What do you do when your friend tells you they're organising a charity white collar boxing event?
The diary of two girls, learning to be white collar boxers....
Boxing for Buhinga: The Fight Club Diaries. Week 5
After a (mildly disturbing - how times HAVE changed) weekend involving tough gym sessions on Friday night, Saturday morning AND Bank Holiday Monday - Lora and I are off on our long-awaited girls holiday this week - Rich has dubbed it the "Mykonos Training Camp". Ha, as if. There.will.be.no.training.
Monday's session of boxing with Simon the Merciless left me itching to get my gloves back on - I felt like I learned a lot and my fitness is definitely improving. I'm not getting as tired, I'm thinking more about my technique rather than just punching and I can run up a 10% incline after a decent run of pad work, which is satisfying, if utterly gut wrenchingly painful (and OK yes I did hold on for about 10 seconds when StM wasn't looking).
Following last week's near narcolepsy he of no mercy has suggested protein shakes might help my body recover quicker. Following a flurry of panicked emails between myself and Rich as I blindly swallow a rumour that they're all made of dried and powdered cow (I'm a vegetarian and they're not) I've invested in some relatively girlie and pricey ones which seem to have decent reviews on how they taste, and can be trusted not to pile on the pounds - I'm a bit reticent about actually having one but actually it tastes fine. The addition of lots of crushed ice helps but I think it will probably be alright without too. Feel smug and post photo of it on facebook.
Later I made Heston's triple cooked chips for my tea. Did not post photo on facebook.
Due to terrible pre-holiday spray tan timing it seems Lora and I will have to go to boxing club on this week looking bright orange. Well Lora is a normal shade of tanned; I'm slightly tinged green (think...erm Wicked) because my spray tan aerosol can was seemingly a tad out of date. Oops, who knew they went off? Every day's a school day!
Tuesday comes around and - it's a quiet week - just five of us. The words "no where to hide" spring to mind.
Also - what the hell? There is both a black eye and a bloody nose here tonight. Sparring clearly went....enthusiastically, at the weekend.
The guys are great - we throw some punches at them and they help us along with some advice - it's also becoming clear that Lora and I both CAN hit people, just not each other. Somehow aiming a left hook at a 6ft bloke is much easier than at 6 stone Lora.....we need to get better at that. I still can't do the plank elbows to hands thing either...arghhhhh!
I leave feeling pretty crap about my performance - although we've probably learned more in the small group than we have on any previous week. Feel a bit embarrassed about how terrible I am and ponder on the fact that as an adult it's rare that we do things that we're not good at.
Try to resolve to harness this feeling to get better next week (a la Rocky montage) but it's midnight, I'm tired and I need to add another layer of spray tan to cover up the green. Go to bed grumpy, green-ish orange and smelling like a baked potato.
Dragging my ass to the gym the following day is akin to the energy displayed by a dog dragging an anvil uphill, and later in the afternoon I email the Merciless to say see him after my hols, he replies with 'have a great time and lets step it up when you are back'. Step it up? There is more? Step it up to what? HELP
About Boxing for Buhinga & Universal Chance
The Boxing for Buhinga event will be held on the 24th of November at the Grange St Pauls hotel in London. For tickets and enquiries go to http://universalchance.org/tickets/. You can read profiles of all the fighters at http://universalchance.org.
Universal Chance is a charitable trust set up by a group of friends who share a common desire to use the skills that we have developed through our careers to do what we can to help communities that have not been granted the same chances that we have whilst inspiring others to do the same.
We are dedicated to implementing tangible projects that will help less privileged communities and individuals reach their potential . This could be anything from improving education facilities to providing medical facilities or giving access to clean water. To find out more check out our site http://universalchance.org/ or follow us on twitter at @universalchance.