At Any Rate…

Mid pull-up early on.

Yesterday was Memorial Day in the US. And like many fitness folks, I got together with some friends and family and did the Murph workout. Just to recap, this is what it is:

Run 1 mile

Do 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats

Run 1 mile

Oh, and the “real” version is with a weighted vest. I’ve never attempted that. I got my best time a couple years ago when I finished under 40 minutes. Any time under an hour is considered good, under 45 is great, and under 30 is amazing.

This year my goal was to finish under 45. I have been mostly sticking with yoga and occasional HIIT workouts, so I knew I was strong enough but wasn’t sure about my endurance.

There were eight of us who joined in yesterday, including two women who had never attempted Murph before. They were planning on doing “Half-Murph” and one other guy was going to do a “Quarter-Murph”.

Pre-workout pose.

The opening run went well. I finished in about 7:38, which is perfect.

Look how happy I am since it has barely started.

My goal is always to do the runs in 16 minutes total or less, so that gave me some wiggle room for the final mile which is always a slog.

I started into the middle portion with this approach: 5 pushups, 5 pullups, 5 pushups, 15 squats for twenty rounds. Pushups are my bugaboo, so breaking them into two sets of five instead of one set of ten would keep me moving. In the past the set of ten would slow me way down as I had to rest constantly.

It started well, and the pushup strategy was paying off. But I was really feeling the heat and exertion. After just three rounds I noticed my heart rate was spiking over 180 and I was not rebounding quickly from that. I usually keep it under 170 max when working out, and take breaks as needed to keep it lower. Normally I recover in just a few seconds of deep breathing, but this was not helping much today.

I started taking breaks to get my heart rate down before moving on. After ten rounds I finally decided to alter my plans and just took my time, with lots of breaks. At fifteen rounds I threw in the towel and went on the final run with my friend Mike who was just finishing. We walked and jogged and it was perfect. Took a while, but ended up being a good cool down for me.

I was a little disappointed to not finish, but at the same time realized that I did a great job listening to my body and did not push myself too far. Now I have a new goal to start in with low heart rate training to head off any future issues.

And even though I didn’t “finish”, I still feel sore all over today. So that’s a win, right?

After Murph. Not as many smiles. And look how red my face is. Yikes.