Four Sleeps ‘Til Sparta


It’s almost time, and I’m ridiculously excited to get started on this year’s Spartan Challenge. I woke up this morning thinking about the workout… visualizing myself doing the first 25 pullups with the band and then effortlessly flying through the deadlifts. The pushups and floor wipers gave me pause… and then I woke up enough to realize I had to get my fanny out of bed and down to the running trail (3-mile loop = 28:42 – 5:00 on/1:00 off).

In case you’ve forgotten, here’s the workout…

Spartan 300 Workout
For time, 20-minute limit:
25 pullups
50 deadlift
50 pushups
50 box jumps
50 floor wipers
50 kb clean + press
25 pullups

I’m looking forward to tackling it again on Saturday, but what I’m most excited about is the discipline and associated pride associated with following my diet-and-training rules for the next six weeks. There is NOTHING I like more than being disciplined and enjoying internal gloating.

Does this make me a bad person?

Do I care?

Last year I had a well-defined goal: get to my Weight Watchers goal weight. Now that I’m here (or is it there?), setting goals is more challenging. And as I learned during the I AM CROSSFIT Challenge, I need to set very defined goals, or I flounder. Simply saying something like “Work on pullups” is not enough — and for me, setting a goal like “lose 10 lbs.” doesn’t work because that number is out of my control. I can only influence my actions, not the outcome of those actions.

With all of that in mind, my goals for the Spartan Challenge 2009 are these:

1. Attend all of my CrossFit Women (M, W) and Bootcamp (F) classes. NO missed classes! Tuesdays = CrossFit Spartan workouts. Thursdays = 3-mile easy run. Saturdays = “Play day” of Spartan workout and a run and silly stuff like handstands and pullup practice.

2. Zone 6 days per week and on that 7th day, have only one “cheat” meal.

3. No tortilla chips for the entire 6 weeks.

4. No booze. None.

That list of goals looks intimidating to me, but that’s what makes it inspiring. Honestly, I think #3 is going to be the hardest. Isn’t that crazy? I’ll tackle just about any workout you throw my way — usually with enthusiasm, even if it’s so early in the a.m. that it’s still dark outside — but ask me to give up tortilla chips, and I start wimpering.

In my quest to find tidbits that keep me fired up and on track, I found this totally awesome article about the 300 actors’ training program. Because the program was designed for functionality AND looking H-O-T, the whole crew adopted this mission statement, which I will be posting on all of my mirrors and refrigerator the second I get home from the office today:

appearance is a consequence of fitness

I also liked this quote from the article:

“300” is a one-time test, an invitation-only challenge undertaken by those deemed ready for it… Like many workouts “300” is not hard once you’ve done it but the apprehension built up ahead of it – something we encouraged – was enough to make some guys fear it to the degree that performance was compromised. This workout was a crucible that some passed through and others still have hanging over them.

I wish I could say that having done the Spartan 300, I feel totally prepared for Saturday. I do not. But I am excited!

If you haven’t done the Spartan 300 yet, and you’re trying it for the first time on Saturday, you might want to read through some of my old posts to help put your mind at ease… or get you fired up. Whichever. Here’s a page with all my Spartan posts from last summer — and here’s my photo story about the final Spartan workout on August 30, 2008.

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