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.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
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...
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...
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
"Go Speed Racer Go": 5/13/08
I'm getting faster. We ran a timed mile on Monday morning and I finished it in 7:39. I couldn't believe it! Officially, I have taken over 7:00 off of my original mile time back in October. Can you believe it? My first mile time was 14:42, and now it's taking me 7:39 to run the same distance! My best time before that had been 7:53, and I really had to push myself hard to make that time. Monday's run seemed easier, and yet, my time was much faster. While running, I didn't feel like I was really straining myself too terribly much. I guess it's the additional weight loss as well as the everyday training that's adding to my increased speediness...
Speaking of speed, we had an old speedster show up this morning at boot camp. John came out today for the first time in a couple of months. He's been doing boot camp for awhile now, but has not been able to do it the past couple of months. He's always been fast and can run a consistent 6:30 mile or so. He was very surprised at how fast I have gotten when it comes to sprinting. There were a couple of times when I beat him when we were sprinting. Granted, I started out in front of him, but he never did catch me. It felt good to hear him comment about my speed. I might have gotten lucky by beating John in a couple of sprints this morning, but I am totally confident that he would wax me in any distance race. Maybe I could take him one day...
I ran the Big Peach 5K a couple of weeks ago. Finished it in 26:51! I was aiming to beat 27:00, and I did it! This was a huge boost considering that my finish time for the last race, the Sprint for Cancer 10K, was actually slower than my previous time. I've been pushing myself hard between each race so that I can continue to shave time off. The American Boot Camp Company helped sponsor the race and we had a large number of campers from different locations around town show up in Brookhaven for the race. I also saw quite a few friends of mine at the race as well. My buddy JJ ran the race with me. We started the race together; then I got out in front of him; then he passed me; then I caught back up with him. We finally finished the race together as we sprinted in to the finish line.
Speaking of speed, we had an old speedster show up this morning at boot camp. John came out today for the first time in a couple of months. He's been doing boot camp for awhile now, but has not been able to do it the past couple of months. He's always been fast and can run a consistent 6:30 mile or so. He was very surprised at how fast I have gotten when it comes to sprinting. There were a couple of times when I beat him when we were sprinting. Granted, I started out in front of him, but he never did catch me. It felt good to hear him comment about my speed. I might have gotten lucky by beating John in a couple of sprints this morning, but I am totally confident that he would wax me in any distance race. Maybe I could take him one day...
I ran the Big Peach 5K a couple of weeks ago. Finished it in 26:51! I was aiming to beat 27:00, and I did it! This was a huge boost considering that my finish time for the last race, the Sprint for Cancer 10K, was actually slower than my previous time. I've been pushing myself hard between each race so that I can continue to shave time off. The American Boot Camp Company helped sponsor the race and we had a large number of campers from different locations around town show up in Brookhaven for the race. I also saw quite a few friends of mine at the race as well. My buddy JJ ran the race with me. We started the race together; then I got out in front of him; then he passed me; then I caught back up with him. We finally finished the race together as we sprinted in to the finish line.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
April ends and May begins: 5/1/08
We finished the April boot camp session last Friday. My mile time was 8:23. That's 30 seconds slower than my previous run. I was really disappointed with my effort. I must admit, I really wasn't pushing myself as hard as I could. I got into a comfortable pace from the beginning and gradually slowed down during the run. It's not the end of the world, though. I did improve on the number of push-ups and sit-ups that I can do in a minute. I did 61 push-ups and 37 sit-ups on Friday. This has been one of the tougher tests throughout this boot camp experience.
On Saturday, we held a boot camp session at Atlantic Station. We didn't start until 7:30 am, so it was nice to be able to sleep in a little bit. Plus, it was weird doing boot camp with the sun out. We had about 25 people out there. A handful of us were boot camp veterans, but the rest of the group were new to the boot camp experience. I hope everyone enjoyed it and will sign up and join us at the West Midtown boot camp location. I believe the plan is to start holding bi-weekly workouts at Atlantic Station on Saturday mornings. I look forward to taking advantage of the additional workout as well as helping introduce new people to The American Boot Camp Company.
