Back at it: "Murph"

For those of you who have not had the pleasure to experience the joy that is Crossfit let me give you some knowledge.  There are certain workouts called "Hero WODs".  They are workouts that honor servicemen, police officers, and firemen that have lost their lives in the line of duty.  These WODs are very challenging since they are made to honor these men and women.  On Monday I had the pleasure of being introduced to "Murph".  The prescribed workout is one mile run, 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 squats, and to finish it off one mile run.  Oh yea almost forgot you are doing this while wearing a weighted vest.  The workout is in honor of Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy , 29, of Patchogue, N.Y., who was killed in Afghanistan June 28th, 2005.   This was his favorite workout.

Well since I am not close to being an elite athlete yet and struggle with cardio based workouts I did a half Murph.  So my runs were 800m instead of the full mile.  I started out strong I was able to run first 800m leg without stopping.  I am very proud of this because that is the farthest I have ran without stopping in years.  My plan for the movements was just do as many as I can and then move to the next one and so on and so on until I had finished all of my push up and pull ups and squats.  Then came the last leg of 800 meters. 

I was tired and my arms were dead.  I would run/jog as much as I could and then fast walk.  While fast walking I would think about Murphy and what he and his fellow brothers went through and it would give me the drive to start running again.  Now I am not saying that my struggles compare to his but sometimes you need to focus on something to get you through the wall.  To realize what you are going through is not that terrible at all that it is just a short inconvenience.  I finished strong and completed my WOD in 31 minutes. 

But for me the WOD is not done.  I want to learn more about this man and his fellow brothers.  There is a book that was written about his unit called "Lone Survivor".  I plan on reading it this weekend.  So thank you Murphy for your sacrifice for this country and thank you for making me a better person.