5 lessons from The Murph Challenge

Yesterday was Memorial Day. That meant people would be honoring the memory of those whom have given their lives in service to the United States. A few years ago a workout was setup to honor those men and women and named after Lt.Michael Murphy who gave his life during Operation Redwings while trying to call in help for his team. Thus the Murph Challenge was created. I'd heard of the Murph Challenge and had seen people posting photos and video of them completing it on the internet. This year I was invited to accept the challenge by my brother and sister in law. Here are a few things I learned yesterday.

1)My body can do far more than I ever thought possible. I'm in decent shape. I don't work out often aside from running the back pasture at my house, unless you count cleaning stalls and moving sacks of feed. But let me tell you what the full challenge entails.

1 mile run
100 pullups
200 pushups
300 squats
1 mile run
(Completed in 20lb vest or body armor)

I knew that I wouldn't be able to finish a full Murph. The running is easy, the pullups not so much. So my brother challenged me just to do a quarter at the least. That was 1 mile run,25 pullups, 50 pushups, and 75 squats. So that is exactly what I did. I broke mine into a circuit so I did reps of each exercise until completion rather than all my pullups at once. By my fifth round I thought I was going to vomit. I finished my quarter Murph and that was that. I didn't honestly expect to even complete that much, I just wanted to go in and do whatever I possibly could.

2)Servicemen and women are in astounding shape. How they walk around in body armor and do the things they do, especially when deployed in the heat of the Middle East is beyond me. It was warm here yesterday but nothing compared to their normal temperatures and I was only in a vest.

3)I was able to stop when I wanted. I had the luxury of saying enough is enough. They don't get to do that. They have a mission and they complete that mission or die trying. The word hard isn't in their vocabulary.

4)The Murph Challenge, as hard it was, cannot compare to the beating they put their bodies through daily. It involved no bullets, no bombs, no one was trying to kill me while I did push-ups or ran. I did it in honor of these men and women but I also did it for fun. I wasn't in a do or die situation. I certainly had adrenaline flowing but it was because of the exercise and not because I could die if I wasn't careful. These men and women are tough and they deserve to be respected.

5)I highly enjoy pushing myself and despite the soreness from yesterday's workout am looking forward to doing the Murph next year. I also plan on being in better shape when the time comes. Working out is fun, but its more fun when you have people with you and a reason to do it that isn't so much about yourself.

Pre-Murph in the vest

During the run