The Nelson Trust

The Nelson Trust was founded in 1985 near Stroud in Gloucestershire by Roy and Mary Brash. The charity began life as a supportive shared residence for people recovering from alcohol addiction, and over a period of a few short years it developed into a residential treatment centre providing a comprehensive programme of care and support for people looking for recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.

The programme brought together a staff team with a range of specialist therapeutic skills and they developed services which could support people with complex needs including trauma, mental health problems, criminal justice issues and family problems.

Story

In 2016, Nick Gibbins, Rich Breeze, Greg Ryan and Will Buxton had a stupid idea: to do a year of Death by Burpees, starting on Jan 1st, 2017.

It is stupid because the burpee was designed by Royal H Burpee to quickly measure your level of fitness (that's true, google it). It is stupid because we were going to add a press up to each burpee (chest to floor, or C2F), and it is also stupid because Death by ... means that we were going increase the number we did every day by one: do 1 on Jan 1st, 2 on Jan 2nd, 3 on jan 3rd etc. until Dec 31st when we'd do 365. In total this means that we would do 66,795 burpees.

It was going to take focus, commitment, luck to avoid getting too badly injured, and sheer bloody-mindedness. There have been times when we've had ridiculously busy days meaning that we're doing 200 or 300 burpees at 11 at night because that was the only time we could do them. But, astonishingly enough, we're all still here and it's December 20th. We have each done 62,835 burpees and have only 3,960 to go!

A lot of people have followed our progress, perhaps thinking they'd try it, certainly wanting to watch or hear about us suffering, or even just to watch us (literally) fall on our faces, so we thought that we would use our pain as amusement for others as an excuse to raise some money for two charities. Prostate Cancer UK, a charity that deals with a disease that will directly or indirectly affect every man at some point and The Nelson Trust.

So if you have enjoyed hearing about this year or have only just joined, think it's ridiculous and would like to give some small donation we would be very grateful! If you'd like to see some pictures and videos please go to the project66795 page.

Lastly, on Sun December 31st at approximately 9am we will be going on Facebook Live to stream ourselves doing the last 365. I will be doing mine in Barbados the other chaps will be at Crossfit Thames near Canary Wharf, thanks to head coach and owner Phil who thinks we're nuts, but is quite happy to watch us whilst sipping a coffee. There may be beer afterwards! 

Thank you to everyone who has already encouraged us, joined us on their own year of 'Death by...' or just watched a few photos of me or videos of Nick doing them in his kitchen.