Thank You, Friends!

Believe it or not, we have friends that joined us for a killer work­out this morn­ing… even with the fog and wet grass!

Spotlight on the Camper: Lynn Bollins

Lynn Bollins is a mover, shaker, winer and diner by day (and night) and she turns up the heat each morn­ing at BC4C.

Lynn was born and raised in Stow, OH. She moved to Atlanta one week after she grad­u­ated from col­lege for the fun of it and has been here ever since (going on nine years).

Lynn majored in Inte­rior Archi­tec­ture and started her career as a com­mer­cial inte­rior designer. She quickly real­ized that she couldn’t sit still long enough to get any­thing done and moved into sales. Now she sells com­mer­cial office fur­ni­ture to archi­tects and designers.

Lynn became involved in BC4C after a client suck­ered her into sign­ing up. The client only did it for one month with her and then never came back. That was 7 months ago and Lynn has become hooked on BC4C. How­ever, she still hasn’t got­ten any busi­ness from that client!

Lynn’s ini­tial goals for join­ing boot camp were to find bal­ance with her health and fit­ness. She was win­ing and din­ing a lot for her job and it was really tak­ing a toll on her body. It was really hard for her to exer­cise in the evenings because she always had events for work. BC4C has been a great way to be held account­able for get­ting up and get­ting it done.

Lynn’s biggest diet chal­lenge is find­ing healthy food choices at work events. Dur­ing these out­ings, her meals are a lot of times sub­sti­tuted with alco­hol and appe­tiz­ers. She also takes clients to din­ner a bunch. Lynn is still learn­ing how to make bet­ter choices when order­ing out at a restaurant.

Lynn’s biggest fit­ness accom­plish­ment is mak­ing it past day one of camp. She was really dis­cour­aged the first day that she couldn’t make it the full lap on the run. She has sure come a long was since then!

LYNN’S FUN FACTS

Favorite exer­cise:
 Sit-ups!

Favorite work­out:
 Kathleen’s yoga work­out. This is the only day that she can get out of bed know­ing that she is not going to be tortured!

Advice for new boot campers:
 Make it through two weeks and after that, believe it or not, it will become some­what fun!

The best thing a Trainer has done for Lynn: Lynn 
loves how all of the train­ers will see when she is strug­gling and they buddy up with her to push her and keep her moti­vated. That alone has got­ten her through sev­eral work­outs and runs!

Did you know? Lynn is daugh­ter of an ex-nun. Lynn also loves to go camp­ing! She doesn’t get to do it as often as she would like as appar­ently a lot of her friends pre­fer hotels over tents. She loves being out­doors in general.

Spotlight on the Camper: Jeff Leonard

Jeff grew up all over the East Coast – from Jack­sonville, Florida to Cheshire, Con­necti­cut and sev­eral places in between. He claims Raleigh, NC as his ”home” since he’s lived there the longest (6 1/2 years). Jeff went to Clem­son Uni­ver­sity for under­grad (Com­puter Engi­neer­ing) and Wake For­est for law school.

Jeff lives with his wife Mira on St. Charles Avenue in Virginia-Highland. Leigh has occa­sion­ally led a run right by his home­stead. Fel­low boot camper, Kate, is Jeff’s next door neighbor!

Jeff is an attor­ney who rep­re­sents busi­ness own­ers and their com­pa­nies in all man­ners of cor­po­rate trans­ac­tional work – from form­ing new com­pa­nies, draft­ing and review­ing con­tracts, and merg­ers and acqui­si­tion trans­ac­tions. Basi­cally he answers e-mails, makes phone calls, meets with clients and drafts cor­po­rate doc­u­ments. Yawn.

Jeff and his wife love to travel and fre­quently visit her fam­ily in Bul­garia. They have used their SkyMiles to visit Aus­tralia, and have been all over Europe. They also enjoy tak­ing advan­tage of Atlanta’s diverse restau­rants, but they are hardly foodies.

Jeff also likes to play golf, watch Eng­lish Pre­mier League Foot­ball (soc­cer), and par­take in some bar trivia – his wife laments he has a head full of use­less infor­ma­tion. Jeff is a TV junkie and sci-fi nerd and con­sid­ers Arrested Devel­op­ment, Star Trek:TNG, Bat­tlestar Galac­tica, Com­mu­nity, 30 Rock and Mod­ern Fam­ily among his current/recent favorites.

Jeff got involved with BC4C through his work with Every­body Wins! Atlanta, a local children’s lit­er­acy char­ity which he serves on the Board with Sarah Abend (Andy’s wife). Every­body Wins! received fund­ing from BC4C last fall, and Jeff thought he should at least try it out once. Well, it’s six months later and he’s in for the long term. Jeff needed some­thing to change his rou­tine since he was run­ning 4–5 days a week and not see­ing any improvement.

