MABA and the joy of shared suffering
Or: How a naked man in a parking lot, a sprained ankle and a broken bike lead to giggling over chili
We arrived at the end of our 50-plus mile bike ride in the dark, four hours later than we anticipated. This was just one-third of an adventure in which 10 of us hiked 50 miles, biked 50 miles and canoed 50 miles in one five-day trip to Wisconsin, and for reasons I won’t bore you with, we were way behind schedule. We were tired, frustrated and starving.
Rob “CFIT” French splayed out on the ground, spread eagle, becoming one with the asphalt beneath him. Some of us walked to a nearby public bathroom to change out of our bike gear. One of us couldn’t be bothered with that and instead changed right there in the parking lot. I was too tired to do either and left my stinky gear on.
We packed our gear into the bed of a pickup truck. One hundred yards to the right, light glowed from inside a restaurant. It beckoned me, called me, pulled me in. FOOD! YES! ME WANT FOOD! I walked in wearing skin-tight black padded shorts, a neon yellow biking shirt visible from space and a look devoid of mental acuity. Josh “Jalopy” Ritter hobbled in, his hands black with grease from putting his chain back on his bike a half dozen times, and his hair looking as if he had combed it with a rake. I looked around … white tablecloths … customers dressed up … servers in pressed shirts … and took the hint.
We left, found a bar with a live band playing too loud, collapsed into our seats and ate enough to feed a small country.
And that was just CFIT.
I don’t know how we managed to eat among the laughter. As we stuffed ourselves with chili, we recounted the highlights of the last three days, which were mostly about the shit-storm Jalopy had endured—he hiked 35 miles on a sprained ankle, his tire was flat before we even got his bike off the rack, and his derailleur broke 30 miles into a 50-mile ride.
Being the kind-hearted, compassionate and empathetic men we are, we told Jalopy that after all that, he was bad luck and none of us wanted to be in his canoe the next day.
He teamed with Tim “Usain Fudd” Stolarski, a former track star who could have done this trip if it was 70-70-70.
I’m surprised they didn’t hit a whale.
After an exhausting day on the river, our taco bar around the campfire—using sand and canoes for seats—generated as much laughter as our dinner at the bar the night before.
I tell you this because I am endlessly fascinated by the joy that comes from shared suffering. I wish I had learned this sooner. I spent too many years avoiding hard things.
Join us for MABA (Make America Burpee Again, in which participants will complete 3,100 burpees in January) and you’ll find out firsthand. The theme: Fall down. Get back up. Together. You’ll be tired, frustrated, starving … and laugh so much you won’t be able to wait to knock out your next 100.
Put another way, MABA is not about the burpees. They are a means, not the end. The ends are the relationships that result.
Registration starts next week.
For more on that 50-50-50 trip, read here.
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