101 days ago, I was in my basement preparing to do a workout. I was feeling pretty good that day, so I decided I would do 100 burpees just to see if I could do them. I did them (at least an easier version of them), and thought it was certainly not easy, but a great, fairly quick workout. (They were actually easier than the 1000 jumping jacks I did after them, but that's another story and another challenge).
Anyway, later that day I was on Facebook and saw a post from an elementary school friend (who also happens to be a fitness instructor) that was announcing a "burpee challenge", where you start with 1 burpee on day one, 2 burpees on day two, and so on up to 100 on day 100. It sounded like something that could be, well not fun, but at least a good challenge, as I don't think I've ever completed a 100 day challenge of anything in my life. But alas, I had a dilemma...I had just done 100 burpees. I figured I had two choices. I could just respond to the Facebook page and say "I just skipped all the way up to 100, so sorry all you suckers who have to work your way up, but I'm done", or I could just start the challenge from 100 and work it up to 200. Now THAT would be stupid.
So of course, I was stupid. I did 101 the next day. Then 102. Then 103. For the first few days, I was not going flat...just extending my legs into a plank and back before I jumped. After doing some research, I decided that a true "legal" burpee involved going flat, and while that really made things a lot more difficult, it seemed only right to try to be correct with my form. I made sure I always jumped, though not always 6 inches I'm sure.
As I started the challenge, my goal was to generally get to 100 somewhat quickly, then top it off with the handful I had left. I almost always broke them up into chunks of 20 or 30 or 40, just depending on how I felt, with a few mins rest between the chunks. They weren't fun, but I was getting through them.
Eventually, the "handful" after 100 was turning into an entire new chunk, and it was becoming more difficult to complete the whole sets. Not a dramatic increase in difficulty, but it was definitely getting progressively harder. A few times I'd time myself for 100 and finish the rest later. I think my fastest time through 100 was about 6:30, and that usually destroyed me to get to that point. But I could definitely feel a difference from when I had started in my ability just to do them...they were slowly but steadily getting easier.
One of my kickboxing students, Lisa, also decided to do this challenge the "sane" way (if there really is such a thing). What was really cool about this was that she despised burpees. She often asked ahead of time if there were any burpees in today's workout, and you could just see her cringe anytime I told her "yes". Her agreeing to a burpee challenge would be like a cat agreeing to swim across Lake Michigan. But she is not one to back down from a challenge, and soon she was there every day doing them too. (Fortunately, she kept count on her Facebook page, because there were many days I needed to use her info to figure out how many I had to do that day).
Today was our final day, when Lisa did her 100 and I did my 200. We got things setup where we had a rope hanging 6 inches above our overhead reach (a "legal" burpee includes a 6 inch jump), started a stopwatch, and we were off. I did 100 in 8:06. In ten minutes, I had done 114. Lisa finished hers in maybe 14 minutes (we didn't see the exact time), and then waited so we could do the last one at the same time. And 100 days, 10 hours, and 18:27 mins/secs after we started, we were done with our challenge. Total burpees - 15,150.
So what did I learn through this experience? Many things. First, there aren't many people who can find that balance between "dedicated to working out" and "obnoxious about working out". Lisa is one of those people who takes her dedication to the perfect level, and it was nice having someone else doing this challenge that I knew would not accept it if I backed out. Second, I no longer fear burpees. They are still not fun, and I still get winded after doing a set of 25, but I know I can do a lot of them now. Third, I'm a little scared to say that burpees may be the perfect exercise. In one rep, you are hitting arms, chest, core, legs, cardio, and explosive power. Doing these over the course of 100 days, doing at least 100 reps a day, made a HUGE difference for me in all of those areas (and I lost about 5 lbs to boot).
And finally, I learned that sometimes, "not feeling like it" is complete crap. There were many days I wanted nothing to do with any burpees, but I knew I would have to force myself to do them or I'd be up all night trying to squeeze them in at the last minute. Little bits done here and there always added up, but I had to put in the effort to do the little bits. Motivation was hard to come by during the middle of the challenge when I knew I had many more weeks to go, and the end always seemed far away. But persistence paid off, and I can look back now and appreciate what was hard to see sometimes during the challenge. Would I do it again? Geez, I doubt it. I'm so thankful that right now, 9:30 at night, I can look at the rug in my family room that has my sweat stains permanently sunk into it from the thousands of burpees I've done on it over the last 3 months, and I know I don't have to do any more. But then, I've been known to change my mind before. ;)
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