The US Running Streak Association is the group that “certifies” running streaks. For $20 a year you can have your streak listed with them and get a copy of their quarterly newsletter. You can also claim to be a card carrying member of the group. For my first streak I had joined but never got around to renewing. Perhaps I might.

Anyway, they wrote this article about the dangers of a running streak. It’s pretty good.

Running streak advice

Some highlights (and some of my own suggestions).

1. Don’t start a streak without some basic training. This is a recipe for injury.
2. Figure out how to “rest” during your streak. I do this by running less & slower on some days.
3. Keep your runs fresh by doing different things. Speed, tempo, new paths, new books.
4. Be sure to add cross training to your streak activities. I see juggling as my cross training.
5. Remember a running streak is to be healthy. If it’s making you unhealthy, don’t do it.

I’ve been on a joggling streak for 1270 days in a row and I’m still loving it. Not sure how long I will keep it up but I see no reason I couldn’t go for another 23,000 days or so. That might even get me close to the people with the longest streak. And I might even catch up to Andy Swan who is about 200 days ahead of me for the longest joggling streak.

Bob and Trish Evans have been joggling around the country in the Joggle Happy tour sponsored by Brooks shoes. This weekend is their last race in the tour. In honor of the finish, here is a video they recently did before one of their races.

Good luck! You’ve done excellent work making joggling more popular.

The 2012 IJA World Joggling Championships will take place in Winston-Salem on July 21st at 8am. It is going to be held on a nice rubberized track at the Winston-Salem State University Track.

Some details for anyone interested.

1. Entry fee $12 online registration, $20 in person
2. Events

Three ball events

1600 meters
100 meters
400 meters
800 meters
4 x 100 meters

Five ball events

100 meters
400 meters

Seven ball event

100 meters

The events will be held on Saturday morning so there will likely be a bigger crowd than in previous years.  Also, this is taking place in conjunction with the annual IJA Juggling festival.

For more information you can see this joggler page or contact Len Ferman (904-553-0075).

I’m uncertain whether I’ll make it out there but there is a chance. It is a fun event and always well organized.

There are a few 5-ball jogglers out there.  Barry Goldmeier is the only 5-ball marathon joggler but Matt Feldman is an excellent 5 ball joggler who now holds the record for the fastest 5K done with 5-ball joggling.  Here is a video he put together teaching you how to do it.  I’ve dabbled with 5-ball joggling but it’s really tough and I don’t enjoy it as much as 3-ball joggling.  The biggest difference is that 5-ball joggling is more juggling than running.

“5-ball joggling is a lot harder than 3-ball joggling”

No kidding!!

I’ve been writing this joggling blog for 5 years now and the primary goal has always been to encourage people to go out and be active. If they happen to make that activity joggling, all the better. Well, here is a group from Vanderbilt who has formed a joggling club with the exact same purpose.

The club is the Juggling and Physical Arts Club (JPAC) that combines running with juggling to inspire families to get active and have fun! For the past few years they have joggled with Team Catch It Early, running and juggling in 5K races for cancer awareness. Last year, I ran a 5K for the same organization.

Team Catch It Early is based in Nashville, Tennessee. If you are in the area and want to join, see the Catch It Early web page.

During my joggling workout today, I nearly lost my bean bags on three occasions. Once when I had a drop while crossing the street and a car nearly ran over the bean bag; once when I threw it up over the entrance to the Lincoln Park Zoo and it almost got stuck in the sign; and once when I had a drop on a bridge and it nearly rolled into the water.

It’s rare that I have multiple drops on any outing, but it got me thinking of all the reasons that I’ve had drops. Here is the top ten reasons for having a joggling drop. In no particular order.

1. Bumped by another runner
2. Trying to do a trick
3. Chased by a dog
4. Avoiding being hit by a car
5. Bean bag hits a tree limb
6. Startled by thunder
7. Purposely startled by firetruck
8. Waving to a passing car
9. Trying to wipe sweat out of your face
10. Bean bags blown by a gust of wind

Were there any reasons for a drop that you’ve experienced not on the list? Add yours in the comments below.

