F3ENC 2nd Annual Memorial Day Murph

One year ago, on May 25th, F3ENC experienced it’s first Memorial Day as a group. Mellow Johnny was the site Q for “Breakdown”, the Monday morning workouts, at the time. MJ heard from somewhere about a popular workout with Crossfit that a lot of the other F3 groups were doing to honor our fallen soldiers, The Murph. Most of the PAX had never hear of this workout at the time, and when the details of the workout were explained we were all a little intimidated. On that day 13 PAX posted (Mellow Johnny, Book Worm, Bono, Early Bird, Cousin IT, Mugsy (2.0), Shrimp, Papa Smurf, Charlie Brown, Eagle Eye, Moses, and YHC (Gazelle). Not a single one of us even thought of wearing a weighted vest, unlike (at least) 7 crazy bastards this morning.

We led with the Circle of Trust and Ball of Man to allow every man to take part regardless of what time they needed to leave the workout.

YHC made sure the PAX understood the significance of the workout we were all about to partake in. Memorial Day is a day the United States of America, the greatest country on Earth, founded on enlightened principles of justice and liberty for all, remembers those men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice by giving up their lives to protecting our nation. Over the history of our nation the number of these fallen heroes has grown to over 1.3 million. Each of these individuals was a son or daughter, many of these individuals were father’s or mother’s, a few of these individuals were in some way connected to members of the PAX who posted today, and one of these fallen heroes was Lt. Michael Murphy.

“The Murph” is named after Lt. Michael Murphy. It was one of his favorite workouts and he called it “Body Armor” because he would complete the workout wearing 20 lbs of body armor. Murphy was killed in action while taking heroic steps to help save his men during a fire fight with Taliban forces in 2005. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor after his death.

So, YHC encouraged the PAX that when the pain sets in during this workout to let it be a reminder of the sacrifices others have made for us to be able to gather here today and do what we are doing.

The Murph
1 mile run
100 pull ups
200 merkins
300 squats
1 mile run

Moleskin
Today, for the 2nd annual Memorial Day Murph, the numbers nearly doubled, from 13 PAX to 24. Today was considered a convergence because both AOs combined. Last year there was no convergence because there was only one AO. As our numbers grow and F3ENC matures, it is important we are intentional about developing and maintaining traditions. Traditions help us define ourselves as a group and highlights what is important to us. Today’s workout highlighted the core values of F3; fitness (we had a kickass workout), fellowship (the PAX spent time encouraging one another), and faith (we were honoring men who died for something bigger than themselves).