Cade Lucas
Doing anything for 24 hours straight is difficult, but doing a strenuous exercise like burpees for that long seems almost impossible.
Sadly, so it proved for Werribee policeman Jerry Roper during his Burpees for Autism fundraiser on September 29, which doubled as a world record attempt.
Roper was attempting to do 10,000 burpees in 24 hours, breaking the previous record of 9119 and 6013 for 12 hours in the process.
Unfortunately, he barely made it a quarter of the way.
“At the 6 hour mark I knew I was in trouble, but at 8 hours I was pretty certain I wasn’t going to be able to continue,” said Roper who needed to do 420 burpees per-hour to be on world-record pace.
“After the ninth hour I had dropped 60 reps under the hourly minimum, and I knew that if i kept going I would continue to fall under, and never be able to make it back up.”
It was the fifth straight year Roper had done the Burpees for Autism fundraiser and he’d been training for the world record attempt for months, clocking up 90,000 reps in preparation.
However, it was the temperature was what brought him undone.
“The heat was a shock to me,” he said.
“I wasn’t prepared for it.”
After pulling out due to dehydration, Roper has altered his hydration, nutrition and training plans for another attempt, which this time will be held in winter.
But even if this one fails too, at least Roper knows the money raised will still reach its destination.
“It’s still donated. It has all gone to the BioAutism foundation,” Roper said.
“BioAutism will use that money to finish funding the loss of skills project being done at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.”
