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Jon Firestar: The Spartan defeats the Beast I’ve had a lot of ideas running about what to do for this next challenge but this past week has been something of a wakeup call for me. I’ve had depressive spouts in the last year since joining the Rebellion but I’ve never felt so utterly drained and devoid of motivation. So I’ve decided to reign this one in a little. So here are a few things. In less than three weeks I run my first Spartan. Because I don’t do things by halves, that Spartan is going to be a Beast and encompasses 13 miles of obstacles and, what will undoubtedly be, many burpees. For better, or for worse I’ve done the training to prepare for the Spartan. Nothing that I am going to do now is going to have a massive effect one way or another on my ability to pull that off. I’m cruising on the fitness that I’ve spent the last year building. So my goals are to help make sure my head and body are in the game for when I go into the race. The cycle is going to go into a quick ramping of training over week 0, immediately followed by a cut down and a full taper into the race and a week of hard recovery. For the end of the year I’ve got a lot of races going on and new ones being added to the calendar all the time. So it’ll be some time before I can settle back into a regular routine. (I might have signed up to another race this morning). Running My goals here are going to be less impressive than they have been recently. The running is largely on auto pilot right now. My running schedule follows. My goal is just to hit each and every session. The week immediately post Spartan will be largely by ear but I’m aiming for just 2 short slow runs and one long very slow run. As a mini goal I’m aiming to get 3000 feet of climb over the next 3 weeks before I go to Spartan. Just a few weeks after Spartan I also have the Maverick Trail race. It’s a localish race up in the hills. I live by the hills I need to spend time running the hills! Strength and Conditioning: Obviously lots of running is still happening and I am still concentrating on mainly bodyweight work (with the aid of a sandbag) for my strength work.I’m going to run a simple circuit of the following trying to get as many rounds and possible in the allotted time. Bodyweight circuits 3 times per week. Mon, Wed, Friday Recovery I’ve been slacking here a little over the last challenge so I’ve decided to make it a goal. Stretch after my workout. Foam Roll at least twice a week (especially Saturday). Food and Water This is familiar by now. I have a calorie goal of 2800-3000 calories. I'm sticking to maintenance calories for the duration of this challenge. Will revise for next challenge. I also want to track water intake for the duration because I’ve been slacking off with hydration. Approx 2L per day.