I ran the Mid-Summer MusicFest 5K at Candler Park this past Saturday. I ran this race by myself, but did run into some fellow boot campers who attend the Mason Mill boot camp location. I finished the race in 28:38. I'm pleased with the time, but I was hoping to be about 2 minutes faster. My previous 5K time was 26:51, and I was hoping to break it during this race. The course through and around Candler Park was very hilly and had a lot of turns. The constant up and down and the curving path that we followed made it difficult for me to get into a good rhythm. Nevertheless, it was a good run and I am still satisfied with my results. I'm going to have to find another race soon to see if I can finish it around 26:30.

I've had a really nice past couple of weeks. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was in St. Simons for a conference the first week of the month and was able to go jogging on the beach. The second week of June took me to Ponte Vedra for another convention. I did workout while I was there and took advantage of the wonderful workout facility at the Ponte Vedra Inn & Club as well as went jogging on the beach. The tide was coming in when I was jogging in Ponte Vedra. This made it extremely difficult jogging in the thick sand, but the broken sea shells on the edge of the water line did provide some stability. Had I jogged at low tide, my experience would have probably been totally different. I must say that my beach jogging experience was better in St. Simons than it was in Ponte Vedra. Considering the fact that I had a lot more fun in Ponte Vedra balances it out in my opinion. I shouldn't complain one bit. Most people I know wish they could take business trips to the beach.

I attended a banquet here in Atlanta on Saturday night and saw a lot of old friends and familiar faces that I had not seen in several months. You should have heard some of their remarks when they saw me. Some of my buddies couldn't believe how great I looked, plus the fact that I've lost almost 50 pounds since I first started boot camp last October. I can't tell you how much motivation hearing their comments gives me to keep working hard and pushing myself. Hopefully, next time I see some of them, they will notice even more of a difference in me. I'm going to keep up the boot camp routine and watching what I'm eating so that I can continue to drop the weight. My target is 200 pounds, I've got about 50 more to drop before I get there.

Today was the first day of the last week of boot camp for the June session. We'll have our final mile run on Friday. I'm hoping to finish strong and take some more time off of my mile time. I started the month at 7:43 which is 7 minutes off of my first mile time back in October. I ran the mile in 7:28 at the midpoint of boot camp last Monday. I'm hoping to possibly even beat that time this Friday. I'll keep you posted on how I do.

We've got next week off from boot camp for the 4th of July holiday. I'm looking forward to a week off from boot camp, plus the possbility of a little vacation time. If I am able to make it to St. Simons for the 4th, I'm going to run in a 5K down there being held the morning of the 4th. I must be honest, though, I will miss boot camp. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. It's become such a huge part of my life and daily routine that I don't feel right if I don't get up and go to boot camp. That feeling plus the fact that along with the instructors and other campers, we've become such a tight knit group of people that motivate each other during the exercises. It's almost like we've become a pseudo family at the West Midtown/Atlantic Station boot camp location.

It's the second week of the June session of boot camp. We've had a couple of great workouts this week. Today, we used the tension bands. Once again, I completed the workout with the black bands. It was very tough using the strongest bands, but I could feel the burn in my muscles throughout the workout. I'm sure that's not the only time I'll be feeling pain in my arms and upper body. I'll probably be a little sore for the next couple of days.

I tried something new this past weekend. I attended one of the kickboxing classes at The Boot Camp Company studio in Brookhaven on Saturday morning. What a workout! The 45 minute class was awesome. I got a much better workout than I would have had I just gone for a jog. Needless to say, I'm still a little sore from the kickboxing class. The new workout forced me to use muscles that I normally don't use that often in boot camp. My calves and my arms have been extremely sore. I'm still feeling the pain in my calves. It's made these two workouts this week really interesting to say the least. I enjoyed the kickboxing class so much that I think I'm going to make it a regular routine in my weekly workouts.