This week is the first week of the May boot camp session. I missed Monday's workout, but have been there for all of the other ones. This week has been interesting to say the least. Our number of boot campers continues to grow. We have several people returning from last month's session as well as several new faces. I think the group is now over 20 people. This is really going to be interesting to see how this works out. The bigger crowd makes things more interesting. When I first started boot camp back in October, there were less than 10 of us. We've more than doubled our numbers since then. Some of the other American Boot Camp Company locations have huge crowds. Blackburn Park has 70+ and Chastain Park has 30+ boot campers every morning! It'll be interesting to see if our West Midtown location reaches those numbers one day...
I've got the Big Peach 5K this Saturday morning. My buddy JJ is running the race with me as well as several of the boot campers from my location as well as others. JJ and I are aiming to beat 27 minutes. We'll have to keep a good pace the whole time, but I think we can do it. The American Boot Camp Company is helping sponsor this race and I'm pretty positive there will be a large contingency of boot campers there all wearing matching shirts or something like that. It's really fun to see everyone out there having a good time and cheering everyone on. Collette is especially pumped up about having her bull horn out there to cheer everyone on. Sign up at www.bigpeachrunningco.com and come out and join us. Hope to see you there!
On Saturday, we held a boot camp session at Atlantic Station. We didn't start until 7:30 am, so it was nice to be able to sleep in a little bit. Plus, it was weird doing boot camp with the sun out. We had about 25 people out there. A handful of us were boot camp veterans, but the rest of the group were new to the boot camp experience. I hope everyone enjoyed it and will sign up and join us at the West Midtown boot camp location. I believe the plan is to start holding bi-weekly workouts at Atlantic Station on Saturday mornings. I look forward to taking advantage of the additional workout as well as helping introduce new people to The American Boot Camp Company.
This week is the first week of the May boot camp session. I missed Monday's workout, but have been there for all of the other ones. This week has been interesting to say the least. Our number of boot campers continues to grow. We have several people returning from last month's session as well as several new faces. I think the group is now over 20 people. This is really going to be interesting to see how this works out. The bigger crowd makes things more interesting. When I first started boot camp back in October, there were less than 10 of us. We've more than doubled our numbers since then. Some of the other American Boot Camp Company locations have huge crowds. Blackburn Park has 70+ and Chastain Park has 30+ boot campers every morning! It'll be interesting to see if our West Midtown location reaches those numbers one day...
I've got the Big Peach 5K this Saturday morning. My buddy JJ is running the race with me as well as several of the boot campers from my location as well as others. JJ and I are aiming to beat 27 minutes. We'll have to keep a good pace the whole time, but I think we can do it. The American Boot Camp Company is helping sponsor this race and I'm pretty positive there will be a large contingency of boot campers there all wearing matching shirts or something like that. It's really fun to see everyone out there having a good time and cheering everyone on. Collette is especially pumped up about having her bull horn out there to cheer everyone on. Sign up at www.bigpeachrunningco.com and come out and join us. Hope to see you there!
Thursday, April 24, 2008
You win some, you lose some: 4/24/08
Tomorrow is the last day of the April session of boot camp. The May session starts on Monday. Woo hoo! I get a whole weekend off before the next session starts. (I'm being very facetious just in case you didn't pick up on it.) We get to do our final test for the month tomorrow morning. I'm hoping I have improved on my 7:53 mile time. I'll get to see in the morning if I have lowered my time over the past couple of weeks.
I ran the Sprint for Cancer 10K this past Sunday morning. Finished it in 1:09:56. That's a whole 12 minutes slower than my previous one. I was so disappointed with my results. I was really tired during the race and I could really tell that my body was fatigued. My calves started burning about a mile into the race and never stopped bothering me. No matter how much they hurt, though, I never stopped running and kept moving the entire race. I shouldn't get down too much about it. I did just complete my second 10K ever. I believe that every athlete has their on and off days. Obviously, Sunday was an off day for me. I'm going to work harder and better prepare for the next race so that I can blow my previous times out of the water. I'll have to check the calendar to see when the next 10K is that I can participate in.
My buddy Jay ran this past race with me. It was nice to have both him and Denny with me the whole time. They both took turns motivating me and helping me through some of the more difficult parts of the race route. This is the first time that Jay and I have ever done anything together like this before. Most of our time together is spent hunting, going to football games, fishing, etc. You know, mostly doing "guy" things. The funny thing is, if you have known us since we were in school, that Jay and I are probably the last two people in the world that you would expect to see running a 10K. And there we both were...running the Sprint for Cancer 10K. We started together and we finished together. Two friends participating in an event together and using each other as motivation. It was a great moment that I'm sure both of us will cherish for many years to come. Jay has already talked about doing a half marathon or a sprint triathlon. We'll see what my next move is....
