MDM Excelsior: Ass Moves Mass

Before I launch into what will (hopefully) be a lighthearted and amusing post, let me get serious.  Today's workout, Memorial Day Murph, is in honor of and to benefit the men and women who sacrifice their lives and their health for our country.  This year MDM Excelsior benefited Pain Free Patriots, an organization that provides funding for wounded veterans to get treatment for chronic pain.  I have a bit more empathy for chronic pain patients now; while my hamstring pain is nothing compared to what some of these people deal with, after dealing with hamstring and leg pain for nine months now I do now know how frustrating and depressing it can be to have pain on a daily basis just from simple everyday activities like sitting, driving, and walking.  So I was very happy to be able to have a small part in helping raise money for this organization, and to do something in honor of our servicemen and women.

Now, on with the show...

People who lift weights have a saying: "Ass moves mass."  And it's true; as your glutes get stronger your butt gets bigger and a bigger butt can, therefore, lift more weight. When the "mass" to be moved is the ass in question, though, things get complicated--and bigger is no longer necessarily better.

This is the situation I found myself in today, doing the Memorial Day Murph workout in Excelsior for the second year.

Last year CrossFit SISU put on a really cool event, MDM Excelsior.  The event is a benefit workout to raise money for veterans (last year a scholarship fund, this year Pain Free Patriots).  The workout, Murph,  looks like this:

Last year I did the event with a partner, had a blast, and vowed to try to do it solo this year.  My hamstring is still a bit cranky with running but air squats aren't a problem and I've been working on my pushups and pullups, so it seemed doable.  I even did half the event in a WOD at SISU one day, and then did 3/4 of the workout on my own another day.  It all went well, and I was looking forward to being able to complete all the reps "as prescribed;" that is, without modifying.

That is, until menopause began kicking--and widening--my ass.

OK, this may be TMI, but what the heck.  I'm technically through menopause but apparently the fun hormonal changes continue on for, oh, the rest of one's life, and so the past few weeks I've been dealing with (among other things) PMS-level food cravings.  And by "dealing with" I mean "eating everything in sight."  Not surprisingly, this has resulted in weight gain--at least five pounds in the past couple weeks.

Now, five pounds may not sound like much, but when you have to pull that weight up with your arms until your chin is over a pullup bar--and do it 100 times--trust me, it's a lot. And since I haven't done many pullups since I've, um, expanded, I haven't had a chance to train my muscles to get used to the extra weight.  When the "Elite" competitors put on a weight vest (20 pounds for the men, 13 for the women) to complete the workout, we call them awesome.  When I grow my own weight vest before the event, I believe "stupid" is a better adjective.

But I didn't seem to be able to stop eating and I was already signed up for the event, so there was nothing to do but do it.  So this morning at 11:40 am I found myself standing with the other women in the "Rx" wave, waiting to be sent off on our run.

Rx women.  I'm in the gray tank top to the left

of the woman with pink on her shirt.

And here we are, swearing to Coach Jason that our

chins will rise above the bar, our butts will drop below our knees, 

and our pushups will be plank-like and perfect.  According to 

Hubby Jim, who spectated the event, there must have been

a lot of fingers crossed during the oath...

So  we set off on the run.  I knew from previous runs at CrossFit that trying to run fast would do nothing but aggravate my leg, so I started at the back of the pack and pretty much stayed there.  And then when I got back to the rig I had to dig through my bag of hand protectors to find the ones I wanted and set up a crate that Jim had brought so that I could reach the too-high pullup bar and then I scrounged up some chalk and took a drink and, well, by the time I got started on my pullups and pushups and squats, everyone else had probably done at least two rounds of each.

There's got to be a good caption for this,

but for the life of me

I can't come up with it

I started by breaking the workout into sets of 5 pullups, 5 pushups, 8 squats, 5 pushups, and 7 squats.  Completing one round of this would allow me to check off 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 squats from the 20 sets listed on the score sheet.  After just the first round, though, I knew I was in trouble.  The pushups and squats felt fine, but the pullups...well, there were problems already.  The bar was slippery, it was hard to get set up properly when I grabbed onto the bar while standing on the box, and when I actually did the pullups--they felt hard.  Very hard.

In the past few weeks I've finally learned to kip a bit, and when I did the 3/4 Murph at SISU a few weeks ago I was able to do 75 pullups in unbroken sets of 5.  Today, though, for all but a couple sets my kip left me and I was back to floundering and flailing and completing only one or two pullups at a time.

Look familiar? I think we've seen that

technique before...

So I slogged along, struggling on the pullups and more or less resting on the pushups and squats. By the time I got to my 70th pullup I was having to make two or more attempts for each successful pullup.  (By this time pretty much all of the other women were done and the rig was filled with men from the Rx wave. Or actually, the first two of three Rx waves.  I was there for a long time.)  I could tell that I was close to simply being unable to complete any more pullups, so I rested completely for five minutes or so to see if I could get my arms working again.  But the rest was only moderately successful, and after five more (sort of) pullups, I knew I couldn't do any more and I'd have to modify the remaining 25.  So I did the last 25 jumping up from a box, finished my last pushups and squats, and set off on the final mile run.  And one hour and 27 minutes after I started, I finally approached the finish line.

I don't look like I'm having fun, do I?

My assessment of my performance; some good,

some bad.

In the end, I'm glad I did the event.  I'm proud that I got as far as I did, disappointed that I had to modify the final pullups, and grateful that, nine months to the day since my crash and injury, I'm able to do fun stuff like this again.  I'm happy that I could help support a worthy cause, hugely appreciative of Jim for coming out and supporting me, and also appreciative of all the SISU coaches and volunteers who made this event possible. And I'm already planning to do the event next year...I'm just hoping that next year there will be a little less of me doing it.