Twelve Days

Its 11 am in the morning and the sun is shining in my face. A slight breeze blows and I can see the green spring leaves rustle in the wind. After satisfyingly hearing the house door lock click I step off the porch and out of the gate of our two house compound. The streets of berkeley in this area look pretty much the same, although my route tends to be the same. If you pay attention though there are slight differentations. Two days before, two blocks down I got to see a little boy do back flips on his trampoline, the next day he had a friend over although they weren't doing any spectacular tricks.

As I get onto san pablo I look down the street. The little corner cafe by Good Vibrations the sex shop is crowded confirming that yes it really is a nice day. As I round the corner down university I dodge a few window shoppers and lolly gaggers who are mesmirized by the crappy art in the windows. A few more beats of my feet on the pavement and I'm at the aquatic park. The park has been having quite a few day time parties lately. There's always little kids playing soccer now,climbing haphazardly over the jungle gym set up or with parental aid flying crappy kites. I drink some water at the public fountain and turn around for my run back.

Once I hit carleton again I start doing sprints every other block. The blocks are much longer than the block by the gym which I'm accustommed to doing sprints on. My heat beats hard as I enter back into the gate. I take off my shoes and put on my ankle supporters. I grab my wraps and walk outside to our bag set up. A while ago Aragorn and I paid for a new bag. Its not often that I actually end up working out on it but I thought that it would be worth putting in half the payment for days like today when the gym is closed but I'm still in need of a work out.

I stretch and put on my wraps and then begin doing three rounds of bag work solely with my hands. Primarily I work on hooking off my jab. I jab into the bag, once, twice, and then use my left hook. As my knuckles smash into the bag I imagine my fist bludgeoning the temple of my future opponents. Three more rounds are spent doing punch and kicking combinations. The old one, two, three, right kick. A final three rounds is spent working on my knees. I do some knuckle push ups and a set of sit ups that make me sore. I walk back inside and wonder how much longer it will be til I fight. 12 days.