My friend Anna (yes the same Anna who can get away with wearing 2xu hot pants and who I hope to grow up to look like one day) had the idea to attempt the burpee mile and me being me thought – yeah ok, why not.

I put out an open invite to anyone who wanted to come to the Trusts Stadium in Henderson to do either the Ludus “homework” 500 or the burpee mile and a group of 10 hardy souls turned up on a beautiful Anzac morning.

We split into two groups – The 500’s and the Milers

And can I just say that the 500 included lizard crawling 100 meters so it was in no way the easy option. I actually double checked with Joe the crawl lengths because even for a Joe workout that seemed a formidable distance to crawl!

But alas (for the 500’s at least) the distance was correct so crawls of 100 metres it was ..

The 500’s (minus Oisin who was on official photographer duty).

The eagle eyed among you have now obviously worked out that leaves 4 people attempting the mile and the group was female dominated.  I told you I know some kick arse girls!

Sally, Me, the lovely (if not a little nutty) Anna and Colin.

Anna had done some investigating (otherwise known as reading blogs and trawling forums) so she had some “tips of the trade” so all of us girls were wearing gloves – Colin settled for strapping tape, I guess that’s a boy thing.

We all started off at 9.15am with the sun beating down. Colin zipped away pretty quickly and Sally left Anna and I at around the 200m mark (thanks to Anna coaching Sally on how to jump) 😉

Anna stuck with me even though she probably could have kept up with Sally but I wasn’t going to complain about having some company!  We had all read online that the first lap was the hardest (even more so when you don’t warm up – my bad) so that first lap we did 5-10 burpees then 15 seconds rest even then we completed the first lap in under 30 minutes.

We grabbed our water bottles and I took off my sunglasses because they kept slipping and opted instead I wear a cap.  I also grabbed a bandana to use as a marker, that would ensure I didn’t “cheat” and restart a couple of metres ahead of where I had stopped to grab a water break.  Although the thought was tempting. 😉

Lap two was indeed easier than lap one but it didn’t mean I hated it any less than the first lap. The only thing that kept me going after that lap was that Anna said “Let’s go for 1k and see how we feel”.

So we grabbed more water, I threw down some food and we started out on lap three. I also have to say that Colin overtook us while we were on our refuel pit stop. He was on fire out on that track!

We FINALLY got to the 1k mark and our official photographer Oisin snapped a pic of a couple of super happy girls ..

Well happy until we had to keep going 😉 we had quite the support crew by half way through lap three because the 500ers had finished their workouts and Colin had finished his mile.

So we went from throwing our bottles ahead and “burping” to them to having someone carry them beside us. A burpee caddy, how upmarket is that!

After completing lap three there was no turning back now even though my knee had been screaming at me for at least 200m’s. James kept trying to make me stop but I explained to him that there was no way in hell I was EVER doing this again so I was not going to waste the three laps I had already completed by not doing the entire mile.

I had some magic pain pills (otherwise known as peanut m&m’s) gulped down some vitasport and hit the track for the final 400m.

For anyone who doesn’t fathom how pain you are in by now this is Sally with 300m’s to go ..

Oisin jumped in literally and did the last 300ms of frog leap burpees with her to keep her going now that is a TRUE friend!

Sally finished when Anna and I still had about 200m’s to go. We were so happy for her we even found the strength to jump up and down and cheer.

The last 200m’s were the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I was hot, I was sore, I was hungry and I was exhausted.

The only thing that kept me going was watching Anna ahead of me and following her. She finished her mile with a 30 odd meter gap between us.

That just left me out on the track with my very own circle of paparazzi. I jumped, I burpeed and I kept my eye on that little yellow finish line.

I heard Anna yell one more jump and you are finished so it was obvious that one HAS to jump with both hands signally victory!

Thank goodness that is over!

I want to give a huge shout out to “Team Milers” for burping the mile with me. Anna in particular if I didn’t have you beside me (and even when you were in front of me) I never would have finished it!

I also need to thank all of Team 500 for cheering, clapping, supporting, photographing and of course patiently waiting for me to FINALLY cross the finish line 2 hours and 45 minutes after starting.

And finally to the little girl who came up to me when I was refueling after lap two who gave me flowers your sweet gesture made my day!

Everyone of you made it a great day even if it was THE most painful thing behind child birth that I have ever endured.

Till next time