I’ve known about the Memorial Murph for only the past year. I meant to do it last year, but was just starting with cross-fit and never got around to it. It hadn’t even occurred to me that it was coming up again until I was reminded that today was Memorial day (where has the time gone!), and that means the Murph challenge!
I honestly woke up with no intention of doing the Murph today, but for some reason the memory popped up and I didn’t even hesitate to do it. I looked up the workout online, grabbed my yoga mat and pull-up bar, and headed right outside.
What is The Murph
The Murph is an annual fundraiser of the LT. Michael P. Murphy Memorial Scholarship Foundation in which participants pay tribute and are often from the cross-fit crowd – the workout is insane. Here’s what it entails:
- 1 mile rune
- 100 pull-ups
- 200 push-ups
- 300 squats
- 1 mile run
All of this while wearing a weighted vest or body armor. It’s one intense workout.
My experience doing the Murph
The first mile run was not all that bad, in-fact, after not timing my miles since high school gym, I was surprised to come in with a 7:40 mile. Next was the pull-ups… not so easy. I maxed out at 10 pull-ups per attempt, and by 50 I could barely pull myself up off the ground. I had to switch to Australian pull-ups, where my body is more at an angle. I did an extra 10 to account for the assistance.
The push-ups were deadly. Unlike the pull-ups and squats, the push-ups don’t really make my heart feel like it’s going to explode out of my body, however, after just completing 100 pull-ups things got hard at around 75. From there I was able to do around 5-10 per attempt which definitely slowed me down. At this point, my mind was honestly getting ready to stop and give up. The voice in my head was telling me “you can stop here, you’ve done well so far, you haven’t worked out for the last 3 days and this was really good to get back into it.” I almost quit, at least I could say I did a half Murph, right? Thankfully, I didn’t.
The squats were the worst of all. Normally, I can fly through squats, but by this point my body was hurting, my energy was spent. I was doing 30 squats per attempt and my legs were on fire at the end of each. My heart was racing, I was breathing heavily, and I felt like I was going to throw up after each set. My mind was again telling me I can stop here. It was using praise as a way to get me to stop the journey – what a sneaky little thing!
My last mile run consisted of pains in my stomach (at that point I was definitely not breathing deep and proper breaths), a feeling of complete exhaustion, and the uncertainty of me falling on my face because my legs felt like steel beams after the squats. But I did it. And I finished the 2020 Memorial Day Murph with a time of 54 minutes and 32 seconds.
What I learned from the Murph
The Murph taught me a lot about pushing myself, the tendencies of my mind, and definitely helped me develop discipline. The biggest takeaway I had was that it is always the mind that wants to quit before the body.
Again.
The mind will try to make you quit, even though your body is capable of much more.
I think that’s a huge realization. Our minds want to keep us safe, and anything that makes us uncomfortable shoots red flags throughout our body to get us to stop. During the Murph, my mind was coming up with so many reasons as to why it would be ok to stop here, to fall short of the full challenge. My body on the other hand, still had the capacity to keep going, even if I just needed a little break here and there.
It’s all about the mind, the thoughts you allow yourself to believe, the limitations you place on yourself. We are all limitless beings yet we limit ourselves – this is something I’d like to continue to dive into. What else can I accomplish? What else am I holding myself back from?
Use this lesson in your own life
When you understand that it is your mind that places limitations on you – it decides how far you get in your career, it decides how happy you are in your relationships, it decides how you show up in the world – you can start to become aware and change your very belief systems.
I talk a lot about the power law of attraction and manifestation and at the very core of that stuff is your unconditional belief in what you want to attract. The body always achieves what the mind believes. So don’t limit yourself.
Start to recognize that voice inside your head and take away its power. Give it a silly name and accent – make it like someone annoying that you would never ever listen to. Write out the beliefs you think to be true and access if they are really based in reality (they often aren’t). Then rewrite those beliefs – you get to choose your beliefs, you get to choose where your focus and energy goes. Choose the limitless thoughts and embrace your true power.
Have you ever done the Murph?
What was your experience with the Murph like?
Did you have any big takeaways?
Let me know in the comments!
