How clean are your joggling balls?
Last Sunday was my final really long joggling training run for the London marathon. 20 miles of pure joggling fun. Typical of this year’s Chicago winter, it was snowy. The bulk of the snow fell on Saturday so what was left were patches of ice, crunchy snow banks and mounds of mud mixed ice crystals lining the running path. March snow is the ugliest.
As I joggled home along North Avenue I felt great. 18 miles were done and only 2 more until my Gatorade and 100 Grand candy bar refueling at the local Walgreens. If you’re going to have a candy bar, the 100 Grand bar has been proven to be the best choice.
The CTA bus I had been racing the last mile and a half pulled past me for the fourth time. Each time, I turned my head and smiled at the passengers as they pressed their cheeks on the windows gawking at this urban oddity. Don’t be mislead, joggling is a showy sport.
This time however, my Gballz grew tired of my antics. After 150 minutes of allowing me mastery over their molecular motion, one went Steelkilt on me and dove to the ground. It splashed down into a black, gooey, briny puddle and came out covered like a Prince Sound otter in March of 1989.
“Yuk!”
I rescued the rogue ultraleather ball from the black soup and held it between my thumb and forefinger like a dipped colored Easter Egg. It’s shiny yellow hue would never return. A quick wipe-down with my Under Armour gloves removed the bulk of the sludge, but some was pressed into the pores and pentagram creases. This traitor would be marked forever.
In the final mile, the Gballz returned to their purposeful pattern obeying the infinity sign stretched in front of me. The marked maven gave no impression of its rebellious act. Throw, catch, throw, catch.
As jogglers, we feel like we control the objects rising and falling in front of us. But they are there only as long as they want. Like trained wild animals, they’ll behave perfectly until one moment they turn on you making you look completely foolish in front of a bus full of people.
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There’s always one maverick in the bunch 🙂
My Joggling Balls are spot less. Probably because I’ve still only joggled about 20K total.
Mine are stress balls so their material picks up dirt and stuff very easily. They gradually become darker and dirtier. The first time I got rained on while joggling, they were soaked. The next day, when they dried out, I noticed the colors were brilliant. I clean mine by joggling in the rain, now 🙂
Got myself some GBallz on your recommendation and did 3 races so far. (The ones than look like soccer balls)
The one has an odd shaped corner, but luckily I bought 5.
My previous balls were MB (something like Mister Babachio)
GBalls picks up much more dirt, and we don’t even have snow.
Perry, how long does it take before your balls wear out?
I assume the wear and tear will be much bigger with me doing a drop every 2-3 minutes.
MB Balls are probably Mister Babache. They are a coated spandex. Eventually there the coating will wear off, but they will stay “Clean” Longer. The coating is easier to clean and wont absorb stains like the ultra leather.
Gballz are generally an ultra leather type ball. They will in general LAST longer, but as Perry has pointed out, they probably do get DIRTIER quicker. With a thicker more resiliant fabric however, it should last a long time.
I would contact Greg from Gballz if one of the balls has a wierd corner, He might replace it free. Just email him. Worst he can say is no.
Flurpy,
The set of Gballz I have now held up pretty well through the Chicago winter. I anticipate they’ll last for a couple of years. I’ve had some different fabric ones that have only lasted 6 months but these dodecahedron ones are great.
Perhaps I’ll do a post on the subject of how long these balls should last.
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