Friday and Saturday

Friday

I had to work early so I pushed my workouts back to the afternoon. I was pretty productive and took off early, ran some errands with Amanda and then hit the gym. Jeff changed the name of the gym from Shok Fitness to Indy CrossFit, saying that "CrossFit is what we do and we do it extremely well." It was a gut check kind of workout and I pushed through it. I have to be the hammer not the nail.

Diet 7 a.m. Granola bar, banana, water. 11:30 a.m. Leftover jambalaya and greens, Switch soda (100% carbonated fruit juice, no sugar added). 4 p.m. Qdoba chicken burrito, water. 9 p.m. 8" pizza, breadsticks, water.

Conditioning Indy CrossFit workout - 10 jump rope double unders, 10 dumb bell thrusters at 45# per hand, max sets in 20 minutes. I got eight sets in. I'd never tried double unders successfully but now I am confident that I could rip out sets of them much faster than I did last night. Afterwards I picked up Amanda and we went to the YMCA. Thirty minutes on the treadmill, 30 on a stationary bike in a vinyl sweat suit.

Skills Nada.

Saturday

Slept in again but felt good when I got up. I hadn't sparred in more than a month because of my hand and holiday craziness. There's no replacement for sparring, so when I wanted to call it a day after two rounds, our sparring coach at Self Defense Systems, John Eckles, told me to gear up and go another two rounds. Turns out the third round was my best. The fourth round was ugly, but more

Diet Noon Two breadsticks, mixed greens salad with peanuts and apple slices and a little honey mustard dressing. Water to drink. 2:30 p.m. Granola bar, two small oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, water. 4:30 p.m. One piece of beef jerky, Gatorade. 7 p.m. Stir-friend chicken over mixed green salad, baked potstickers. 10 p.m. Popcorn and lemonade. Hey, we went to see Juno, and you can't watch movies without popcorn. Even after the movie I felt clean inside and out. Nothing I ate today made me feel bloated or slow or unclean. I think that's due equally to what I ate and the portions I ate.

Conditioning Ten three-minute rounds of boxing work: three rounds of shadow boxing, three on the heavy bag, and four rounds of sparring. After I got home Amanda and I went to the Y and did 30 minutes on the treadmill and 30 minutes on the stationary bike.

Skills Worked on hand spead and keeping my defenses up while during shadow boxing and heavy bag work. I sparred all four rounds with Kevin Mat, a fast mofo who fights much better in the gym than he has in the ring. He won Golden Gloves a couple years back but has been a little passive as his competition improved. He's a counter fighter but doesn't do enough to establish control of the ring or put his opponent down - even though he and everyone he trains with knows he can. It was good to spar with him and get absolutely peppered with punches. I will not face anyone nearly as fast, and it will be good to tighten up my defenses and get in the habit of always moving and changing my targets and angles of attack.