Afternoon Füsters!
Winterfüste ‘25 is complete and the numbers are in!
First, let’s take a moment to recognize and congratulate the TWELVE Füsters who played a perfect game and earned the title of Bestenfüste (yes, GG said 12)! This is a record number of players standing on top of the podium this year and all will be summarily inducted into the Pantheon of Gottähnfüste for 2025!
Let’s break this group down real quick:
As GG has struggled with the tie break concept over the years (just ask Shoebill or Harp Seal or other Bestenfi about their 8 minute planks on the Finalefüste to win in past years), this year he had decided to use the number of days in first place as the main decider for the top player in the case of a tie scenario. Of course, he had no idea this year would be the first year ever that almost every night there would be multiple Füsters vying for the top of the rankings and this would result in only one player standing alone in first place for only two nights over the course of the entire game! This is extraordinary and unheard of and GG could hardly believe it as this scenario played out over the last 9.5 weeks. Usually there are at least ten players who will sit alone on top of the game for at least one night OR a single player who just dominates for like three weeks in a row. But this year was different and the level of day to day competition was so high that only Pampas Fox was able to solo the podium and only for two nights at that (hence the 🏆🏆 next to her name). And so by the rules for WF25, she has earned the top spot among the 12 Bestenfi for WF25! So effectively, Pampas Fox is the Bestenbestenfüste for Winterfüste ‘25! Congratulations!
Now for the other 11 amazing players who did the nearly impossible by earning every single possible punkte this year and the title of Bestensfüste:
Ringtail has earned her second title in two consecutive years. She also tied for the most Side Quest Points with non-other than . . .
Kit Fox, who after taking a break from the game came back on a mission to win his first Bestenfüste title!
Colugo has won her first title after only playing Sömmer Kamp once, which is an incredible feat in and of itself!
Frost Cricket has also won her second contiguous Bestenfüste title after spending years on the bubble. She’s clearly cracked her personal code for victory!
Giant Pacific Octopus, part of a Füsting power couple (FPC) out of Vacaville, CA, won his first title in only his second Füsting event ever.
Greenland Shark, also a member of an FPC, won her first title in her very first Füste event, making her one of two Neo-Füsters who pulled off this insane accomplishment this year!
Pocket Gopher has won her first title after being on the verge of victory for the last two years!
Porcupine, yet another Neo-Füster, won her first Bestenfüste title in her first ever Füsting event (GG cannot say enough about how incredible and unprecedented this achievement is!).
After suffering a heart breaking last day loss to the Squat Lobster during Sömmer Kamp ‘23, the Russian Sable has finally earned redemption and her first Bestenfüste title after many years of Füsting!
Snow Cat has earned her second Bestenfüste title after waiting three years to again stamp her dominance on the game!
Yapok has earned her first title after only playing Sömmer Kamp ‘24 (and that after she joined late!). Yet another incredible accomplishment by a a fairly new Füster!
Congratulations to all 12 of these incredible players!
Now onto the statistics for WF25!
We started the game with 118 players and finished with 56 or roughly a 47% completion rate. This is slightly up from the past years and would lead you to think that maybe WF25 was designed to be too difficult but the fact that 12 Füsters finished in first place really puts that concept into conflict with itself. Truth is, GG never knows who’s going to stick it out and who’s going to fold early. This year we absolutely saw a huge impact from an unusually virulent cold and flu season that knocked nearly two dozen players out of the game early.
For those of us who exercised for distance (instead of minutes), we collectively traveled 18,776 total miles or approximately 75% around the circumference of the Earth. This is roughly akin to leaving San Francisco and heading east across the United States and out into the Atlantic, across that entire ocean to Africa, crossing that continent and into the Indian Ocean, across the entirety of Australia, into the Pacific and ending up somewhere in French Polynesia. Or more simply put, we crossed back and forth across the United States nearly four times (that SF to NY to SF X4).
Here’s a break down of our collective numbers by modality:
Walked: 7369 miles
Ran: 3451 miles
Rode: 4874 miles
Spun: 218.5 hours or 9 straight days and if we use an average of 12mph we get another 2622 miles (this is probably a little low since the average speed of the spinners was most likely higher than 12mph).
Rowed: 562,736 meters or 350 miles
Swam: 193,295 yards or 110 miles
Completed 30 half-marathon distance wogs.
Completed 1220 hours of “other” Schmerzenfüste activities (class based workouts, home based workouts, yoga, HIIT classes etc.) or roughly 51 straight days of exercise.
Based just off of the Daily 50 homework reports, we completed 270,600 push-ups and 75 hours striaght of planking!
As always, these number are incredible and awe inspiring to say the least!