Jeff’s ini­tial goals for join­ing boot camp were to run races faster and lose some weight – then, he revised that and decided he just wanted to be able to fin­ish the work­outs with­out throw­ing up. Mary Cromer was with him that first try-it-out day and she saw how close he was to los­ing it. Those first few weeks were very hard, and Jeff resolved not to stop. He never wants to go through those days of total body sore­ness again!

Jeff’s biggest diet chal­lenges are fast food and candy. He is bet­ter now at resist­ing the urges for french fries and burg­ers, but he still has a hard time with choco­late. The log book helps him immensely since it reminds him that work­ing out does not mean he can eat what­ever he wants (which is what he used to think).

Jeff’s biggest fit­ness accom­plish­ments are run­ning a 5k dur­ing Tracy’s win­ter chal­lenge in 21:30 and the Pub­lix Half Marathon in 1:49:42. These times are very much improved over his times in sim­i­lar dis­tances over the last cou­ple of years.

Jeff’s Fun Facts

Favorite exer­cise:
 Jeff loves run­ning and sprints, and the core exer­cises are start­ing to grow on him – like plank. Jeff hates all of the upper body exer­cises, but he has seen the most improve­ment in those areas and does not dread them like he used to.

Favorite work­out:
 Run Days! Or, any work­out with run­ning inter­vals between exer­cises. Least favorite – ”No Need to Run” or ”Fatal Subtraction.”

Advice for new boot campers:
 Don’t skip a sin­gle day so that it becomes a part of your daily rou­tine. And, use your log book to see what you eat!

The best thing a trainer has done for Jeff:
 Each trainer has offered Jeff advice or encour­age­ment at one time or another. Leigh and Daniel, as some of the strongest run­ners, have pushed him the hard­est to find speed he didn’t think he had. Tracy con­stantly reminds him to push him­self the hard­est at the end of work­outs. But, he would have to say that Andy’s rig­or­ous review of his log book each morn­ing (with gen­tle ridicule when war­ranted) has been the most help­ful. Jeff still believes that he is the only camper to have eaten a McRib in the last 6 months. Never again.

Did you know?
 In 2003, Jeff passed the U.S. Depart­ment of State’s For­eign Ser­vice Exam (both the writ­ten and oral sec­tions) and went through the secu­rity clear­ance process to work in our embassies… but ulti­mately decided to stay put in Atlanta and become a part­ner at his law firm.

Spotlight on the Camper: Tabatha Michel

Have you ever won­dered who brought the bour­bon breeze that swept in from the Big Easy and rocked Pied­mont Park like a hur­ri­cane? That would be our own Tabatha Michel! Orig­i­nally from New Orleans, Tabatha will throw you some beads if you ask her politely.

Out­side of boot camp, Tabatha is a Major Gift Fundraiser at the National Office of the Arthri­tis Foun­da­tion. She is the proud (and the coolest) aunt to two teenage nephews and an adorable 7 year-old niece. Her extended fam­ily includes over 70 first cousins on her mom’s side alone. She couldn’t begin to count the 2nd and 3rd cousins! We assume she is prob­a­bly related to every­one at BC4C.

Tabatha blames Robin for get­ting her involved with BC4C. They worked together and Robin tricked her with pos­i­tive pro­pa­ganda about her boot camp expe­ri­ence. To our advan­tage, Tabatha signed up with­out even com­ing to Bring A Friend Day. Tabatha loves BC4C because it com­bined two things that are a big part of her life: phil­an­thropy and her new-found com­mit­ment to get­ting healthier.

Grow­ing up, Tabatha was a dancer. Her fam­ily had a dance school, so fit­ness in the form of dance and acro­bats was part of her every day rou­tine. And it all came to a screech­ing halt after high school. Tabatha had many false starts through­out the last 15 years try­ing to get back in shape.

When Tabatha first started boot camp her ini­tial goal was pretty sim­ple… lose weight by get­ting in shape. She wanted to become a run­ner again, and she couldn’t get any momen­tum on her own. When she started boot camp, she could NOT do one sit-up on her own; only mod­i­fied push-ups; and she couldn’t run the PT loop with­out stop­ping. She is pretty sure she cried when she left the first day, because she wasn’t sure she could ever get fit again. But then she thought… if not now, when?

When it comes to diet and fit­ness Tabatha’s biggest chal­lenge is her of love food and adult bev­er­ages! It’s what them Cajuns do for hob­bies and enter­tain­ment! Tabatha loves to cook and enter­tain. She can find a rea­son to have a party any day or time of the year. After nearly two years of boot camp, she is just fig­ur­ing out how to bal­ance the two lifestyles a bit better.

Tabatha has made tremen­dous strides since start­ing BC4C. In 2010 alone, she ran her first offi­cial 5K, 10K and half-marathon! And now, she loves to run. She never thought a 6–12 mile run would be a part of her Sat­ur­day morn­ing rou­tine, but now it is. It keeps her focused, even if her week has been crazy. In March, Tabatha ran her sec­ond half marathon and sur­prised her­self with a PR of 2:18, which was 16 min­utes faster than her first in November.

