BD Murphy Challenge

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Finally or dreadfully? -- The birthday month is here again. Was contemplating a Murph Challenge for the longest time. Started thinking about it again and started working out mentally what is needed... a

"No Training" Birthday Murph Challenge.

To be honest, I wasn't very convinced if I could make it. Then there is the consideration of doing just bodyweight or with a 20lb vest. And how to load it up to 20lb as my fixed vest at home is only 5kg (11lb).

"No training" just means it will be relying on whatever has been built up from my daily workouts of the past 2 years. No specific training for the challenge. Kinda like what was done for my first Spartan Sprint last year.

Comparing to the Spartan event last August, the assessment is having better strength endurance, helped by less chronic injury baggage by now. Namely the left shoulder and both elbows.

In a way these "no training" self-challenges is justa way to gauge how far the consistency of regular workouts has taken me. Sort of a fitness benchmark, a "r bodyweight pullings. But in any of these, I have never hit 100 reps. Only difference is today I'm gonna do the pulls as part of splits with push and squats in between the two 1 Mile Runs.

 05PullUps-10PushUps-15Airsquats  x 20 sets

Couple of other things came to mind. Although timing wasn't much of a priority/ goal but like any challenges, it's inevitable that we would still want to know how fast we can complete right?. Knowing I'm not gonna make it in the Elite level which is between 35-40 mins, was just hoping to come in at sub 1 hour.

With that in mind, I thought the best way to shave time was to sprint through the two 1 mile section. 5kg added for that kind of distance doesn't seem too much.

 

Takeaways

All this planning and structuring what to do before hand mostly worked out. But...

 

  • Going fast on the first 1 mile wasn't a great idea. Winded!. Hence whatever timing that was shaved just gotten piled back into resting before the Pull-Push-Squats circuits.
  • The split worked well. Pull and Push being an antagonistic superset in itself helps in fatigue recovery between sets while squats works on the other half of the body after these two.
  • Brickwall-- Started not long after the first few sets.
  • Pull Ups, my biggest concern before starting, was in fact rather manageable. 5 reps each time and did it with a steady tempo. Not rushing.
  • Killer was the squats! and getting light headed after PushUps each time
  • 2nd 1 mile run in the finale became the hardest-- because of the squats. Never thought it would be this way!

As seen in the first 1 mile, (pace in my watch in metric),


04:56 min/km equiv. to 07:56 min /Mile

and the final mile is


Legs were cramping up after the 20 sets of  Pull-Push-Squats. Again I have not been loading up with enough salt/ electrolytes which is quite typical of me. Will have to take this into account the next time. But I think it really was the squats that did me in during the last mile, taxing different leg muscles in running vs those utilized in the squatting.

The light-headedness during squats after getting up from the pushup was something I totally didn't see coming! This caused a bit more lost time as I had to recover a little longer in between sets.

Next time?

Will change the sequence and do Squat-Pull-Push instead. For the first mile run-- slow it down to 

06:00 Min./km (09:39 Min./Mile)

Probably stick to the 5kg vest again in order to have a comparison to this first Murph Challenge.







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