0-5K and Beyond

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.