It was September 15th 2018, I remember the feeling of my right hip flexor tearing as my support crew lowered my leg down. At this point, I was 16 hours into 24 hours of burpees, with tears running down my face and the biggest grin I’ve ever had.
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Why a grin? Because at this moment, I was broken, crushed and hurting but I had this unexplainable feeling of calmness and gratitude.
I later came to realise this was the feeling of pure acceptance, accepting where I am, how I feel and what I am doing. Did I choose to do this? Yes. So why should I be even thinking about complaining?
“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional” - Buddha
You know that voice you get in your head when things start getting hard, you are thinking about how good it would feel to stop, you ask yourself why you are even doing this in the first place? That’s the voice of suffering, doing the burpees taught me that this voice, well... it’s controllable.
24 hours after the “24” hours, I remember reflecting on what was the event, and I couldn’t help but feel like I had a lot more I could have given… I realised then and there that I just broke a new limit in my mind. Coming into the event, I thought a few hours of burpees was hard, and now… 24 hours of burpees is my new hard. I encourage you to constantly push your “hard”.
Now this story is definitely not your fairytale ending, we had ALOT that went wrong,
We had NO IDEA on how to stay hydrated and fueled. If it wasn’t for a quick call from a friend of a friend, telling us we were completely over our head, we wouldn’t have made it through the first 2 hours. That being said, my colleague and friend had to be rushed to hospital at the 13-hour mark as his kidneys were shutting down due to something called “rhabdomyolysis”.
The other major f*ck up was that we misunderstood the guidelines of the Guinness World Record - See we thought “to the line” meant “near the line” Not actually on it... So my colleague and I did 1000’s of burpees, all just 1cm short of the world record, now talk about attention to detail being overlooked there.
This attempt started because we wanted to do something to help those suffering from mental health, we supported a charity called Livin.org who are dedicated to educating and preventing suicide amongst men. Something in which I am extremely passionate about, our theory was that some people spend years suffering, so we can handle just a small 24 hours…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FioOSrZKhRM - More on why we chose to do this.
I believe the biggest teachers in life come from the most pain and discomforting situations. Seek out discomfort, and in turn, you will grow and become more than you could have imagined.
https://www.gofundme.com/manage/24000-burpees-in-24-hours - Total Raised: $7,399
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=284252002406554 - Chanel 7’s Take on the Burpees
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