Murph

Husband and I joined a few of my CrossFit athletes to do Murph on Saturday morning. It was quite the hellacious experience, just like last year.

"Murph" aka "Body Armor"
For time:
1 mile run
100 pullups
200 pushups
300 air squats
1 mile run

Partition the pullup, pushups and squats as needed. Start and finish with a mile run. If you've got a twenty pound vest or body armor, wear it.

 Results: ~80 minutes -- I was laying on the ground and didn't personally look at the stopwatch, and the only time I heard said out loud was "an hour and 20 minutes". I guess that's as exact as it needs to be in that time domain. :)

This was a 10 minute PR for me. Definitely came from improvement on pullups.

Like the last time I did this, I ran a separate stop watch which I started after returning from the first mile run. I partitioned the work into 20 rounds of 5 pullups, 10 pushups and 15 squats. Having that second watch helps me gauge how well I'm doing with moving through my sets without taking too much rest.

5 rounds competed -- 9:25
10 rounds completed -- 22:59 (9 rounds completed at 20 mins)
16 rounds completed -- 42:20
20 rounds completed -- 55:38
Avg/round: ~2:45

Pullups were absolutely spot-on -- all 20 sets I did 5 reps. And they were all GOOD, chin way over. Didn't use grips or any tape, except in the last 2 sets I wore my left hand grip because my left hand ring finger callous ripped a bit. This is a huge departure from last time, when I had tape grips on both hands, and ended up ripping open a bunch of spots on my hands and fingers.

Pushups were... UGH. Every time I came to these, it was a mental battle to get them done. I think that pushups defeat me mentally more than physically. With pullups in hand these need to become a main focus. It's not as "sexy and cool" to do tons of good pushups, but so necessary...

Squats were consistent, but not fast. I only broke 1 or 2 sets for rest, and that was in the last 5 rounds.

--
I guess LT. Michael Murphy should have been my mental inspiration, but what mentally drove me to persevere and complete this workout was thinking about the American Widow Project. I had seen a post on their Facebook page in the morning before we went to meet the group to do the WOD. And I made it my goal that when I felt horrible, I would think about how lucky I am to be doing this workout side-by-side with my husband, who has come back from war safely 3 times now. I'm sure those widows would go through any amount of painful experiences to be able to spend time with their husbands again. So I dedicated my workout to them. They are the unspoken heroes that I will remember this Memorial Day.

Alive and kicking

Um, WTF?  How have I gone this long without posting anything here?

Maybe it has something to do with the unpublished draft post titled "Lost: CrossFit Mojo"...

I've still been doing WODs, but definitely not anything close to my dedicated 3-on-1-off I had going for a while.

I got a pullup bar for at home, as well as rings, and the pool I've been lifeguarding at also has a pullup bar that I've been using a lot. I'm working my tiny kip / almost deadhang pullups since that bar is mounted very close to the wall. I get 30 minute breaks throughout the day, and try to do 5 rounds of a Cindy-ish thing -- as many pullups as I can in a row (3-4 usually), 10 pushups and 20 squats.

That must be working, because last Tuesday I did Murph and managed to finish the whole thing. Definitely without the weight vest though! It took me about 90 minutes, and I broke the 100 pullups, 200 pushups and 300 squats into 20 rounds of Cindy. Finished 12 rounds of Cindy in 20 minutes, BTW. Much better than my pitiful performance (7 rounds + 5 pullups) a couple months ago.

Also, I've worked up to 4 unassisted ring dips in a row. It's time to get a freaking muscle up! But I have a new strategy in that area. I would like to start with doing a strict muscle up, instead of trying to fling myself up and into it. We'll see if I stick with that idea, but it's the one I'm thinking about now.

--
I'm in a bit of a different place with my CrossFitting right now... It's coming up on a year since I really started dedicating myself to this program, and I've definitely seen lots of benefits. But a few things have happened in the last 4 or 5 months that have squelched some of my enthusiasm. The sad thing is that those things are all external, and I have let them affect me. I need to get refocus on what matters to me, what motivates me, why I want to CrossFit, and why I want to coach -- irregardless of whatever else is going on around me.

--
Also, I'd like to mention that I'm on a 2nd read of the book "Women, Food and God" by Geneen Roth right now, and I highly recommend it to those who have struggles with compulsive overeating. That's an area that I struggle with, and more so when I'm not super-focused on training.

--
So, hopefully this will get me started with some more regular posting. Not because I think anyone out there is really anxious to read about my WODs (except maybe Angie, thanks for the email girl :p), but because I need to continue to keep this record.

A closing link from CrossFit Fenway: On Blogging.