One of the goals of this website is to introduce people to the sport of joggling and encourage them to participate if it’s something they would want to do. We’ve written hundreds of posts about the subject but have never really put together a single post introducing new people to joggling.  Here it is. 

What is joggling?

Joggling is the sport of running while juggling. The word joggling is a combination of the words juggling and jogging. Juggling + jogging = Joggling. While it is a catchy term and better than the alternatives “ruggling” or “runnling” it does give the impression that joggling is a leisurely activity. It is not. In fact, many jogglers are fast runners.

When did joggling begin?

The sport of joggling was likely invented independently by a number of different people (jugglers) but the first report of someone joggling a race was in the late 1970′s. In the early 1980′s the International Jugglers Association (IJA) held the first ever World Joggling Championships in which a number of jugglers participated. There were some incredibly quick times.

What are the rules of joggling?

We’ve previously written about the rules of joggling at least according to Guinness. They got their rules from the IJA jogglers so it’s reasonable to follow them. They are pretty stratightforward.

1. Juggling objects must be juggled every step during your run.

2. Juggling must be continuous and done in an alternating right-left-right-left pattern.

3. If the object is dropped, you must go back where you dropped, resume juggling and then resume running. You are not allowed to advance without juggling.

That’s pretty much it. Now, if you are trying to set a world record there are a number of other things to consider but we’ll save that for another time.

About the objects juggled

You’ll notice in the rules that there is no indication about what you juggle and how many. That’s because there are no set rules. In general, it is not consider joggling until you are juggling at least 3 objects. But there are a number of jogglers who use 4, 5 and even 7 objects. Naturally, the more objects you juggle the slower your times will be.

The objects can pretty much be anything. I’ve joggled bean bags (Gballz is my sponsor), tennis balls, oranges, lemons, clubs, and sticks. The vast majority of jogglers use bean bags. But there are some jogglers who exclusively use juggling clubs which look pretty cool. There is also a joggler who “joggles” 3 basketballs. He actually calls it “drubbling” because he dribbles the balls while he runs.

For beginner jogglers, I would recommend bean bags. They have a number of advantages because they take less concentration and are easier to chase down if you drop. 

What distances are done?

There are world records for a wide variety of joggling distances. Here is a pretty thorough list of a number of joggling world records. In the annual IJA Championships typical track distances are done such as the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1600m, and 5k. There are also records for the 10k, 10 miler, half marathon, marathon, 50 mile ultramarathon, and 24 hour run. Some of the times are pretty quick!

How do you joggle?

The first step to learning how to joggle is to learn how to juggle. If you can’t juggle, you can’t joggle. Juggling 3 objects is actually not that difficult once you learn the pattern and practice for a little while. The key is to get some good objects to use for practicing. If you don’t have bean bags, get three tennis balls. Then go to one of these free resources for learning to juggle.

The next step is to build up your ability to run. If you are already a runner, that’s great. Joggling will be much easier. But if you haven’t done any physical activity since high school, it might be a bit tougher. For complete beginners to running, I would suggest the Couch to 5K running plan. This will get you started and running in a reasonable amount of time without it being painful.

Joggling etiquette

Once you go out joggling in public you might be compelled to run a race or something. It is a lot of fun to joggle for an audience so you should do it when you feel confident enough. In general, you should be proficent enough at joggling to only have one or two drops per mile. If you’re dropping more than that you probably should practice more before running a race.

And if you do participate in races, see this list of suggestions on joggling etiquette.

The future of joggling

There seems to have been an increase in the number of people who have been getting noticed for joggling. A few more jogglers have embraced social media and you can find them on places like Twitter, Youtube, Blogger and Facebook. In another article, I’ll create a list of all the joggling resources on the Internet.

Joggling will certainly continue to increase in popularity although I suspect that it will always remain a fringe activity. There will be some new world record attempts and coming up this month will be the first ever attempted triathlon done while juggling all three legs. It really is interesting in the world of joggling.

As regular readers know, I was out of town last weekend traveling in Utah. Well, when traveling it is always a challenge to get your run in to keep the streak alive.

But you don’t run for over 1200 days in a row without being willing to joggle under some crazy circumstances. My joggle in Sunday is indicative of that.

