For those of you who don’t know, I’m in the middle of a commitment to do 100 “Murphs” in 100 days. You can see what Murph entails in the image above. I’m a quarter of the way there, and I wanted to check in and write about my experience thus far. In no particular order, here are some of the things that have come up for me:
I’m tired, but not that tired.
I was addicted to Adderall for several years, up until 2018 when I got sober from all drugs and alcohol. Adderall destroyed my internal clock and sleep schedule; for the first few years of sobriety (leading up to this experience with Murph), I slept. All the time. Since then, I’ve been convinced I needed more sleep than the average person because of how badly I fucked myself with Adderall use. Turns out, that’s not as true as I thought it was. I’ve been averaging around 5-6 hours of sleep (compared to my normal 7-9), and I still feel great most of the time. I nap very occasionally if I’ve had a particularly long night (a.k.a. Monday night when I started Murph at 2 a.m. after a flight home from Chicago), but overall I’m operating normally. I’m sure this has a lot of factors as to why, but it’s been a powerful experience learning that I can manage just fine with a little less sleep.
My body is capable of crazy shit.
I don’t think it’s any secret that my addiction now is working out (see @modern.bronze on Instagram), and I’ve been fanatically practicing this discipline for years. I always train hard - to the point where people comment that maybe there are some screws loose in my brain (I would have to agree). I thought I was pushing myself to the limit on a daily basis, but boy, was I wrong. I had no idea what my limits were. I’ve been doing a full Murph every day on top of high intensity Strongman/Olympic weightlifting 4x a week. The fucked up part is, although I’ve been sore in places I didn’t know existed, I now feel like I’m capable of even more. I think I’m starting to understand the mentality of Ironman and Ultramarathon runners - I am capable of literally anything, as long as I let myself believe it.
My appetite increased dramatically in the beginning, but returned to normal after 2 weeks.
I thought I would be eating like a human vacuum for the next few months, but after an initial acclimation period, my food intake isn’t that different than before. I do eat a little more, but not as much as I thought.
I’m horny all the time.
This isn’t much different than any other time in my life, but I have noticed an increase in libido. The interesting thing is, it’s also been easier to manage. I’ll leave it at that (maybe I’ll dive into this at a later point).
It took awhile, but I’m starting to get more in touch with my emotions.
I had a wild summer of love and pain, in too many ways to discuss in this article. All seasons change, and when the summer ended so did everything that came with it. For the first three weeks of Murph, I couldn’t really feel anything - I felt numb. Sure enough, things started to loosen up (beating myself to a pulp every day was bound to “unstuck” some things). Today, I cried for the first time in I can’t remember how long. It wasn’t even a sad cry, it was a gratitude cry. I felt alive, in all it’s pain and joy; it was beautiful.
My hypochondria is popping up in subtle but strange ways.
This has been one of the best exercises in facing my hypochondria. I’ve had all kinds of things pop up - acid reflux, pain and soreness in all different kinds of places, weird nerve zaps, you name it. The thing is, I have no choice but to accept what comes and keep pushing forward. In doin that time and time again, I’m starting to learn that all these things that I’ve been afraid of aren’t actually real; there’s life on the other side of whatever comes up for me. It all boils down to three words that I repeat to myself every day: just keep swimming.
I care less about what other people think about me or anything I’m doing.
Once I committed to this, I was all in and there was no looking back. I wondered what people might think of me. In my past life, I would have hidden this from the world and kept it as my little baby monster so no one found out. Now, I could care less who knows, to the point of documenting it every day on my Instagram. This has bled over into other parts of my life - I’m recording all of my crazy lifting, I shot a video in a public gym last week, and I have no problem telling people all the odd things I’m doing. Once again, it turns out it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I’ve gotten more positive reception to everything I’m doing than I ever thought I would.
The question I most often get it is, “Why are you doing this?” After 25 days, I don’t have the answer fully defined, but it’s starting to emerge. I can’t say it’s what I expected. I’m starting to realize that the core of my reasons for doing all of this - 100 days of Murph, writing every day, starting Modern Bronze, etc. - is to deepen my relationship with my Higher Power (a.k.a. God, Universe, Spirit, whatever you wish to call it). That might not make much sense, but I hope I’ll be able to articulate it clearly by day 100. I want to test all of my limits, see what my body, mind and soul are capable of and go to places I never believed I could go. I want to see what’s on the other side of my fear. The universe seems to be pulling me in that direction one day at a time, and all I’m doing is letting it happen. Let’s see how far this rabbit hole really goes.
On to day 26…