BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS OF HYSTERIA

Hi guys,

I know it's been a while since I posted here, (I say as I blow the cobwebs out of the corners of my old blogging haunt) but I have returned for a noble cause. In the hazy blur that was the Yuletide season, a time for giving and for sharing, I heard about Dublin Pub Box, a charity boxing event where various pubs around Dublin, sponsor willing 'victims', ehem, I mean, willing bar staff to go toe to toe with one another in the name of goodwill. This year we will be trying to raise some essential funds for Pieta House and St. Vincent de Paul. 28 members of the hospitality industry have to become not quite mediocre boxers in 2 months which equals 17 hours training. Me, ever the adventuress, thought it was a splendid idea. I am going to blog my experience in a post training diary, a blow by blow account if you will (unfortunately that pun was intentional) plus you guys have to read it, I'm doing this for charity, so if you don't it makes you a bad person. 

Day 1

Prior to entering the gym today I was  mainly worried about what my entrance song (Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy) and nickname (TBC) for the match were going to be, following today's little training session I am now more worried about the fact that my muscles are cramping so much there is a real chance that all of my limbs may regress into my own backside overnight. I was swimming in a sea of my own sweat 5 minutes into the so-called 'warm-up'. Don't be fooled by the gentle nature of the word 'warm-up', in boxing it's merely code for lets just run around until someone's lungs cave in on themselves. Unfortunately, we were all reasonably fit and that didn't happen, so we had to 'warm-up' for a really, really long time.

We learnt about technique; your stance, how to jab, how to punch etc. that was actually a bit of a hoot. However, I am not the most co-ordinated individual and truthfully at the ripe old age of twenty-five I still question which way is left and which way is right, so while it was my favourite bit, it's not my strongest part of the training. 

Then we moved on to what our trainer/fuehrer referred to as conditioning, during 'conditioning' I became privy to some information I had never known up until that moment. The entire quarter of a century that I have roamed this earth I have always thought there were only two forms of the medieval torture that is known as 'the plank'; front plank and side plank. How horribly misguided of me, it turns out, the plank has its own evil alternate realm FULL of different planking styles, a particular favourite of mine was the front plank that converted into a forearm plank, genuinely thought I had simultaneously suffered from an aneurysm and a hernia during that little gem. 

Other than that, everything was good, the other people taking part seem really nice, even though they are going to try and knock the head off me numerous times over the coming weeks AND Darren O'Neill was at the gym while we were there, yep, you heard right, we were training in the line of vision of a member of the Irish Olympic boxing team #likebosses. Now back to the more pressing issue of a nickname, do you guys have any suggestions? Nothing with any reference to genitals please, my mom might be reading this, let's try and maintain some semblance of decorum.

Until Thursday,
Carlynn,
xxx