Sunday 15th July

Woke up at 6 am to cycle to city to catch a train out to Elizabeth where state squad trainings are held on Sunday mornings. Trainings went from 10 am to 12. This is the first one I've attended since knee injury. Also the first one I've been to without a coach from my own club attending. I was a bit nervous because Don is known for being staunch but it went really well. I think he's probably different when dealing with Boxing SA political matters than he's when actually coaching.

Sundays are usually my endurance session day so will have to shift this around again.

We worked on diagonal movement, getting the power in and did pad work. Don's fighters al know how to do pad work for each other and they're good at it. I found the pace faster and more natural than what I get in my gym. The pads are held closer together rather then a metre or more apart like in my gym - a long way for a short arse like myself! There were even times when I was about to get confused but didn't because my punches just flowed from the verbal commands. makes me wonder how many times I'm 'confused' at boxing when I don't actually have to be. Strange mental glitch that tells me I'm dumber than i actually am!

Things to work on until next state training:
Bring back leg up more,
Don't come up on toes when trying to get power at end of punch - stay on same level,
work on upper body core -hip and abs strength - sitting and swinging medicine ball side to side,
diagonal movement co-ordination

Caught train back out to the city and cycled to mum's for a free feed - approx 45 mins. Got a lift home with the bike.

Monday 16th of July,

Alarm didn't go off so didn't wake up in time to get to swimming. You'd think being a PhD student I could handle my alarm clock radio but apparently not! Instead I went for a 30 min jog. No pain but it did feel slow. I sold one of my Kidney's recently to buy a new heart rate monitor which measures cadence.

My cadence is too low which might be part of the reason I hurt my knee - I will use my HR monitor to train myself to run with higher cadence. Right now Ave is 79 - want to get it up to over 100.

Well I dipped into my car saving budget but I won't be legally allowed to drive until around Christmas anyway so I've got time to save. I should have gotten my licence years ago but didn't have anyone to teach me any have been too stingy to pay for lessons - getting knocked off my bike for the THIRD time a few months ago has motivated me to finally go for it for safely reasons. Have to do 50 hours though and with one lesson a week that takes time.

Car drivers are always sorry and completely accept their fault but when I'm in a bike lane and not doing anything wrong and I still get hit by people accidentally it's only a matter of time before some cyclist hating A**hole runs me down and kills me.