As for diet, this year, Tabatha decided that if she going to play hard, she would have to work harder to stay fit. Since late Jan­u­ary, she started track­ing calo­ries in vs. calo­ries burned. It’s really work­ing for her and she’s dropped 15 pounds in less than 3 months. She already feels the dif­fer­ence when work­ing out or run­ning. She still throws par­ties… she just runs a lot more!

Tabatha’s Fun Facts

Favorite exer­cise: Tabatha prefers lower body exer­cises — squats, lunges, jump-ups. But ab work is finally grow­ing on her!

Favorite work­out: Tabatha likes the dis­guised run days the most. She likes any work­out with a good bal­ance of run­ning and work­out sta­tions. She loves the dice game, even though she is always on Lauren’s team and they lose.

Advice to brand new campers: It will get bet­ter! Just go at your own pace. And let the Train­ers know when you’re try­ing to accom­plish some­thing new. They’re great at help­ing you get there.

The best thing a boot camp Trainer has done for Tabatha: ALL the instruc­tors have helped her meet her fit­ness goals. Each Trainer seems to know what she needs for inspi­ra­tion at the time. Early on, she was so frus­trated that she couldn’t run. She remem­bers that Andy and Susan really helped with her with form. For months, they would lag behind and just keep push­ing her and telling her it would get bet­ter. It really made a dif­fer­ence then. And now, she was so inspired to see them before the half marathon. It was an eye-opening reminder of how far she has come. And right about the time she was start­ing to feel the race in her legs, Lau­ren jumped in and ran with her. It was just the jolt of energy she needed!

Did you know? Tabatha is a poker player and you can occa­sion­ally find her in a casino at a Texas Hold ‘em table. She has placed “in the money” in two World Series of Poker cir­cuit events. Her best tour­na­ment fin­ish was 3rd in a women’s event… she won $5,500. (Note to self: do not ever get roped into a poker game with Tabatha.)

Next time you see Tabatha, be sure to give her a big high-five for her accom­plish­ments in the park… and beyond!

Spotlight on the Camper: Karen “Kayron” Hodgdon

Karen is a native to Atlanta; and she grew up in the same neigh­bor­hood as Andy Abend! She went to Cham­blee High School, then UGA for two years in Fine Art, and then trans­ferred to Geor­gia Tech for her under­grad­u­ate and Mas­ters degrees in Archi­tec­ture. She lives in Can­dler Park in a condo that she has owned for almost 11 years.

Out­side of boot camp, Karen is a res­i­den­tial archi­tect. She has been doing res­i­den­tial work for 8.5 years. Before that, she did a lot of loft con­do­mini­ums. Karen works for a VERY small firm in Mid­town (just 2 peo­ple) and she has been work­ing on a lot of sum­mer homes – mostly new homes in North Georgia.

Karen has two big black Labradors that are almost three, so they take up a lot of her time. She likes to take them walk­ing around the neighborhood.

Karen started run­ning in 2005, doing the run/walk method (run 3 min­utes, walk 1 minute), which was a big step for her because she had never even run a mile before. She ran her first marathon in 2006. Karen enjoys doing half marathons now – she believes that it’s a much more man­age­able distance.

Karen started boot camp for the over­all full-body work­out. Run­ning is great for car­dio and legs, but it doesn’t do very much for your arms and tummy. Boot camp def­i­nitely helps her run­ning, and her over­all fit­ness and core.

Karen’s ini­tial goals for join­ing boot camp were to lose some weight and to tone up. She also wanted to get faster at run­ning. She still wants to do all of those things, and she’s well on her way! Karen keeps com­ing back because she loves the vari­ety of the work­outs and the cama­raderie of the BC4C boot campers and trainers.

Karen’s biggest diet chal­lenge is cheese, more specif­i­cally cheese dip. It is her neme­sis, arch­en­emy and best friend — all at the same time. She can’t say no to it. Karen is going to try and give up cheese for Lent.

Karen’s biggest fit­ness accom­plish­ment was when she ran the New York Marathon in 2007 (she saw Andy Waters at Mile 22!) and shaved 20 min­utes off her pre­vi­ous marathon time. She attrib­utes that com­pletely to reg­u­larly attend­ing boot camp the four months prior to that race.

KAREN’S FUN FACTS

Favorite exer­cise: 
sit-ups

Favorite work­out:
 Spare Change and the dice rolling game. She likes any­thing with props.

Advice for new boot campers:
 Just to get up and go. The hard­est part is get­ting out of bed. Once you’re in the park­ing lot, you’ll always be glad you showed up.

The best thing a trainer has done for Karen:
 She likes when a trainer does an exer­cise with her – like when Lau­ren jumped in and helped her get through her burpees the other day. It keeps her hon­est with her­self and even if she’s last, at least she has company!

Did you know?
 Karen is half-Canadian. She also lived in Paris for a year in college.