I’m DONE with Birthday Burpees!

My birthday was two weeks ago, and I wanted to celebrate with a big physical challenge. So I set up a social media challenge. It was simple: I shared a special image on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+, and every time you guys liked, shared, or retweeted it, I had to do burpees.

You guys didn’t mess around. 24 hours later, the count was up to 970. Nine hundred and seventy burpees.

I promptly got to work. I set up a highly technical burpee tracking system (involving a Sharpie and paper), and kept you abreast (teehee!) of my progress on social media. (And on this blog!)

Guess what happened yesterday? I reached my goal! I cranked out my final 70 burpees, in sets of 10 spaced out throughout an hour, and that brought my total to 970. Woohoo!

And then I thought… Why not do 30 more burpees and bring it to an even 1,000? So that’s exactly what I did. I’m so glad I had room on my chart for those 30 Bonus Burpees!

In addition to being Bonus Burpees, those 30 also served as Buffer Burpees, because I had a hunch my challenge goal might have crept up to slightly higher than 970, thanks to straggling social media users. So I did a recount, and I was right. I no longer had to do 970 burpees. I had to do 978.

But it doesn’t matter, because I did more than 978. I did 1,000!

And just so we’re all clear, the challenge is over. I’m not going to keep monitoring those posts to see if there are new likes or shares. You challenged me to 978 burpees, and I stepped up to the challenge!

I’m pretty impressed with myself, actually. It took me just two weeks to get through 1,000 burpees. And I haven’t even been exclusively doing burpees since the challenge started. There have been a few days where doing 200 burpees constituted my entire workout, but I’ve done other things, too, just to keep from going crazy from monotony, and also to make sure I was prepared for last Sunday’s stair race in Phoenix.

Here’s the burpee breakdown:

• March 6: 200
• March 7: 150
• March 8: 50
• March 9: 200
• March 10: 20
• March 11: 20
• March 13: 50
• March 17: 80
• March 18: 130
• March 19: 100

GRAND TOTAL: ONE THOUSAND BURPEES!

The challenge now is to continue doing burpees as a regular part of my workout. I can vouch for how effective they are: they elevate my heart rate (and quickly!), work my whole body, and leave me sore the next day. That’s exactly why I chose burpees to begin with, because they’re tough, and I wanted this challenge to be a challenge. But now that I know what I’m capable of (200 burpees in one day), doing 30 or 40 as part of a workout shouldn’t intimidate me.

To be honest, though, I think I might enjoy a few more burpee-free days before working them back into my regimen. I’ve earned it. In fact, after finishing those final 100 yesterday, I couldn’t wait to lie down.

Thanks for the awesome birthday present, everyone! It’s one I’ll never forget.

Keep it up, David!

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