"The Murph"

10/15/08 WOD The Murph
Run 1 mile
100 pull ups
200 push ups
300 air squats
Run 1 mile

Break up sets as needed

The first time I attempted this was 9/11/08 at Crossfit, Monrovia.
At that time, I was still new to Crossfit. Everyday was hugely challenging. I became very aware that although tall and thin, I was NOT in shape. And my worst body part was my arms. I remember my first day for the warm-up we had to do 10 pushups. It literally took me almost 3 minutes to complete! How embarrassing!

Enter "The Murph" wherein I would be asked to do 100 pullups (also virtually impossible for me) and 200 pushups among other things.

I could barely do 20 girl style pushups at this point; now you want me to do 200? It was SO hard! I struggled and struggled to get through these. My arms started to give out on me when I still had about 100 pushups to go. Literally, I could barely do even one more. At one point, I just started bawling! No one was in the room (because they were already all running their 2nd mile--while I struggled alone). I just cried and cried while I did my last 50 air squats--still having 30 pushups to go.(I had completed the pull-ups at this time.)

Mikey, a trainee, was the only one who saw me cry--thank god! Anyway, I pushed through the squat while crying. I was humiliated and humbled.

Eric, one of the owners (who is such a cool guy) helped push me through my last set of pushups. The last 10, I did "half" girl pushups. That's how hard I was struggling to do this.

My time to complete the entire Murph was something like 1 hr 20 mins. I was the worst in the class! Everyone else had long completed.

Today, just barely 1 month later, I am visiting Wilmington, NC. I have been attending Crossfit here with a terrific group of people. I broke this up today into 10 sets of 10 Pull Ups, 20 Push Ups and 30 Squats. I managed 40 real what I call "man style" pushups before needing to revert to pushups on my knees. I did all my pullups with a giant rubberband, but I did them. And it was only the last 10 which were nearly impossible. I'd do one, then have to rest, one then have to rest.

But I got through all my damned pushups! No crying! And my arms, although tired, didn't give out on me this time. This is a huge improvement!

I knocked off a lot of time!!

Today I finished in 1 hr 7 mins.

What a win!