The final tally of MABA 2024 is in.

Also: Life on the burpee beat ... and the NASCAR beat ... and the travel beat ...

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One last MABA post ... now that the final numbers are in ...

The final burpee count for 2024 Make America Burpee Again is 3,086,973, an increase of 1,137,483 (58 percent) over last year (1,949,490). That’s double the amount from two years ago and triple the first year (2021).

Highlights include burpees in the Arch, burpees in the bitter cold (see above), burpees in Antarctica and many, many more besides.

The numbers in the St. Louis super region (where MABA was born) are astounding: 483 men did 1,209,945 burpees. Compared to last year, we saw an increase in participation of 176 men (307 to 483, a whopping 57 percent) and in total burpees of 475,119 (734,826 to 1,209,945, a stellar 65 percent).

Special shoutout to the he-beasts in Blue Ridge, Virginia. Not only did they lead MABA in total burpees, but on the last night, when they long since could have stopped, EIGHT OF THEM instead took two steps, did a burpee, two steps, did a burpee, FOR A MILE. (Guys, you can stop now. Guys … GUYS!!!)

Thank you all for taking this crazy idea and running with it.

I can’t wait until next January when we will all once again fall down, get back up, together.

And now I return to regularly scheduled newslettering … to the extent that there is regularly scheduled newslettering around here.

If there’s anything this newsletter is not, it’s regular. It’s funny … the closest thing I’ve had to a beat since I became a freelance writer 10 years ago is burpees. I’ve also written at length about NASCAR, travel, adventure, National Guard soldiers, fitness and personal development. In the last year, I’ve found steady work hosting a podcast on employment law and writing about rodeo.

If you had told me 10 years ago that’s what I would be working on, I would be baffled at those particular topics, but not surprised. I’ve flitted from topic to topic for decades. I strive to find what connects us among all these different subjects, and that might be what I love most about working that way. Put another way, my passion is chasing other people’s passions. I hope you’ll keep reading, even if you have no idea what might be coming next.

It can be exhausting working like this, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’d be bored if I only ever wrote about one thing … I’d even (probably) (eventually) (maybe) get bored of burpees …

Ha, nope.

That’s blasphemy.