I'm running the Big Peach 5K next Saturday, May 3rd in Brookhaven. Come join me. Get the details at http://www.bigpeachrunningco.com/. I hope to see you there.
I ran the Sprint for Cancer 10K this past Sunday morning. Finished it in 1:09:56. That's a whole 12 minutes slower than my previous one. I was so disappointed with my results. I was really tired during the race and I could really tell that my body was fatigued. My calves started burning about a mile into the race and never stopped bothering me. No matter how much they hurt, though, I never stopped running and kept moving the entire race. I shouldn't get down too much about it. I did just complete my second 10K ever. I believe that every athlete has their on and off days. Obviously, Sunday was an off day for me. I'm going to work harder and better prepare for the next race so that I can blow my previous times out of the water. I'll have to check the calendar to see when the next 10K is that I can participate in.
My buddy Jay ran this past race with me. It was nice to have both him and Denny with me the whole time. They both took turns motivating me and helping me through some of the more difficult parts of the race route. This is the first time that Jay and I have ever done anything together like this before. Most of our time together is spent hunting, going to football games, fishing, etc. You know, mostly doing "guy" things. The funny thing is, if you have known us since we were in school, that Jay and I are probably the last two people in the world that you would expect to see running a 10K. And there we both were...running the Sprint for Cancer 10K. We started together and we finished together. Two friends participating in an event together and using each other as motivation. It was a great moment that I'm sure both of us will cherish for many years to come. Jay has already talked about doing a half marathon or a sprint triathlon. We'll see what my next move is....
I'm running the Big Peach 5K next Saturday, May 3rd in Brookhaven. Come join me. Get the details at http://www.bigpeachrunningco.com/. I hope to see you there.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Progress, almost 4 minutes down: 4/15/08
I ran the Georgia Tech Pi Mile this past Saturday morning. I finished the 5K in 27:45! I was shocked when I saw the clock at the finish line because I really felt that I wasn't doing a good job of keeping pace. I'm sure you can imagine how happy I was to see the official race time. Saturday's race was an interesting one for me. It's the first race that I have run by myself without my boot camp instructors. It was different to say the least. It just didn't feel right not having anyone from boot camp there with me. At least I was able to prove to myself that I can complete a race on my own and should never use the excuse of not having anyone to run a race with me.
The past couple of days at boot camp have been exciting. Yesterday, we had our midpoint test. I ran a 7:53 mile! That's 4 seconds faster than my previous time two weeks ago. I'm at the point where my mile time is only going to improve in small steps like this. I've got to continue to push myself and work hard in order to keep shrinking my mile time. It's going to be a while before I build up the endurance required to consistently run that fast of a mile.
We played war today at boot camp. Some folks might even call it capture the flag. Everyone was divided into 2 teams and had flags around their waists. We used the flag football type flags that are attached to a belt and can be easily pulled off. We chased each other around an enclosed area and tried to rip the flags off. When your flag was taken, you had to go to prison and do different excercises. Whichever team one got to celebrate by doing victory jumping jacks while the losing team did pushups or burpies. It was a very fun way to get a good cardio workout. You don't realize how much sprinting and running around you're doing until it's all over.
The Sprint for Cancer 10K is this Sunday. This will be my second 10K and I'm looking to beat my previous time of 57:25. Barrett and Sean are both running it as well. I think there are several other boot campers running the 5K. We're hoping to have another large presence of American Boot Camp Company campers at this race. If you make it out there, stop by our booth and join us in the fun. For information about the race check out http://www.sprintforcancer.com/.
The past couple of days at boot camp have been exciting. Yesterday, we had our midpoint test. I ran a 7:53 mile! That's 4 seconds faster than my previous time two weeks ago. I'm at the point where my mile time is only going to improve in small steps like this. I've got to continue to push myself and work hard in order to keep shrinking my mile time. It's going to be a while before I build up the endurance required to consistently run that fast of a mile.
We played war today at boot camp. Some folks might even call it capture the flag. Everyone was divided into 2 teams and had flags around their waists. We used the flag football type flags that are attached to a belt and can be easily pulled off. We chased each other around an enclosed area and tried to rip the flags off. When your flag was taken, you had to go to prison and do different excercises. Whichever team one got to celebrate by doing victory jumping jacks while the losing team did pushups or burpies. It was a very fun way to get a good cardio workout. You don't realize how much sprinting and running around you're doing until it's all over.
