Dublin Pub Box - And the gloves are off

Day 6

The following is a true story and is intended for mature audiences only.  This writing
contains strong language, graphic scenes of violence and senseless torture.  Those who are faint of heart should refrain from reading further.  You have been warned. 

This post is mostly about three things;
- boxing gloves,
- mental acrobatics, and,
- running oneself ragged.

Thursday night's training session was pretty uneventful as training sessions go, were it not for the 'moist' gloves. Having finished our warm up we all ran to the cage to get our gloves. I saw that there were some paired up outside of the cage and took the easy way out snatching them up off the ground and jumping into the ring.

I hurriedly stuck my hands into the gloves, only to gawk in disgust as a film of someone else's body juice clung to both my skin and my hand wraps. *Shudders at the memory. Now; it is a testament to my repulsion that I am using the word 'moist' to describe the gloves, as I hate the word. It sounds creepy, cretinous and just icky in general; moissssssssst. Eugh! But needless to say, I have ordered my own gloves.

At the beginning of Thursday's session, I genuinely thought I was finally getting to grips with the punch combinations and footwork;

- "Forward step, double jab, right hand",
- "Backward step, double jab, right hand, hook",
- "Step to the left, 1,2,1,2",

Then body sparring happened and I was shown the error of my ways. In my defence, I was a little nonplussed by the aforementioned 'moist' gloves. *Shudder, shudder. It turns out, rather than getting to  grips, I need to get a grip. Practising punches on thin air, in line formation is not the same as trying to land a shot on a fully functional human, who would have thought, not me obviously. After that little humdinger, I now have even more respect for boxers, they have brains and brawn.

At first, I thought it was my fitness that was going to let me down in the ring but, alas, I fear it might actually be the 'ould noggin. I can't concentrate long enough to finish one measly box in Sudoku on a Sunday morning, how the hell am I supposed to out-wit a fighter in the ring!

Due to the panic that ensued following our last training session, I decided that I would throw myself into the interval training. I used to run quite a bit before so thought it would be a walk in the park. Yeah, again, mistaken. (Seriously, how many mistakes can one girl bloody make!!!). I sprinted for one minute, rested for one minute, then ran as fast as I could for two, then rested again for one and ran for three. I repeated that twice. Now by the time I got to 3 minutes, running as fast as I could wasn't very fast at all. Speed-wise it was more of a brisk walk but I was going through the running motions; on tip toes, elbows bent, face puce etc.

One thing that really annoyed me, was that people kept throwing me pitying looks and smug grins; I knew they were thinking, "Ah, bless, this is obviously her first time running, she doesn't know how to pace herself", "Some people are so unfit, unlike me of course". I felt like screaming "I'm bloody interval training, it's like your poncy running except waaaaay more hardcore", all while secretly wishing a big gust of wind would knock them off their high horses. I didn't actually say anything as I was too busy concentrating on the awful burning sensation emanating from both my lungs and calves.

Next week's training regime is mostly made up of me watching the Rocky box set, purchasing a skipping rope and searching for some suitable steps I can run up and down a la Mr. Balboa. All while ignoring my housemate's packet of Bourbon creams in the right hand corner of the cupboard.

Wish me luck,
Until Tuesday my fellow bruisers,
Carlynn
xxx