Unleash the Monkey Army

Amongst the many, many things that I can be grateful for in my life to date, my parents exposing me to Monty Python is right up there! I remember hearing a song called "I'm so worried". I have had my issues with fear and worry but have, fortunately, never hit the debilitating near-universal concern of the song! Indeed, many people who interact with me on a day to day basis have commented on my  lack of worrying about almost everything (and people have remarked that it would be nice to see me look a little concerned once in a while!). So, what's occurring? As regular readers may remember, a couple of weeks ago I entered Ironworx Gymnasium's (in Westbury, Wiltshire @IronworxGym) strongman contest. I'd just got back from holiday and a good friend from Nailsworth Strength and Fitness (@NailsworthSF) mentioned it. I was feeling chunky, and aside from burpees, untrained but healthy. But we have established on here that I am a sucker for a challenge, so, what...

A lot has changed in the last twelve months. But in other ways not much! This time last year I was barely more than a week away from cracking the 100-day burpee ladder. Yes, in twelve months I have not managed to kick my burpee habit! On 29th December 2012 I reached a decision about trying to round out the total reps for the 100 days to 6,000. In order to achieve that I had to amplify my daily burpee count. That day I did 250 and on the 31st I did 257. I remember feeling a) pretty pleased with myself and, b) pretty destroyed! Between that point and the end of the ladder , on January 8th, I only did more than 200 burpees twice more. A year later and I am routinely doing 280 burpees per day. And that is only extra burpees to the tune of single digits! Not only that, but because of what can best be described as another of my f£$%ing bright ideas, I am working my way through the 12 burpees of Christmas. 12 Burpees of Christmas?! Well, like the traditional carol, my tr...

Being a little bit geeky I have a whiteboard and markers at home. I have used it to keep track of my numbers - which has been especially important as the year has gone on! (I am pretty certain that by the end of the year my dreams will be decorated with tally charts and punctuated by the beep of the timer.) I have tended to make some incidental notes on the whiteboards as the mental juices start to flow but these incidental notes have been wiped off almost daily, otherwise I have kept a running view of up to three weeks. Last Sunday (when I first journalled this piece), the day signalled the end of week 37 and coincided with the end of space on the whiteboard. As I wiped it off the thought occurred to me that maybe there ought to be a hint of sadness at the ease with which that much works is cleared away. But actually I found it quite satisfying, having done the work, to set up a clean sheet for the next phase. The sweeping away of a footprint doesn't remove the fact of the...

End of November. Eight months done. It's quite satisfying to write that. I know I have been going for a while, certainly it feels like ages. Counting down the days as I have been keeps the journey ticking along but they are just numbers and, if I'm honest, it feels like measuring a long road-trip by the lamp-posts you drive past. But to write 8 months is like being given a gift that you weren't expecting! It is only two-thirds done but four months to go seems within arm's reach. OK, maybe for a gibbon rather than a T-Rex but nonetheless it is within sight. One of the things that I had not expected on this voyage was the down-times. Given my constant fight to keep the darkness pushed to the back corners of my mind, it shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it did. There are many things that contribute to its exacerbation - sleep and nutrition are two crucial components in keeping the hormones in check. Recovery, mobility and tissue work would not hurt ei...

"And worse I may be yet: the worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst'" William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4 scene i We're in to week 26 now, and have racked up over 16,500 burpees in the year to date (since 1st April). When I say it out loud it seems, by equal turn, a trifle and a ludicrous thing. I tend to do my burpees in one session and, depending on what the day throws at me, there are days when I feel pretty flat before I start. Calvin and Hobbes by the outstanding Bill Watterson It is close to unbelievable to think that I have come this far. It is not that I ever thought that I wouldn't, but that is down to a lack of imagination rather than a devastating self-confidence. I'm still firmly of the belief that the single biggest danger to this endeavour is my almost limitless capacity to be distracted by something shiny and have a pop at another challenge along the way.  A case in point. No need, just no need! ...

My best friend at school once told me that his idea of hell was a having a huge speaker on his head which broadcast his every thought. It's a view he still holds today, but it means that he has a few issues with social media! On the other hand, I appear to have no issues belching out my mental fumes into the ether. And that's one of the joys of the Internet, any little lunatic with access to a keyboard and a connection to can rail against the world, or the government, or some unsuspecting person posting a video on YouTube! But it takes two to tango, and a message without an audience is pointless. True enough, this stuff is the electronic version of a message in a bottle. The slight difference is that I can tell that people, you, are reading! That baffles me. Not that you can, I'm not that much of a Luddite, but that you do. Look at my stats for the week, you lot are awesome! Globally diverse and awesome! Alright, it's not so much traffic that anybody is quaking in...

The story so far: Our intrepid couch coach has set out, with turgid prose and malice of forethought to burpee on each day for 100 days. The rules are simple: 1 rep on day one; 2 reps on day two, and so on, climbing to day 100 when we climax with 100 reps. Allowing for a little, ahem, life interfering with the art, if one day is missed, it is acceptable to catch up on the following day by completing all of the reps owed. Miss two days and the exercise is ended - rest up for a few days, consider your failings and start again. Our story so far has paused at the end of day 50, half the total number of days notched up. Soberingly though, we've only chalked up 1,225 of the full scope of 5,050 burpees. The next week and a half passed without incident. Occasionally needing to nudge myself out of my torpor to just start. Because once started, even as the air starts to thin with elevation on the ladder, inside of 10 minutes we are finished. Then the entry for Friday 30th November reads...