I knew that it would be impractical. I knew that it would be painful. I knew, from the depths of my soul, that I would hate every minute of it, but I had to do it. As a Penn State student and military brat, I had no other option. This week, I got my wiggles out with the most notorious CrossFit WOD of them all- the no good, dirty, rotten, Murph.
Named after famous Navy Seal and Penn State grade Ryan Murphy, the Murph is a hellish fitness challenge in which one runs a mile, does 300 air squats, 200 push ups, and 100 pull ups only to finish by running another mile. It was adopted by CrossFit and has gained popularity among athletes, fitness enthusiasts, and military personal all over the world.
Murph became famous after he was portrayed in the film “Lone Survivor”, which tells the story of “Operation Red Wings”, the mission in which he met his demise. As you may know, Murph went to Penn State, graduating with a double major in political science and psychology. If you ever find yourself walking between Willard and the Hub, then you likely have seen that strange curved white wall with what I believe are Hebrew letters on it. This is actually a monument to Murphy and other veterans from Penn State, and was a gift from the class of 2011. Passing the wall everyday served as inspiration for me to do our local hero’s favorite workout.
I decided to do the challenge later on Sunday, so that I could go to bed right afterward. Unfortunately, all my friends are weenies and could not be convinced to do it with me, so I went stag. I headed to the IM and planned things out. I was to start on the indoor track upstairs and then head down to the lifting area where I would do my calisthenics. One saving grace of the calisthenic portion is that you can subdivide the three movements in any order so long as you did the required amount of each exercise. I elected to go for 20 rounds of 15 squats, 10 push ups and 5 pull ups. Naturally, I would return to the track for my second mile afterwords.
My immediate first impression was that I hate indoor tracks. Given that they are half the size, indoor tracks require a full 8 laps for a mile rather then an outdoor track’s required 4. I found the constant revolving to be a bit dizzying. After mile 1, I was pretty winded, but was still full of energy and excitement.
My excitement started to wane after the 5th round of calisthenics, when pull-ups became hard and my elbow started creaking. I kept a pretty decent pace until the 10th round when I started to slow. I took a quick bathroom break (don’t you dare judge me) after round 15 and then dragged myself through the last 5 at the pace of a snail.
The last mile was a hellish experience. Granted, running a fast mile is always terrible, but doing one after having ran one early and doing hella body weight exercises is a special kind of uncomfortable. At the end, I was covered in sweat, and walking with the stiffness of a robot. Nevertheless, I was glad to have chosen such an engaging feat to attempt for the sake of my last blog post.
I’m glad you were able to extract some positive emotion from this experience. Personally, I think it sounds like a method of torture that I would not subject myself to. On another note, the writing on the memorial you mentioned is actually Greek for “with it, or on it,” which pertains to the shields of Spartan warriors. Apparently, this was a phrase that Spartan mothers would say to their sons before they went to battle.