By By Peter Delannoy
May 28, 2017: My birthday-59 today
Post Murph: I’m sore. Here is a short video of our antics at Octane CrossFit yesterday: the Murph WOD 5-27-2017.
May 27, 2017: Murph Day; 8:00 a.m.
Today is the day. Coffee, fruit, Ibuprofen. I’ve got an injury in my left Achilles tendon that is acting up this morning and I’m hoping that I won’t be stopped in the running portion of the Murph.
May 27, 2017 Update at 2:00 p.m.
I completed the Murph in 53 minutes with scaled pull ups and scaled push ups. My strategy was to break up the reps into 20 rounds of 5 pull ups, 5 push ups, 15 squats, 5 push ups. I tapped the floor for each pull up and used knees to floor for the push ups. For the running I wore a CamelBak and interspersed fast walking (20 steps) in between running approximately 200 meter sections.
May 25, 2017: Two days before Murph
Up at first light I drank two cups of strong coffee cut with half-and-half. I like my coffee strong. I have a friend who used to say, “This coffee would knock a buzzard off a shit wagon.” And that’s how I like my coffee. After the first sip I like to pretend that I can hear the buzzards squawking and the loud beat of their wings as they lift into the sky just to return later so we can do it all over again tomorrow morning. As I sip my brew I am contemplating Murph–arguably one of the hardest workouts in CrossFit.
In three days I turn 59 and as a gift to myself I want to complete the workout called Murph. Murph is a Hero workout from the Navy SEALs and is named for Michael Patrick “Murph” Murphy who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic action against the Taliban that cost him his life. Murphy’s story was told in the movie “Lone Survivor” and the Murph, as it is known in CrossFit, was his favorite workout.
Not only do I want to pay my respects to Michael P. Murphy for his selfless sacrifice to our country but I also want to complete the Murph because it is a benchmark for me. I started CrossFit ten months ago and this workout is a rights to passage. A leap to a new level of fitness that is important for my progression to better health and fitness in general. I have trained hard for this and I am excited for this important test of my mettle.
Here is a description of the Murph workout:
- 1 mile run
- 100 pull ups
- 200 push ups
- 300 squats
- 1 mile run
*for the full effect wear a twenty pound vest
Any mortal can see that Murph is a serious undertaking. The fastest time that I found posted on the internet was sub-twenty minutes. For all I know, there could be faster times out there somewhere, but sub-20 is a blazing speed. Participants that are relatively new to CrossFit will most likely take longer than sixty minutes to complete this array of vicious elements.
In any case, my goal is to finish the workout in a reasonable time frame which may be somewhere in a 90 minute range and I’m not wearing the twenty pound vest–maybe next year for that additional stressor.
Below is a collage of photos representing the last few weeks of training at my box: Octane CrossFit:
For tips on succeeding with Murph see WODprep.
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