A Man Named Murph

I haven't really delved much into Crossfit since starting up this new blog, but this weekend gives me a good reason to finally do so. We took on a well known workout this weekend called Murph that has a really powerful story behind it.

I mentioned in the old blog, if you followed it, that there are several different kinds of workouts we do at Crossfit. Some are just your basic WOD (workout of the day) that are combinations of exercises designed to develop Crossfitters towards a primary goal-- functional fitness. While I promise to spend some time writing about functional fitness (its a fascinating topic), Crossfit sums up the goal of functional fitness as being able to "move large loads over long distances quickly." Under that overarching goal and objective, some workouts stand out as particularly noteworthy, and many fall under one of 2 noteworthy groups-- "Hero Workouts" and "The Girls." Hero workouts are named for people who were killed in the line of duty, either in Iraq or Afghanistan or even a few in service back here in the US for the police, etc. The Girls are workouts that are named for the many notable women that have been influential in the creation of Crossfit over the many years. People typically use The Girls as benchmarks ("whats your Fran time?") and the Hero Workouts as rally points where you know you are going to have to put it all out there to get through.

This weekend, my Crossfit affiliate took on Murph, a Hero Workout named in honor of Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy of Patchogue, NY who was killed in Afghanistan in June 2005. Murph, as he was known to his fellow Seals, received several honors including the Purple Heart and the Medal of Honor for his service and the story of his death is an amazing one. One of his favorite workouts, that he called "Body Armor" became one of the most popular Crossfit workouts to date, and is one that most affiliates do at least annually, if not twice in a year. Murph apparently did this workout wearing his 20lbs of body armor, thus giving it the name he used until it was memorialized by a crossfit workout in his honor in August 2005.

Murph consists of a 1 mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and another 1 mile run. Many people do it wearing a weight vest of 20 lbs. This past weekend, I got my first taste of Murph.

As with any high-rep pull-up workout, you expect your hands will rip open. Callouses are one thing we get used to, but high rep pull up workouts inevitably mean your callouses will tear off. I had this happen to me several weeks ago, right in the very center of my hand and boy did it hurt (I included a fun pic I took after cleaning it all up a little, just so you can see what I mean). I discovered since the wonders of gymnastics grips and managed to spare my hands this weekend, but I was in a very small minority. This weekend we bled.

As this was my first time taking on Murph, I opted to do a half-Murph, dropping the volume of all the requirements by half. I ran 1/2 a mile, did 50 pull ups, 100 push ups, 150 squats, ran a half a mile. It took me 29:52 to complete. It was an ass kicker. I reached a point several weeks ago that I no longer need assistance for pull-ups, but this high a volume I went for the slightest bit of support (a long white rubberband) that would offset just a little of my weight. In order to make it more challenging and to compensate for that rubberband, I worked my pull-ups to the Chest-to-Bar standard, instead of the Chin-to-Bar that is acceptable in this kind of volume. The rest was as strict as it comes... it took me a long time to be able to manage chest-to-deck strict push-ups at that volume, but I did well with it and in the end, I am really pleased with my time.

It was amazing to watch some of the activity around this workout. The box (what we call affiliates) was buzzing with excitement for this WOD and in the end we had 36 total competitors for the event. One of our strongest competitors did it with the weight vest and finished the whole thing in 45:45. It was awe inspiring. And an ass kicker.

A workout like this needs a strategy. Turns out that the 3 middle components (the pull-ups, push-ups and squats) did not need to be done in sequential order, so I decided to shoot for 10 rounds of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats. This would allow me to let each component rest for a little while without slowing me down. I never thought I'd live for the squats, but those to me were my saving grace-- if there's one thing I have in spades, its leg strength, so doing 15 squats, while strenuous, was nothing in comparison to the push-ups. The runs felt awesome-- I think I made most of my time up in those runs, despite being very measured in my approach to them-- I didn't go out full throttle on the first run which I think caused a lot of people to gas out in the rest of the workout. In general I felt like I kept a nice consistent pace throughout the whole thing and wound up getting one of the better half Murph times.

I am looking forward to the next time we take on Murph being able to do it as prescribed (as RXed, in Crossfit lingo), but in the meantime, I gotta say, Murph is gonna be a special workout for me for a long time.