Murph: My Story

Today I was determined to do Murph. I went to bed at a reasonable hour (1:30) and got up at a reasonable hour (9:00). Then I decided to go. With very little planning.

Most Crossfitters know about Murph. It's a workout named in honor of Lt. Michael Murphy, who was killed while on tour in Afghanistan in 2005. This was his favorite workout (he did it with body armor). It goes as such:

1 mile run

100 pull ups

200 push ups

300 squats

1 mile run

We could break it up any way we wanted, as long as it was sandwiched between the runs. for me the run was convenient because I needed to get home. I did the workout in about 45 minutes (I didn't keep accurate time because I knew what was going to happen when I got to the playground) which I'm happy with, for now.

I left at around 9:25. Did between a 7:00-7:30 mile to Wilson Elementary School. Once I got there I saw that, of course, the snow hadn't melted enough for me to get this done easy. So I trudged as quickly as possible to one set of monkey bars. Cleared some snow. Bar is too thick for my hands. Poop. Had to trudge back through that path and had to find a new path to another set of bars (to avoid soaking my pants and socks in the cold). Ok this works. Oh and theres a picnic table to do my push ups on. Fantastic. I broke up my sets into 5-10-15, respectively. The height of the bars kind of ruined my ability to do kipping pull ups since my knees were about 7 inches off the ground, but I made do. I was actually pretty happy with the speed of my push ups. Had I been in a box (or at Santa Monica beach with the other people) this would have moved a lot smoother and quicker. And I would have had less clothes on.

The most depressing part of the workout was the closing mile. I definitely walked about a third of it because of the built up soreness from my quicker runs earlier in the week, plus my exhaustion from the middle of the workout. It was still cold enough that I was having trouble breathing, and I starting running without really getting into my breathing pattern. That ruined me. I also have to work on my mental toughness so it won't defeat me again.

I'm happy I finished the workout in a reasonable amount of time. I thought it would take much longer. And it could have been faster, if not for circumstances. That makes me happy, that it wasn't totally my fault for having a slow time (although it sort of is because I didn't plan). I checked on the mainsite and they have the times listed for two of the top Crossfit women for this workout. I was a couple minutes off of the time set by Kim Malz of Crossfit 033. She wore a 20-lb. vest for the workout. What a beast. Inspiration!