Workout Description

Why This Workout Is Extremely Hard

A grueling test of endurance, the Marathon Row was Event #4 of the 2018 CrossFit Games. Athletes row 42,195 meters (a full marathon distance) for time, pushing their physical and mental limits over several hours. It has a 4-hour time cap.

Benchmark Times for Marathon Row

• Elite: <172:30
• Advanced: 180:01-195:01
• Intermediate: 210:01-225:01
• Beginner: >255:01

Training Focus

This workout develops the following fitness attributes:

• Endurance (10/10): For time: 42,195m row (4-hour cap). This is the ultimate test of rowing endurance, demanding exceptional cardiovascular capacity, muscular endurance, pacing discipline, and extreme mental toughness over several hours.
• Stamina (10/10): Requires elite-level full-body muscular endurance to sustain a rowing stroke for a full marathon distance. Legs, core, upper back, arms, and grip will be pushed to their absolute limits of stamina.
• Flexibility (2/10): Basic rowing mechanics are needed, but maintaining them under extreme fatigue and for such a prolonged duration is the challenge, more so than peak flexibility.
• Speed (2/10): Pacing for survival and completion is paramount. This is about maintaining a steady, albeit slow by sprint standards, pace for an extremely long time, managing nutrition/hydration, and avoiding catastrophic breakdown.
• Strength (1/10): Almost entirely an endurance event. Any strength component is purely about the endurance of that strength over tens of thousands of repetitions.
• Power (1/10): The focus is on minimal, sustainable power output per stroke, repeated ad nauseam for hours. This is as far removed from a power test as possible.

Modality Profile

The ultimate monostructural endurance test. Rowing for 42,195 meters is a pure test of cardiovascular capacity and mental fortitude.

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If you enjoy Marathon Row, you might also like these similar CrossFit WODs:

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