Wow. That Was Harder Than I Thought It Would Be.

And I expected the Murph to be pretty hard.

Wow.

Whew.

So… last night around 6:45, Dave and I went to the hike & bike trail so he could run, and I could use the handrail on the walking path near the Botanical Garden for the inverted pullups that I was dreading. I was armed with chalk to keep count of my pullup/pushup/squat reps, but I forgot to measure for an out-and-back run from the Mopac bridge (for the 1-mile run at the start of the Murph), so I just decided to run 10 minutes at the beginning and 10 minutes at the end. Close enough.

We took off, and the 10-minute run was surprisingly pleasant. Then it was time to start the hard part.

My plan was to get through all the reps (100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats) in sets like this:

  • 10 pullups
  • 20 pushups
  • 30 squats
  • REPEAT 10X

My plan was flawed.

I thought the pullups were going to be the hard part. I was wrong.

Wrong.

It was the pushups that were a misery.

After 6 or so rounds of my plan, I got smarter and alternated like this:

  • 10 pushups
  • 10 squats
  • 10 pullups
  • 10 squats
  • 10 pushups
  • 10 squats

I’m not so proud that I can’t admit this: on round 7, 8, and 9, I might have been crying a little bit. Just a little. Out of frustration and wanting to be done and feeling like I was made of lead but not wanting to give up. If you go to the railing, you can see my chalk marks on the ground: 5 on the left side, 5 on the right side. I switched sides so that I could try to trick myself into thinking the second set of 5 was actually the first: “It’s just five little sets. Your arms are fresh! Your legs aren’t tired.” That trick only halfway worked.

The final 10-minute run was less fun than the beginning, but around minute six, my legs loosened up and I think I smiled. Once.

All told, my adventure took me 52:30 — 20 minutes total running and an appalling 32:30 to do the middle section.

But woot! I did 100 inverted pullups, 200 pushups, and 300 squats.

So the clock can suck it.

Back at the car, sweating, guzzling water, and half-heartedly stretching, I remembered the burpees.

It was Day 8 of the 100 Day Burpee Challenge.

Yes, I did them. And they were damn good ones, too.

 

 

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