I Went Boxing Again ...

I went to that boxing class again. My arms no longer work. Don’t worry I expect no sympathy.

 

But if someone could make me a cup of coffee and put a straw in it, I would be most grateful.

High-Heeled Trainers, anyone?

After the abuse heaped on my legs from the long runs and the boxing circuit class, one of them has gone on strike. My left calf has rebelled and has tightened to a ridiculous degree meaning that I can’t place my left heel on the floor while standing. My leg is just too tight.

My brilliant solution to this was to wear high heeled shoes all weekend. Possibly not the most sensible answer, but when the left calf didn’t ease even after DOMS (or RAMBOBB) had withdrawn from my right leg I decided action – sensible action – needed to be taken. And I don’t mean treating myself to a HIGHER pair of heels.

I booked in a sports massage with a lovely lady who managed to squeeze me a place in her busy schedule at the last minute. She compensated herself for my lack of booking foresight by finding all the sore parts in my left calf by poking her finger in them very hard.

However, the ‘poking method’ worked and my leg - whilst still not feeling 100% is now feeling a huge amount better. And I’ve got lovely smooth skin from all the gel rubbed into it. I now have one normal leg and one silky smooth leg. It’s a bit Frankenstein’s monster to tell you the truth. One goat leg, one supermodel leg.

It looks as though New Forest marathon is off the cards this weekend. Luckily this was going to be my ‘run for fun’ marathon and Bournemouth which was to be my main marathon is still 3 weeks away but barring the invention of a pair of high heeled running shoes I’m just going to have to see how it goes. 

I woke up with RAMBOBB ...

I woke up with DOMS. That’s Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness - not a new boyfriend. In fact it was worse than DOMS. I rechristened it RAMBOBB. Really Agonising Muscles - Brought On By Boxing.

And it was all thanks to the boxing circuits class yesterday. Not only was the class the equivalent of doing school PE in my pants due to forgetting my kit, my legs now REALLY ached.

I had a 22 miler scheduled for today. Luckily I was sensible and postponed it until the RAMBOBB wore off.

The end.

Um... no. Not quite. What actually happened was I woke up with achy legs and thought “Meh, this will ease when I start running. I’ll RUN the agony off. That sounds like a sensible plan and in no way a recipe to injure myself.”

So I drove to Pitsford which is a 7 mile loop around a reservoir. The weather was grotty. It was rainy. It was windy. I should have twigged that pathetic fallacy was trying to tell me something.

Maybe I should have taken more notice when the clouds formed “Do not run” over the lake. Nope. I also ignored the sheep bleating “reeeeee-st”, “reeeeeee-st”. (Amazing how they do that without human lips right? It’s those haunted sheep again) I thought – and quite sensibly – what do sheep know about running?

I had decided on this loop as I really didn’t want to run the 22 miles. But it was in the schedule. And the schedule should be strictly adhered to at ALL times. I had sore, tired legs and it was only 4 days since I’d done 2 races plus a 20 mile run. I decided that this would be a good route as after 2 laps I would be on 14 miles and this wouldn’t be far enough for me to call it quits, whereas on my 4.5 mile loop I might decide that I was tired at 18 miles and give up. This way I would be at least 1 mile within the target. Sensible? Of course. (Cough)

The aches DID ease after a few miles, but I found I was more tired than I expected and that the run took more energy than I’d expected. Plus with the faffing around in the morning and messing about finding the right carpark change, I worked out that I was going to be 15 minutes late for an appointment unless I really quickened my pace up. So I did.

This is where warning bells sound for the normal person.

Nope. It seemed like sensible planning. However, my lack of foresight and utter uselessness at maths caught up with me on my second mile of sub-8 running (about 17 miles into the run) when I realised that I STILL couldn’t make it back in time. So I stopped. I was still a few miles away from the car. I couldn’t get back in time so I stopped and rearranged the appointment. I should have twigged that I was in trouble then when my legs seized up.

Nope. Of course not. Blindness to anything other than target and stupid bloodymindedness to finish the 22 miler at any cost saw me running 5 laps of the bridge to make up the distance.

However, after the run I did all of my stretches and I did them properly. Possibly the only other thing that could have helped me at this point would have been to jump in the cold reservoir and let the freezing water soothe my legs. Nope. I decided a nice sit down (and a packet of sweeties) and then a 45 minutes drive back home would be the best bet.

Having to walk on tiptoes and not being able to put my heels down on the floor is normal, right?

Distance: 22 miles

Time: 3:07:40 

Avg Pace: 8:32 min/miles

Boxing Circuits: Rocky Balboa Meets Riverdance

At least once in every five times I go to the gym I forget something crucial. My towel ... multiple times, sports bra … regularly (although considering I can pretty much make do with a couple of strips of sellotape that’s not quite such a disaster). My crime today? Forgotten trainers. I thought I’d been super organised and I’d even remembered to write down the workout: 8x 1000m in approx 4 minutes starting every 5 minutes – see how organised is THAT! - but I couldn’t remember the basics.

