Different strokes for different folks, but for Rumen Hulmequist celebrating his birthday means taking on a fitness challenge and trying to inspire others in the process. This year, for his 23rd birthday, Rumen’s gift to himself was a 10 hour challenge on the battle ropes called “10 Hours for 10 Causes.” Rumen is an Exercise Science student at Southwest State University ARCC Campus and a 2013 Patrick Henry graduate. He said this would be a world record and it undoubtedly was, as Guinness reports the world record to be just 40 minutes.
Rumen, with his handler and friend Thomas Winston, set up on the Webber Park soccer field on August 5, and starting at 7:39 a.m. he worked the battle ropes for just over 10 hours continuously, starting each consecutive hour with a conversation about an issue that he wanted to raise awareness about. His 10 causes were: cancer, adoption, rape, sex trafficking, bullying, domestic violence, feminism, world starvation, racism and education.
His effort was live streamed on Facebook for the duration. At the very end, when all of the devices lost battery power, Duane Atter (owner of The Warren) came to the rescue and livestreamed the last 10 minutes. To top the day off Rumen did 23 one armed burpees, one for each year of his life.
Rumen’s time will not show up in the Guinness World Records because of the long process required to secure such a record. However, his efforts were recorded live on Facebook, so there were a number of witnesses to his accomplishment.
To find out more go to Rumen Hulmequist-Motivation on Facebook or youtube.com/watch?v=JZmRRt9BQyg to see the last 10 minutes of Rumen’s 10 hour challenge.