Spartan Challenge 2009 | Final 300 Workout: A Story In Photos

The Spartan 300 workout is a beast! Before I get into the details and controversy (!) of my workout, take a lookie at the photographic evidence of bad-ass-dom at CrossFit Central last Saturday.

Maggie was looking adorable, as usual. She has a new blog you might want to check out -- and you should read her story of empowerment over at the CC web site.

Erin and Maggie were in the first heat. Yay, pullups!
Hair flying, Erin conquers the 65-lb. deadlift.

"I'm a showgirl, doin' box jumps... I'm a showgirl, doin' box jumps."

Floor wipers are F.U.N. (f*cking. unnecessary. nonsense.)

Erin's got Spartan Spirit. Hooray!

Then it was my turn. Wheeeee!

This was my reaction to Big Mike and Zach saying I was going to do the whole thing, straight through, no breaks.

First 25 pullups...

95-lb. deadlift...

Dang, but those pushups were hard. Five at time, 10 damn times. Yeesh. My elbows are farther out to the sides than I'd like.

I caught my toe and halfway ate it on one of the box jumps. Thankfully, there is no photographic evidence of me grabbing the white board ledge to catch myself.

95-lb floor wipers. There are no words.
I just did the math on the 12kg kettlebell. It's 26.45 lbs. No wonder that dang thing felt heavy.

Last 25 jumping pullups. Next year: all kipping, baby.

While I huffed and puffed and sweated and recovered, Jennifer started her workout.

And then Devon. Check out those abs!

Devon FLEW through her pullups, and you can see from the image below, she smoked the box jumps, too.

Then we were all finished. The nice one:

The mean one:
Oh! Bullets and Octane is a rockin' rock band. Check 'em out on MySpace. I like the songs "Pirates" and "Save Me Sorrow." (Video for my very favorite song below.)

The well-deserved breakfast at the Frisco Diner.

I even had onion rings!

The end (of the photo story).

The beginning (of the rest of the story).

I called time at 19:04... but I may or may not have done the complete workout. There was some confusion among my counters and me during the floor wipers and the last set of 25 pullups. (Apologies to Randal whom I'm pretty sure had the accurate count.) Whatever. I'm trying not to get hung up on my time and feel bad about the workout. Instead, I'm focusing on this: I went as hard as I could for 19 minutes, I threw around some heavy weights, and I felt pretty damn strong doing it.

Plus, the numbers I am sure about are very. exciting.

Carey has been taking my measurements for more than a year now. We use the same measuring tape every time, and she puts that sucker in the same place on my body. During the 6-week Spartan Challenge, I lost a total of 5.75 inches... including half an inch from each arm, 1.25 inches from my waist, and 1.5 inches from my hips. My body fat is down 1.1% and in the last three weeks, I lost three pounds.

That makes me, like, ridiculously happy. Seriously, I'm insufferable right now.

Just for fun, I went back and looked at my measurements from when I started this "get Mel to goal" project with my first Weight Watchers meeting in 2004. Check it out:
I've lost a total of more than 40 inches all over -- almost 10 of them from my waist and another 12 from my hips.

Holy.
Cow.

Now that the Spartan Challenge has come to an end, Mission 17 is front and center. I've got 15 pounds between me and the completion of that mission.

[The small print: I reserve the right to re-assess my weight goal as I get closer to 130 lbs. and to use my body fat % as a guide for deciding on my final destination weight. Wiser people than I have suggested that perhaps a number on the scale is not the ideal way to assess my progress. I chose Mission 17 because I knew it would get me fired up to work hard. But I will trust my trusted advisors to help me know when I've reached an ideal body composition. (I'm looking at you, Melissa and Crystal.]