Gotta Eat Some To Give Some

"Did you box?" Alan asked me around five minutes to nine on Wednesday.  "You mean spar?  No, I didn't," I answered.  "Well, get ready.  You gotta speak up, Hillari," the coach told me.  Some folks have gotten miffed about being skipped for sparring, but I just figured time had run out that day, and that was it.  There's always the next time, I always figure. 

Earlier, he told me that Evangelina and I were going to spar.  However, Alan got into the ring with Evangelina first for a few rounds.  I was working on one of the heavy bags and trying to watch the action and give advice at the same time.  Eventually I had to stop and give all of my attention to the action in the ring.  Alan was doing his usual tricks.  He had sparred with Mike before then and told him, "I'm too old to be slick anymore, so I have to do something else."  "Oh, come on. . .you're pretty cagey," I told Alan.

Alan sometimes has his hands down, leaving his left jaw open to attack.  Every time I saw him do that, I told Evangelina to catch him with a right hook.  She also uppercut him several times, and popped him with jabs.  He was hit with some good side shots, too.  After the bell he told Evangelina, "Now I'm going to have to take some Excederin when I go home because of you."  They both were dead tired when they came out of the ring.

So Evangelina and I got into the ring at the end of the evening.  I had been working on the bags all night, so I figured I might only be good for one round, and not a good round at that.  From out of nowhere, I had a burst of energy once the bell rang.  I kept catching Evangelina with rights and hooks.  Off to the side, Alan joked to me, "Have you been taking strength enhancing drugs?"  He commented that she and I had some good exchanges when the round ended.

Alan called out during round two, "You've got to eat some punches to get some in," and I took quite of few of them in exchange for getting in my punches.  Evangelina hits hard, and does not get fazed by punches that come at her. One bomb she threw rocked me off balance; I almost fell to the canvas. I was so busy thinking about the next set of hits to throw, that I didn't notice how hard the next punch she threw really was.  It was weird.  It was only after she pulled back her left hand and I reset myself to attack that I noticed the room spun for a second.  "Whoa, I almost got knocked out," I thought to myself.  

I was happy that the round ended on a strong note, unlike what happened on Monday when I wimped out in the middle of a first round.  I was careful about not eating much before I came to the gym.  I had a couple of low-carb popsicles in the middle of the afternoon, and a few teaspoons of peanut butter an hour and half before I got to Loyola Park.  It's doesn't pay for me to go to the gym without eating a little something a couple of hours before, but having a full meal is not the way to go, either.  That's what partially did me in on Monday.