Now here’s the Top 10 rankings for each exercise category:
WALKING (IN MILES)
GIANT PACIFIC OCTOPUS (324)
PORCUPINE (272)
GREENLAND SHARK (270)
OPOSSUM (270)
POCKET GOPHER (208)
SEA TURTLE (181)
A. KRILL (179.3)
SCHWARZBÄR (179)
SEAHORSE (171)
SHELDUCK (167)
RUNNING (IN MILES)
FREE TAILED BAT (473)
PAMPAS FOX (339)
COLUGO (228)
HARE (215)
FROST CRICKET (182)
KIT FOX (157)
JAGUARUNDI/SNOWCAT (155)
YAPOK (145)
BRAUNBÄR (128)
RUSSIAN SABLE (125)
CYCLING (IN MILES)
KING CRAB (924)
BADGER (619)
HARE (582)
LYNX (528)
PAMPAS FOX (477)
GROLABÄR (418)
DOE EAGLE (384)
NARWAHL (189)
OPOSSUM (182)
SCHWARZBÄR (109)
SPINNING (IN HOURS)
PANDA (27)
GRAY FOX (14)
WHITE MOOSE (13)
SNOW GOOSE (12)
ALPINE GOAT (11)
GREAT WHITE SHARK (10)
SCHWARZBÄR (9.3)
BUFFALO (9)
GENTOO PENGUIN (8)
BIG HORN SHEEP (7.5)
ROWING (IN METERS)
BRAUNBÄR (178800)
PORCUPINE (103500)
GROLARBÄR (84000)
WHITE RAVEN (69329)
WALRUS (28003)
ALPINE GOAT (28000)
BEAN GOOSE (21000)
JAVELINA (14053)
BLUE WHALE (14000)
MINK (9000)
SWIMMING (IN YARDS)
BADGER (52950)
QUAIL (52050)
TRUE FOX (24200)
YAPOK (24125)
PAMPAS FOX (17400)
SEAHORSE (7500)
BARNACLE GOOSE (5400)
RED WOLF (3000)
BUFFALO/WHITE MOOSE (1760)
QUOKKA (1650)
The numbers are incredible and sometimes a little overwhelming but never forget that you did this, all of you collectively put in the minutes and hours, day after day, week after week, grinding through the Singelts and Doppelts and Trippelts and countless bonus events that pushed you out into the streets and on the trails and up hillsides and summits and all the rest. GG never ceases to be amazed by the Füsters or what each and everyone of you can do when you simply stop thinking you can’t and believe you can. Many players thought they couldn’t complete a half-marathon. Most who finished the game did. You might have thought you couldn’t not eat sugar for two and a half months or not drink a drop of alcohol for 64 days but you did both!
So now what? Winterfüste is over and it’s time to return to your “normal” habits and the regular programming you’ve lived with your entire life. GG challenges you to not stop here and take at least one new good habit out of WF25. Maybe you keep to the dawn to dusk fasting every Monday (more and more research is showing the benefits of an 8-16 hour fasting window and its effects on combatting cancer cells). Maybe stick to the eating and drinking parameters during the working week and only allow yourself sugar or alcohol if you earn it by completing a Trippelt on the weekends. Use the parameters and guard rails of what you just did for the last 9.5 weeks to inform the rest of your year. Get outside and exercise daily (at least a Singelt!). Make up your own bonuses to drive you off the couch and into the world. You’ve been accountable to GG from the Startenfüste, now simply be accountable to yourself and stick with what you’ve learned you can do here. Every single player put a dent in their flank meat; don’t let it get back in charge and start the slow insidious slide back into its grasp! Winterfüste is meant simply as a kick start to your year. You're now primed for success and all you have to do is keep going in the same basic direction you have been since January 2nd.
And to that end, GG is contemplating an expansion of this great social experiment we call Füste. He’s always been curious about what a more regular and controlled Füste experience might be like stretched out over a year. And given that 2026 will be the 10 year anniversary of this game, he’s thinking this year might the time to experiment more than usual. So his current proposal is to add two 6 week mini-Füstes to the standard annual events of Winterfüste and Sömmer Kamp. Basically the year would look like this: 9 week Winterfüste (paid), take a month off, 6 week mini-Füste (free), take a month off, 9 week Sömmer Kamp (paid), take a month off, 6 week mini-Füste (free). At this point, GG is just kicking this idea around so more to come. If he did do it and you wanted to join the expanded game to see what you could do over a 10 month period, these would be the proposed dates (bringing back some of the early hits from years gone by here):
SPRUNGENFÜSTE: April 7th - May 17th
SÖMMER KAMP ‘25: June 20 - August 22nd
OKTOBERFÜSTE: September 22nd to October 31st
Even if GG does the mini events with only a handful of players, it’s still a worthy experiment (and to be clear, the free 6 week mini-events would be less time intensive and would concentrate on more of the daily accountability of food, drink and exercise and less on the big bonus events that drive WF and Sömmer Kamp). So there’s that. Like GG said above, this is just an idea right now and he’ll let you know if he decides to pull the trigger. He needs to take a couple weeks off to recoverer himself too so we’ll see how things look by the end of March.
Anyways, that’s about it for now. As always, thank you for joining the game and thank you for making this Füste a truly enjoyable experience for GG. Every year he gets a front row seat to the your incredible accomplishments and gets to spend time (even if it’s just via text and over STRAVA) with the most amazing Füsters. Be proud of what you accomplished here and carry it forward into 2025! Do not let the flank meat back into the driver’s seat! All the time and energy you put into getting to where your are today, just carry it forward and turn it into something that will work to keep you on the right path for the rest of the year!
Thank you all again for joining GG and he hopes to see you back on the Spielbrett down the road!
May the Füste be with you always.
Griswalde Grolar