Every quarter I set myself a challenge, usually a tough mental or physical sports challenge but it can sometimes involve my business or personal life. The idea is to stay focussed on long term goals by continually improving all areas of my life. Every now and then the challenge is particularly difficult and stands out in some way – on those occasions I will often turn it into a charity fundraiser.
Fancy joining me in a challenge? Drop me a line HERE
Current Challenge
Burpees, Triathlon and a Spartan Race
2021:Q3 Challenge – off the back of the disappointment following the cancellation of my Ironman event I have been struggling to figure out what challenge I should take on now. Usually around this time of the year I begin to focus on burpees for my annual Birthday Burpee Challenge (1049 burpees this year). This is a tough workout to complete in under 2-hours so I definitely need to get to work.
But I am also keen to continue building my aerobic endurance, especially after all the months of training I did for the Ironman, so I have signed up to take part in the Tri-Athy Triathlon on the 4/5 September. However the event is only Olympic distance so I don’t not really consider it to be a proper stretch goal.
So as a way of combining all my burpee training with the triathlon endurance training I have signed up to take part in the Spartan Beast Race in Scotland on the 25th September. This is tough 21km adventure race with 30 obstacles to overcome. Fingers crossed the various races go ahead and are not a casualty of further Covid-19 restrictions/disruption.
Previous Challenges
Ironman Cork 2021
2021: Q2 Challenge – my focus for much of this quarter has been on training for Ironman Cork, the full distance Ironman event I signed up for in November 2020. Unfortunately this event is one of the dozens of sporting events to be impacted by Covid-19 restrictions and on the 20th May 2021 it was announced that the event was to be rescheduled to 14th August 2022. Time to find a new challenge…
2021: Q1 Challenge – my focus remains on the training for my Ironman Cork event, a full distance Ironman event scheduled to take place on the 15th August 2021. The only issue at the moment is the pools have been closed down due to Covid-19 restrictions.
2020: Q4 Challenge – I have just signed up for Ironman Cork, a full distance Ironman event taking place in the town of Youghal in County Cork on Ireland’s southern coast. The event itself is not until15th August next year (2021) but the distances involved are so massive that this quarter’s challenge is likely to be amalgamated into all subsequent challenges for much of 2021 while I train for this one event of 3.8km swim, 180km bike and a marathon run of 42km. Wish me luck!
Gavin’s 10,000 Burpee August Challenge
2020: Q3 Challenge – as the name suggests this challenge requires me to do 10,000 burpees during the month of August (31 days). This equates to an average of 325 burpees a day for 31 consecutive days, with no break – what is a burpee you ask? When I began planning this challenge I initially thought to do 1048 burpees on my birthday, but having already done 1,000 burpees last December it didn’t feel sufficient.
I turned it into a fundraising campaign in aid of charity: water and have set up campaign pages on Facebook, on GoFundMe and charity: water itself if you want to learn more or donate.
You can track my daily progress by following me (gavinjgallagher) on the apps – Strava and Freeletics
BLMBA Body Transformation Challenge
2020: Q2 Challenge – I work with performance coach Jean-Pierre de Villiers who has an awesome private coaching group called Best Life MBA – through his group JP coaches us through live weekly video sessions and often challenges us to set stretch goals like the his 12-week Body Transformation Challenge.
You can check out my 12-week transformation results HERE.
2020 Triathlon Fitness Challenge
2020: Q1 Challenge – having just completed my 1000 burpee challenge, I turned my attention to having an overall aerobic fitness and signed up for a couple of triathlons and adventure race later in the year (details of those events can be found HERE).
My goal was to train get into the habit of training consistently – at least 6 days a week for the entire quarter – with the long term goal of building a solid training base for an Ironman triathlon in 2021/22. Unfortunately Covid-19 came along shutting my gym/pool and causing those events to be cancelled.
Gavin’s 1,000 Burpee Challenge
2019: Q4 Challenge – in October 2019 I met Jean-Pierre de Villiers and signed up to his private coaching group Best Life MBA. In our first call he suggested we set ourselves ambitious stretch goals and I decided there and then I wanted to attempt 1000 burpees in a single session.
My burpee max up to that point had been 360 burpees so I decided to 3x it and publicly announced I was going to attempt 1000 burpees. It seemed a very ambitious target and with the added accountability of making a public announcement I started training really hard.
One of my friends asked if it was for charity and when I said it wasn’t he suggested it should be and that he would support it – so it turned it into my charity fundraiser in support of Goal and I went on to set up a GoFundMe campaign page and a Facebook campaign page to receive donations – raised over €1500.
Watch the event here – https://www.facebook.com/gavinjgallagher/videos/10157890053819120/