MURPH 2015

In the CrossFit community we take the time to step back and honor our fallen heroes by doing WOD’s in their memory. As of the date of this post, there are 132 work out’s posted on the CrossFit Website and yesterday over 100 people in our box participated in Murph.

Murph is in honor of Lt. Michael Murphy (who is listed 3rd on the link above) and consists of: 1 mile run, 100 Pull Ups, 200 Push Ups, 300 Air Squats and finishing with a mile run, for time. Oh and if you have a 20# vest, you’re encouraged to wear it. Murph has become synonymous with CrossFit and a vast majority of boxes will program it on Memorial Day.

Why Memorial Day? Well, Memorial Day isn’t supposed to be about a 3-Day weekend drinking beer and grilling, its intended purpose is for us to take a moment and honor those who gave their lives for our freedom. So in the CrossFit world, we do a grueling work out to give us the tiniest taste of what our hero’s bodies go through to allow us to complain about our “1st world problems”.

I am not the kind of athlete that can RX Murph but I am the kind of athlete that can scale the crap out of it and still feel a ton of suffering and pain. My scale of Murph this year was 50 ring rows, 50 push-ups, 100 air squats and no scaling of the runs. My WOD time was moved up from 7pm to 10am and my body always protests that because I structure my eating around my WODs and it throws me off completely.

So, starting off on a poorly hydrated and nourished body, I did my first run with a time of 12:10, which is probably an abysmal time for most but for me, I will take it! I worked up a killer sweat, pushed through my ring rows, push-ups and air squats and headed out for my second run. The running is the worst for me and after doing the work in between the runs, the second run is just nasty.

I don’t know what time I got out the door to start my second run but I was really nauseous and dying of thirst and my feet were working up some blisters from my rarely worn running shoes. In the mist of my misery I was reminded of the movie Lone Survivor, which tells the story of what Lt. Michael Murphy and his team endured. If you haven’t seen it, watch it, it’s heart breaking and gut wrenching and you should have an idea of what our soldiers go through.

Thinking of that movie, those men and why I was actually doing this WOD (not for a PR) really pushed me through. I kept thinking, my GOD, I am complaining about being thirsty and a blister on my foot when I have it so good. As I sit here today with quads so sore I am questioning how badly I want to get up for lunch, I am so blessed. I have never had to fight for my country, I have never had to sleep on the ground in a war zone, I have never had to survive off MRE’s and I have never lost a loved one doing so.

Thank you to all that have served and that continue to do so. Thank you to all those families that have suffered the ultimate loss of a loved one committing such a selfless act. Thanks be to God that I had the luxury to do this WOD in the honor of such a great man and I look forward to being able to put in more work next year in his honor.