Saturday, April 25, 2009

Burpee Challenge: Day V

Rough cut of logo. Refinements to come.

Hi Lauren.

Five Hundred burpees and counting. Here are the times for the first five days.

Day I: 9:36.3
Day II: 8:40.1
Day III: 8:33.7
Day IV: 8:18.6
Day V: 8:16.3

It is interesting the perceptions that develop from doing the same thing over and over. For instance, through The Great, Noble & Epic Lauren Call Rob 100 Burpee Challenge I have discovered:

• I don’t like burpees
• Doing burpees over and over has not lessened my dislike for burpees
• My thighs are the first thing to get burpee-burn. Surprisingly, holding my torso straight during the pushups is where I feel it the most
• I can lessen the load on my thighs if I place my hands a foot in front of my feet, and jump my feet to a foot behind my hands
• Doing a bagillion burpees can make you better at burpees, and may eventually make you like burpees and appreciate burpees for the excellent exercise that burpees are (nah, I doubt it)
• Burpees is a very strange name which looks odd in print but is fun to type
• I am rather long limbed, which puts me at a disadvantage because burpees are all about range of motion. I can lessen my range of motion if when I place my hands down I stay on my fingertips until I am in the pushup position
• The first 25 burpees are over before my body realizes it is having to workout - again. The second 25 my body begins to send signals that it would really rather be eating Fritos and watching Desperate Housewives. From 51 to about 67 my body tries to negotiate, “Let’s just stop now and we’ll do the rest later. I won’t tell Lauren.” 68 to 80 my body revolts, “All right dammit, you wanna play rough? How bout a big barf smoothie?” Meanwhile my brain tries to remember why the hell we’re doing this. From 81 to 99 my body and brain both say, “Wow we’re almost there, we can do it.” 100 is greeted with much celebration and rejoicing and high-fiving all around.
• Once a challenge is set and committed to it develops an energy and force and motivation all its own quite separate from any objectives you may have originally intended. Said challenge, as it grows, sustains itself and keeps you going even if you occasionally forgets why you set the challenge in the first place. Eventually it becomes more important to finish the challenge for the challenge’s sake than for the original objective. (Sounds like a lesson I could apply elsewhere, but where?)

That’s all for today.

P.S. I had this really cute idea for tomorrow’s burpees which I will now mention so as to prevent myself from backing out when it goes horribly wrong (which it most definitely will). I am going to do one-arm and one-leg burpees (right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg). Tune in for the fun tomorrow!

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