I had a new experience last week and I'm looking forward to the same experience this week. I was in St. Simons Island last week for a conference. I got up each morning while I was down there and went for a jog on the beach. What an incredible experience of jogging on the beach as the sun was rising. The moment was almost magical. Taking the normal sounds of traffic and the hard pavement here in Atlanta that I usually experience while jogging and replacing it with sand and crashing waves was incredible. The runs seemed so much more relaxing and really helped me get my days started on the right foot. I'm heading to Ponte Vedra this week for another convention, and am looking forward to another couple of early morning runs on the beach. I hope the experience will be the same this week as it was last week.

I've got a few good friends of mine that have started boot camp this month. Unfortunately, they're doing it a different location than me, but it has been fun discussing our boot camp experiences together. I actually ran into a couple of them at the kickboxing class on Saturday morning. It was really exciting to run into them at the studio. I've also had a couple of other people contact me about signing up for boot camp. Many of them have heard me talk about it ever since I started back in October. I guess my constant discussion of my boot camp experience is helping to motivate some of my friends. Or it could be that there is a link to my blog on The American Boot Camp Company website...

I still haven't found a race to participate in for this month. I'm out of town this coming weekend, but am going to try to do one in the next couple of weeks. I'll keep you posted on what I decide to do. I'm planning on being in St. Simons again for the 4th of July this year. I actually found a 5K down there that is being held the morning of the 4th. I'm planning to run in that race to try something different. I thought about staying in Atlanta to run the Peachtree Road Race, but I decided to skip it and go to the beach for a nice little vacation. I'll let you know what I decide to do and keep you posted on my race results.

We started the June session of boot camp yesterday morning. My mile time was 7:43. That's the same time that I posted at the end of the May session. Considering that we had the week of Memorial Day off and I only ran once that week, I was very happy with my mile time. I really had to push myself yesterday to make that time, and I could definitely feel the results of not running the previous week. With two workouts down this week, I can definitely feel some soreness in a few of my muscles as well. Probably attributed to me being totally lazy last week, only running once, not working out at all, and not watching what I was eating like I should.

Our boot camp class at the West Midtown location is growing. We've had several people return from last month as well as a few new faces show up. It's interesting to see how the group is growing. It's hard to believe that when I first started boot camp last October, we had less than a dozen people in the group. Given the success of the Chastain Park and Blackburn Park locations, I can only imagine what the group might be like in a couple of years. This morning's workout is one of my favorites...cone sprints. For the first time ever, we had the group divided into four different lines as we all ran the cone sprints. I remember when we only had two. It was really something to see all of us out there. I reminded me of that day when I was at Blackburn and we ran cone sprints. I think they had about eight or nine lines that morning.

I've really been trying to watch what I eat lately. For the past three weeks, I've been eating Fresh N Fit meals. I found out about them one night at the boot camp studio in Brookhaven. You sign up for the meal plan and pick up your prepared meals twice a week. The food is excellent! Every meal is individually packaged and most of them you can just nuke in the microwave for a couple of minutes. They offer a couple of different calorie levels and I've been on the 1200 calorie diet. I figured getting 1200 calories from three meals a day, and another couple of hundred calories from my other meals easily keeps me under 2000 calories a day. This is under my daily minimum calorie level and has been helping me to shave off the excess weight. You can get more information about Fresh N Fit at http://www.freshnfitcuisine.com/.

Speaking of losing weight, I've hit somewhat of a plateau. I've easily dropped over 40 pounds since I first started boot camp, but the last few pounds that I've lost have been really tough. I also must admit that I've been letting my eating habits slip a little. I've decided to get back on the boot camp recommended meal plan and stick to it the best I can. I know I can continue to drop the weight, it's just going to take longer to do so and I'm going to have to work hard in order to accomplish my goal. I still have about 50 more pounds to lose to get down to my target weight of 200. Considering that I was a shade under 300 when I first started, I'm about half way there.

With June now hear, I need to find a race to run. I'll look into see what's out there and let you know which one I pick. Stay tuned to find out and maybe even you could join me...