal bean bags aren’t cutting it.  Try some glow in the dark joggling bags.  Like this set that Joe Salter has done.

Joe really leads the joggling world in doing tricks.  Here is a montage of some excellent moves.  My favorite is the one at the end where he throws the three balls over a sign, then finishes with a high throw over a light pole!   Really excellent work Joe.

On October 16th, 2011, speedy joggler Tyler Wishau, joggled the Des Moines half marathon. He finished in 1:25:45 (a 6:33 per mile pace!!) and sent along this write-up.

According to Tyler…

The Des Moines half marathon course is exceptionally flat and it was perfect weather with no wind.

Training

Prior to the race, I had been training with a group of other medical students running about 60-70 miles a week running one-a-days without joggling.

I did two workouts in addition to mileage prior to the race:
– 3 miles worth of 800′s, 400′s and 200′s with at about :67 pace with full recovery; about 3 weeks out
–14 mile run with a 30 minute tempo at 6:00 pace in the middle of the run; 2 weeks out

I would have liked to have done more workouts, but school was rather busy at the time.

The race

During the race:
I joggled Dube beanbags (as always)
1st mile was 6:15
6.5 mile mark was 44:34 (went out in 6:51 pace for the first half)
Finish time= 1:25:45 (finished the 2nd half of the race at 6:20 pace)
(avg pace 6:33)

I did not have any drops.

More Miles

Between miles 7 and ~ 10, I was racing on the right side of the street as the slower runnings were running on against me on the left side of the street. I heard the word “juggling” hundreds of times during that stretch and I think that contributed to the increase in pace during the 2nd half of the race.

Overall, it was a well-run marathon and ideal course… very joggler-friendly!

Great job Tyler!!!  You are less than 2 minutes away from breaking the half marathon World Record!!!