Recently, Dave Castro (Director of the CrossFit Games) announced that for a second year in a row, the CrossFit Games will start for the teams and individuals at Hermosa Beach on Wednesday, July 22, and end (for the individuals) in the Tennis Stadium at the Stub Hub Center later that day. Then, on Independence Day, Dave Casto (Director of the CrossFit Games) took to Instagram to reveal the first announced event of the 2015 CrossFit Games:
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In honor of Lt. Michael Murphy, killed June 28, 2005, in Afghanistan:
Murph (as is posted on CrossFit.com) 1-mile run 100 pull-ups 200 push-ups 300 squats 1-mile run Partition the pull-ups, push-ups, and squats as needed. Start and finish with a mile run. If you’ve got a twenty pound vest or body armor, wear it. The knowledge that CrossFit’s most famous Hero workout will be making an appearance at the Games this summer carries on the trend we saw from Regionals earlier this year, where the first two events were also chosen to honor fallen servicemen and women (Randy and Tommy V). This is a great touch from CrossFit HQ, and one can only smile in excitement at the prospect of watching the best athletes our sport has to offer grind their way through the monster workout. But even though we know what one of the events at the Games will be, we still have plenty of questions surrounding the announcement of Murph:
Will Murph be performed on day 1?
Remember, just because Murph is the first announced event of the 2015 Games doesn’t mean it will be the first event we see performed. As was the case last year, the Games will kick off at Hermosa Beach. Now, one could argue that the Games have the capability of setting up the necessary logistics for Murph to be performed on the beach. All they’d need is a rig and a running route—perhaps the run could be performed on the sand? However, at previous Games anytime the athletes have been told to go to the beach, they ended up in the water. We don’t see that changing in the first event, so look for athletes to be swimming in event 1 for the 5th consecutive year. With that being said, we already know that the second event of day 1 will be performed in the tennis stadium at the Stub Hub Center. This follows the same pattern as last year’s Games, where athletes performed the beach workout before resting and returning to the tennis stadium to tackle the Overhead Squat event. A lot of people are assuming that the beach event this year will be paired with a shorter-style workout later in the day, but let’s not forget that in 2013, athletes had to perform a pool workout in the morning before rowing 21,097 meters in the afternoon. There’s every possibility that Castro could do the same again in 2015—or perhaps the beach event will be far shorter than everyone’s expecting. We will have to wait to find out!
Will athletes have to wear vests?
Murph is a workout that’s named after Lt. Michael Murphy, but what some of you may not know is that Murphy created the workout himself while in the Navy—though he named it ‘Body Armor’. The reason why, as you’d expect, is because Murphy wore body armor while performing the entire workout. Today we do the workout in his honor, and those of us who choose to perform Murph as prescribed do it while wearing body armor or a 20lb. weight vest. You have to assume that since Murph is a Hero workout, and that the athletes performing it at the Games are the fittest in our sport, we will see the men and women rocking either body armor or a vest while competing—which will be a first for Games history and awesome to see.
Who will excel in Murph?
It’s always hard to speculate who’s going to do well in what event, especially in long endurance workouts—but Murph is a different animal entirely. Because athletes can partition the pull-ups, push-ups and squats as they please (or so we assume), this workout could come down to strategy. Strategy, and mental fortitude. Still, we can try to have a good guess. The Triple 3 event from last year’s Games and the Burden Run from the 2013 Games are the workouts that best mirror the demands of Murph, so let’s look at who did well in those events and will be competing (as an individual) this summer at the Games:
2013 Burden Run:
MEN: 2nd
Ben Smith 6th
Rob Forte
WOMEN: 3rd
Sam Briggs 5th
Anna Tunnicliffe
2014 Triple Three:
MEN: 1st
Rob Forte 4th
Jacob Heppner
WOMEN: 1st
Kristin Holte 2nd
Anna Tunnicliffe
Yes, it’s a very small sample size, and yes, these two workouts aren’t Murph, but it’s interesting to see that both Forte and Tunnicliffe have historically performed well in the longer events at the Games—especially when running is involved. Perhaps they will shine again during Murph at the 2015 Games.
