Chain (and Back?) Broken

I’ve been putting this off long enough.  I can’t put it off any longer.  I’m not going to make it through this challenge.  I hate writing this, but it’s only right.

For some reason, my back has decided to hate burpees with an unbelievable passion.  I can do a few right now, but can’t crank them out in any kind of numbers.  It stinks.  I guess that’s what I get for trying to go from a near zero-level of fitness all the way to a pretty serious level of workout in just a few weeks.  In my younger days, that wouldn’t have been a problem, but now, alas, it is.

So, what did I learn from all this?

First of all, I’ve got my eye on another challenge.  It’s not a physical one and should, therefore be more doable. I’ll unveil it in a few days, but I’m pretty sure I’m settled on a rather ambitious (for me) scripture memory plan.  I have to finalize it a bit, but the gist of it is that I’m going to memorize some serious scripture over the next 99 days.

Getting back to the learning thing, I think I learned a little about myself.  The only times I didn’t do my burpees were when something with my body prevented me from doing them – or once or twice when I forgot.  However, that’s really not good enough.  The whole point of the thing is to string together 99 days of perfection.  99 days of absolute perseverance.  That’s a huge growth area for me and I failed miserably.  Yes, I’m having back problems, but still, I need to figure this thing out. I need to reel off 99 days and complete one of these.

Now, just to give myself a break, it was a difficult challenge and, as mentioned previously, it’s not easy to go from zero fitness-wise to a fairly high level workout in that amount of time.  My body just wasn’t ready.

So, then.  We have a 99 Day Challenge rule to live by or something like that here:

Make sure you are as prepared as you can be before taking on a challenge.

Don’t enter into these things lightly.  That’s what I did and it didn’t go too well.  This next one will be different.  Really coach.  I swear.

Thanks for following along and thanks for all the encouragement on Twitter and Facebook.  Especially Jason Williams and Rob Barry.  You guys consistently ask how I’m doing with this thing and I appreciate it.  Sorry to have let you down.  Are you up for another go round?

Broken Chain

 

Well, I went 29 days into the challenge quite well.  I did have one little mishap in which I actually forgot to do my burpees, but then made them up on the next day so all was right in the universe.  However, I’m now having a crisis.

The burpee chain broke a few days ago.  Almost every year around this time I get an upper respiratory infection (URI for you medical types) and this year is no different.  I’ve been barking up raw oysters for several days now and am just now getting to the point that I think I can breathe again. I’m going to try to pick up again tonight and do 30 burpees.  If I can breathe, I will.  If not, I won’t.  We’ll see what happens.  

I’ve been intending to write about this for a few days, but my fear of being ostracized and quarantined due to the fear of swine flu kept me silent.  Don’t hate me.  

I’ve run all this by the 99 day challenge executive board (me, myself, and I) and everything is fine for me to pick up again as soon as I can breathe enough to actually do the exercises.  I’ll let y’all know how it goes once I get going again. 

Thanks for hanging in their with me on this epic journey.

15 is More Than 14, but 12 Doesn’t Seem to be More than 11.

Did my 15 burpees yesterday. Didn’t want to . I keep waiting until the end of the day to do them when I’m already in bed, not wanting to get up. But my sweet wife really does encourage me (not naggingly) and I get up and do them.

It makes sense to me that it should get a little harder each day to do the exercises because I’m adding one repetition each day. However, on some days, even though I’m adding a rep, it still seems easier than the previous day. I realize that there are a ton of variables to account for and that there are all kinds of reasons that can happen, but it still doesn’t make sense to me. Perhaps I’m being a bit too linear in my thinking? Wouldn’t be the first time.

Shout Out:
Today I want to give a shout out (is that still a term we groovy people use?) to Jason Williams or J-Dub. Jason encourages me every day on Facebook when he sees my annoying status updates about burpees. Thanks for the encouragement, Jason.

Day 13 – Still Going Strong

Thanks for all the support I’ve gotten on Twitter.  At some point I’ll get this here blog all twittered up and ready for the county fair.  No wut ah mean?  In the meantime, here’s a little report on Day 13 yesterday.  

I actually split my burpees up into sets for the first time.  I did 10 and then 3 with about one minute or so in between.  I probably could have done all 13 just fine, but I know I want to introduce the idea of sets at some point, so I went ahead and did it last night.   

Burpees are hard but they’re doable.  It’s great because I can do them in a confined space like my office or anywhere I might be other than my car.  I might be able to do them in our minivan except for the little leap at the end.  It’s possible, but not preferable.  

Speaking of the little leap of the end, that’s the only part that I really don’t like.  I don’t mind the squat thrust and I don’t mind the pushup.  I’ve never been much of a leaper and my little bird legs just get worn out by about number three or so. The leap is the part that sort of wipes me out.  Ya know? I guess that’s why it’s there.  If it was easy, they wouldn’t call it a burpee.  Or maybe they would.  I’m really not sure why it’s called a burpee.  Regardless, I would leave the leap off if I could and still call myself a man.

The long and the short of it is that I’m still going and feeling pretty good.  We’ll see how I’m feeling on day 50.