admin said:
Mark Zukerberg apparently did it in just under 40:00 with a 20lb LBV on, which, as I understand it - is a really good time with that weight on.
https://nypost.com/2023/05/30/mark-zuckerberg-marks-memorial-day-with-murph-challenge/
Indeed, that is an outstanding time. There are very few people in the world who could do that.
https://wodprep.com/blog/good-time-murph-workout/
The "Rx" (prescribed) way to do it is (A) with a weighted vest, and (B) with the calisthenics part done all at once: 100 pullups, then 200 pushups, then 300 squats. Most humans can't do that. (That's the point; Michael Murphy was superhuman. Read Lone Survivor. What he and his comrades did on that mountain in Afghanistan was superhuman.)
Us normal mortals can make it more attainable by (A) dropping the weighted vest and/or (B) partitioning the calisthenics. The most common partition is 5/10/15 X 20 sets.
“I did a partitioned Murph with a bunch of sets with smaller reps of each alternating. Still challenging, but my Rx time would be a lot slower.”
That prompted one commenter to reply: “So you didn’t really do it is what you are saying.”
Sour apples. I am no fan of Mark Zuckerberg, but he did it, and he crushed it. (People lie, of course, but I trust the New York Post reporters to have checked it out. They did the Hunter Biden laptop story.)
I did a partitioned Murph (5/10/15 X 20), without the vest. My time was 58. Zuckerberg is 39 years old. I am 72, with arthritis in my hands that aches when I do pullups, bad knees that ache when I do squats, and a bad back that sends an electric shock to my spine on every step with my right foot. 58 minutes just about killed me -- which is the point. The goal of doing Murph on Memorial Day is to try to make yourself feel just a tiny fraction of the suffering that Murph and millions of other soldiers over the centuries have felt.
A "good time" to do Murph is not measured in minutes. It is the speed at which you get to the point where you say to yourself "I can't go on; I have to stop and rest"; but you don't stop and rest -- you stagger through to the end. For some people that is 40 minutes. For some people, it's 2 hours. But so long as you get to the point where you feel like you can't go on, but you go on anyway, then you have "done it" in a good time. Props to Zuckerberg for doing it.
...
If you can make your heart and bone and sinew
Serve your turn long after they have gone
And so, go on till there is nothing in you
Except the Will that says to them, "Hold on."
...
If, Rudyard Kipling, 1895
Who's in for next year?