I knew that I would have a busy time on Sunday. We were getting up and leaving by 7:30 am to go skiing until 2:00. Then we were going to the airport to catch a 4:30 plane which would get me into Chicago at 9:30pm and home by 10:00pm. This didn’t leave much time for joggling. Also, if there was a delay in the flight, I might miss my run all together.

Well, I couldn’t let that happen.

So, Saturday night we stayed up playing poker until 1:30am. That meant I would have to get up at about 6:30am to go joggling before skiing. Plus, I had to pack!

Well, I figured the easiest thing to do was to just go joggling at 1:30 am rather than waking up early. I was awake enough but it was raining, dark, and I had been drinking beer all night. But the streak must live on.

I put on my joggling clothes, picked up my Gballz and headed out into the night. The light sleeting rain felt cool on my head. I headed up the mountain using the shadows to keep the joggling balls in the pattern.

My sneakers made a swishing sound on the asphalt which synchronized with my labored breathing. While Madam Bovary played in my head, I joggled in the dark past the drunks returning from a night of St Patrick’s day celebrations. I wondered what they thought. Imagine walking home at 1:45am and you see a guy running and juggling. It still makes me laugh.

So, I joggled for 20 minutes and felt incredible when I got back. It took me nearly an hour to get to sleep but I was happy to have gotten my run in for the day and felt great when I woke up the next morning.

Joggle on!

Since I have gotten a number of occasions to joggle long distances on beaches, I’ve come up with a few tips that might be useful to would-be beach jogglers.  Add your own if you see any I missed.

1.  Running barefoot can cause blisters.  The first time I ever joggled on the beach I did it in bare feet.  Since I don’t normally run barefoot, the combination of the heat and wet sand really tore up my feet.  I ended up with blisters.  Now, I run on the beach in shoes.  I just don’t like blisters on my feet!

2.  It’s easier to joggle near the water.  Don’t try to joggle on the beach away from the water.  It will be super tiring.  Better is to get as close to the water as you can without getting your feet wet.  Hard sand is much nicer to run on than dry, shifty sand.

3.  Joggling near water can cause knee pain.  If you run for an extended amount of time near the water on the sand, you will likely start to feel some pain in your knee closest to the water.  It gets more pressure on it than normal because it will slope towards the water.  Just be sure to run back the way you came to even out the pressure on each knee.

4.  Watch out for jelly fish & other wildlife.   There will be lots of wildlife washed up on the beach such as jellyfish, starfish, and horseshoe crab shells.  Take a look but don’t touch it or step on it.  Jellyfish especially can leave a mark.

5.  Play to your audience.  People on the beach will be fascinated to see someone joggling along the beach.  Be sure to wave and smile when someone calls to you as they inevitably will.

6.  Use water proof bean bags.    Of course you never plan on dropping but you might so be sure to use your “ok to get wet” joggling bean bags.  In my case it is my old set of Gballz that work great but just don’t look pretty any more after 8 years of outdoor joggling.

7.  You will be slower.  Don’t be disappointed that you aren’t setting any speed records while joggling on the beach.  Beach running is tough and you will naturally be slower.  Don’t fret.  Just enjoy the experience.

8.  Beach joggling is fun!!  It really is.  I’d suggest you leave the headphones at home and just enjoy the surf, the sand and the sounds of the beach.  It really is a great activity and adds some spice to your joggling life.

Do you have any tips or suggestions to add?  Leave a comment below

Here’s a story that proves there is always someone ahead of you.

Stuart Calderwood has been keeping up his running streak for the past 25 years.

He started when he was 28 and he is now 53.  Impressive.

Running every day streak comparisons

Let’s compare our respective running streaks.

1.  His longest run was 31 miles.  My longest was 50 miles

2.  His shortest runs are 1.25 miles.  My shortest is 1.5 miles

3.  He averages 9.2 miles a day.  I average 3.8 miles a day

4.  His streak is over 9125 days.  Mine is 1183 miles

5.  His goal is to overtake the longest running streak (43 years).  I haven’t decided on a goal.

6.  His streak is running.  Mine is joggling.

Well, his numbers are impressive.  I do not aspire to keep up.  9.2 miles a day average is just too much running.  I’m perfectly happy with my ~4 miles a day.