Meeting myself as I did yesterday and today happens once every couple of years. It turns out the wild blueberries I thought I was picking were black nightshade. Black nightshade apparently comes in edible and toxic varieties and I seem to have eaten the toxic kind. First things first. If you see these adorable looking berries, I recommend thinking twice. It was hard for me to type the word adorable[…] Keep reading →

My spreadsheet said I hit 175,000 burpees yesterday. I don’t record each one. I programmed in how many I do each day. I update the date and it tells me how many I’ve done. So I’ve done more, since occasionally I do extra without telling the spreadsheet. A decade ago, I’d record what felt like big milestones like my first six months of doing them daily or the first ten[…] Keep reading →

I remember the first time I saw an old person doing burpees. Her body didn’t have the flexibility or strength to do them how a younger person could. When I started mine, around 40 years old, I knew I couldn’t do them like guy in his thirties or twenties. I didn’t think about how they’d feel later. Over the years, as I’ve grown stronger and with experience, I’ve added to[…] Keep reading →

Today begins my tenth year of daily burpees, not one day missed. My spreadsheet says I’ve done over 163,000 of them. I have yet to spend one penny doing them. Since I consider them something I do instead of TV, I’ve saved time doing them too. The activity continues to evolve in its meaning and value to me, always increasing, but mostly I think of them, along with the rest[…] Keep reading →

I can’t believe how much today’s ride tired me out. I’ll only post the high-level details before going to sleep. I recently got a new used bike—a touring bike designed to carry enough to go bike camping. The summer between high school and college, a friend and I rode from Philadelphia to Bar Harbor, Maine and back—about 1,500 miles. For years I used bikes as my main commuting vehicles, until[…] Keep reading →

According to my spreadsheet that calculates my burpee count, I did my hundred-fifty-thousandth today. Actually, that would be my hundred-fifty-thousandth as part of my burpee-based sidcha. I occasionally do more, like to show people how to do them, or when I see how long I take to do a hundred, but I never do less. My total expenditures on them is still $0.00, including equipment, trainer, travel, etc. I haven’t[…] Keep reading →

I can’t believe I didn’t think of saying the phrase until the other day: I do more burpees before 9am than most people do all day. It’s satisfying to write. I could have said it years ago. Friends are surprises I haven’t said it. When I said it to someone out loud, he pointed out I could say: I do more burpees before 9am than most people do in their[…] Keep reading →