The Sprint for Cancer 10K is this Sunday. This will be my second 10K and I'm looking to beat my previous time of 57:25. Barrett and Sean are both running it as well. I think there are several other boot campers running the 5K. We're hoping to have another large presence of American Boot Camp Company campers at this race. If you make it out there, stop by our booth and join us in the fun. For information about the race check out http://www.sprintforcancer.com/.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Change of Focus to Weight Loss in Boot Camp: 4/7/08
Started the second week of the April boot camp session at West Midtown today. It felt good to be out there. It's nice with the weather starting to warm up. We had a good workout with tension bands this morning. Luckily, I'm not quite as sore as I thought I would be. The workout was tough and I was able to complete it again with the blue tension band. This time, I wasn't the only one to use the blue bands. A couple of the other guys in the group stepped up and completed the workout with the stronger bands. Maybe one day, I'll be able to do it with the black tension band...which are the toughest. We'll see...
I'm really excited about these next few months of boot camp. My busy time of the year has now passed, and I'm going to focus on weight loss. I still have a long way to go to reach my goal and it's going to be a tough journey, but I think I can do it. I'm really going to watch my diet and strictly adhere to the meal plan. I've done a decent job so far, but I'm really going to start counting the calories. I've also even floated the idea of trying to get even more exercise than just going to boot camp in the morning. I was thinking about trying to run every evening and even giving my body more opportunities to drop weight. I haven't discussed this idea with anyone, but I plan to because I don't want to push myself too hard. This is a long journey that I have embarked on and I can't afford to injure myself in any way.
I signed up earlier today for the Pi Mile at Georgia Tech this coming Saturday. It's only a 5K, but I'm in the mood to run a race. I can't believe I just said that! It's weird how I have started to think regarding working out and running races. I hope I can recruit some of the other boot campers to join me. My best official 5K time is 29:02 and I'm hoping to beat it this Saturday. When I passed the 5K finish line during my last 1oK, the clock had just turned 27:00. That being "unofficial" since I was running the 10K, but it gave me a nice benchmark to work with.
I'm also signed up to do the Sprint for Cancer 10K on April 20th. I hope I can break my previous 10K time of 57:25. This race is at Atlantic Station and will probably be close to the same route of my previous 5K. If so, I will really be able to tell what kind of improvements I have made over the past month. I really feel good about my speed, but it's going to be another tough test. With two more weeks of boot camp to go through before then, I feel confident that I will be ready. The American Boot Camp Company is sponsoring this race and I expect that we will have a large number of boot campers in attendance. You should come out and join us...
I'm really excited about these next few months of boot camp. My busy time of the year has now passed, and I'm going to focus on weight loss. I still have a long way to go to reach my goal and it's going to be a tough journey, but I think I can do it. I'm really going to watch my diet and strictly adhere to the meal plan. I've done a decent job so far, but I'm really going to start counting the calories. I've also even floated the idea of trying to get even more exercise than just going to boot camp in the morning. I was thinking about trying to run every evening and even giving my body more opportunities to drop weight. I haven't discussed this idea with anyone, but I plan to because I don't want to push myself too hard. This is a long journey that I have embarked on and I can't afford to injure myself in any way.
I signed up earlier today for the Pi Mile at Georgia Tech this coming Saturday. It's only a 5K, but I'm in the mood to run a race. I can't believe I just said that! It's weird how I have started to think regarding working out and running races. I hope I can recruit some of the other boot campers to join me. My best official 5K time is 29:02 and I'm hoping to beat it this Saturday. When I passed the 5K finish line during my last 1oK, the clock had just turned 27:00. That being "unofficial" since I was running the 10K, but it gave me a nice benchmark to work with.
I'm also signed up to do the Sprint for Cancer 10K on April 20th. I hope I can break my previous 10K time of 57:25. This race is at Atlantic Station and will probably be close to the same route of my previous 5K. If so, I will really be able to tell what kind of improvements I have made over the past month. I really feel good about my speed, but it's going to be another tough test. With two more weeks of boot camp to go through before then, I feel confident that I will be ready. The American Boot Camp Company is sponsoring this race and I expect that we will have a large number of boot campers in attendance. You should come out and join us...
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