I stood in the changing room with a puddle of lycra around my feet having just pulled out the contents of my gym bag to check that the trainers weren’t hiding in the mobile phone pocket or inside a sock. Nope. Definitely trainer-less. Not even invisible or miniature trainers in THIS gym bag.

I obviously looked confused about my missing trainers as an instructor asked me what was wrong. I explained my lack of footwear but multitude of lycra and she suggested the boxing circuits class.

Hmmm ... Let’s think about this.

Complete lack of upper body strength? Check.

Dangerously uncoordinated? Check.

Interest in Rocky films? Nil.

What could go wrong?

I turned up to the class and had a chat to the instructor. He confirmed that shoeless would be fine, but I might want to remove my socks also unless I fancied doing the equivalent of ice skating on the smooth floor. I’m all for cross training but I didn’t think boxing and skating would complement each other very well.

Luckily for me, the first thing I had to do was skipping. Girls are GOOD at skipping. Even uncoordinated ones like me. Well obviously when I say good, I only mean good compared to the average bloke whose skipping skills can be compared to his flower arranging skills. The facial expressions in the class ranged from ‘panic’ to ’what the hell am I supposed to do with this?’ as each person was handed a skipping rope.

After a brief session of skipping and tripping, we were handed a pair of boxing gloves. And given the warning “Whatever you do, don’t sniff the gloves.” Why would they need to warn us not to sniff gloves? Are we MEANT to sniff gloves? Am I missing something?

<sniff>

Trust me on this DO NOT SNIFF THE GLOVES.

While we were all occupied working out how to put the gloves on, the instructor was setting out a circle of innocent-looking equipment. A trampoline, a mat, a step, a mat, a stepper machine, a mat. two squished hedgehog ball things, a mat, BOSU ball, a punchbag. All sound pretty innocuous, right?

And they are innocent and innocuous. Unless your instructor wants you to do mental things like getting a six-pack and actually working hard towards this. Can’t I work slightly hard and get a new handbag instead?

The worklist was this:

Sprint on a trampoline and and do jabs with each step. Yep mental.

Crunches with jabs as you sit up. Not quite so much crunchy as squeaky towards the end.

A step with jabs each time you step up. Like step class but with boxing. I struggle enough with step class - this was an uncoordinated girl’s NIGHTMARE. The instructor stopped this early for fear of me giving myself a black eye and a bloody nose.

Two squishy things like punctured footballs with spikes to stand on. Looked a bit like rubber hedgehogs. I could stand on them OR do jabbing moves. Not both. Again my coordination skills took a beating.

Stepper with jabs. Not only did I have to not fall off the stepper, I had to keep my legs moving at the same speed and do jabs. Like patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. I looked like I was riverdancing and attempting a Mexican Wave. Not pretty.

BOSU ball with jabs. A BOSU ball is like half a beach ball. Had to stand on this without falling off and make punching movements. Sigh.

I started on the mat: This was crunches with 2 jabs every time I sat up. There was a brief pause after the first one as the keys in the back pocket of my gym shorts ended up where you really didn’t want keys to be. It’s a lot more difficult to get things out of your pocket wearing boxing gloves. I probably should have taken the gloves off first, rather than pawing ineffectually at my own backside in the hope the keys would disentangle themselves from my underwear. 

The class would probably have been pretty entertaining to watch, but I felt humiliated. Not only could I not get my arms and legs moving independently, I was at all times in mortal fear of injuring myself with my own flailing limbs. So my legs were doing the equivalent of a riverdance, my arms were attempting to punch but I was cringing away from my own hands and at the same time trying not to fall off the step / mat / stepper machine / trampoline. It was basically the adult’s version of 3^rd year PE class.

Also the punchbag. It didn’t do what it did in films. In films, boxers hit the punchbag, it makes a satisfying ‘thwack’ noise and swings around, at which point the film hero does some awesome quick punches and looks cool. This is LIES. This doesn’t happen. Or it didn’t for me anyway. When I hit the punchbag, it didn’t move. It made a noise like ‘pfft’ and that was it. Basically I got farted at by a punchbag. I was scared of my own hands and getting sarcastic comments from the gym equipment.

In a fog of fear, humiliation and sweat, I managed to get the circuit done. Not only had I not injured myself, everyone else had managed to avoid my waving limbs, I hadn’t thrown up, wet myself AND I hadn’t fallen off the trampoline. I was expecting a boxing contract any second. Or a ‘well done’ badge at the very least.

Then the instructor informed us we had to do it all over again.