I’ve been thinking a lot about conserving  energy in the ring. Apparently thus far I’ve been dense, because I never think about it while in the ring. I do what I want to do and if I gas, I curse my training. Yet I’m in control of my breathing, my work rate and rest periods.

A quote from the great military strategist Sun Tzu comes to mind: “Be before the enemy in occupying the raised and sunny spots, and carefully guard your line of supplies. Then you will be able to fight with advantage.” – Sun Tzu

Managing supply lines (or energy levels) is an inherent part of fighting. Yeah sometimes you have to say, screw it and ignore fatigue. But to enter a conflict and never consider when to conserve energy is foolish. I’m done being foolish.

I’m feeling really good, confidence is at an all time high. This week I’m eager to get in my sparring, show what I can do and display my improved endurance.

Comparing myself now with how I was a few years back before my long layoff, I’m a completely different boxer. My footwork is 10X better, I’m a really good body puncher, I work more angles, my defenses are on another level and I’m in better shape. But I’m most excited about my new left hook, which is a fast, powerful and dynamic punch. I’m going to knock somebody out with that punch. Yes, I’m doing a Babe Ruth and calling it right here.

The only thing I need to regain that I didn’t have before is my counter punching and longer combos. I need to tack on another punch to my combos and counter a greater variety of punches. At the rate of my development I have no doubt I’ll be regaining those in the coming weeks.

Tonight I ran 3.5 miles intermixed with 18 hundred yard sprints. I was worried about my arch, but the rest over the weekend, anti-inflammatories and night splint are healing my plantar fasciitis at a rapid rate. Tomorrow I’m going to get up early and run three 8 min miles to get the blood flowing and work out the soreness.

Tomorrow night my coach, Old School, and I will go over the upcoming fights we can go to before my 35th birthday in mid April. I’m guessing we’ll start showing up to them at the end of March looking for a match.

After gassing during last Thursday’s sparring and ranting on the ol’ blog, my wife pointed out that I was cutting lots of calories last week. I added some back Friday and immediately I felt better and had an energetic workout that night.

While my coach influenced me to up my punch output in training, I was doing less total rounds, and combined with the calorie cutting I wasn’t ready for the sparring. Instead of backing off the plan I’m going full speed ahead with sensible caloric intake and enough rounds of punches leading to sparring.

Saturday was a mess, there were no sparring partners so I did 10 rounds of bag work and ran sprints. My arch is killing me, I can’t run slow or walk without lots of pain. Sprinting, jumping rope and bouncing on the toes are ok. Went to the doc today and he diagnosed me with plantar faciattis or a hyperextended arch tendon. He said it’s very painful but I can work through since it’s just a month till my fight.

Good news though I weighed in at 180, down 3.4 lbs. And when the doctor took my vitals my resting heart rate was 53. Pretty badass for a 34 year old yuppie.

Last night is the scheduled sparring. The prior week I did 3 rounds with 30 sec breaks no problem, then went back for 2 more later in the night. But last night is a disaster. First off an office party interferes with getting over there in time. I have to eat a tiny dinner at 4 before the party so I get something before sparring. At the party everybody is eating nachos and drinking beer, I’m sitting there stomach growling and hating life. Then I take off 30 minutes late and get stuck in traffic, bad traffic.

At the gym an older (well my age) guy has been nice enough to stay around to spar. Mexican Style trainer is the only trainer there. At the time I don’t know this but my sparring partner has  lots of experience, Mexican Style says he really admires his skills. Some notes:

• I get in, he’s going real light and slow, but he’s older and nice enough to stick around so I just match his pace. I kind of feel like he’s letting me hit him, because I’m landing every variety of punch or combo I want, you name it. Great placement of my body punches on the ribs. But he’s landing too.
• This guy is sooo relaxed, it sort of lulls me into not taking him seriously but yet he “sticks on me,” walking through the punches. I’m working hard to keep him off with my feet and jab, I find I’m upping the power no longer matching him just trying to keep him off me. He ups too, no biggie he’s in my weight class unlike the heavies I often get.
• First round is over, then I gas, big time. I have no energy, sucking wind, arms and legs dead. After one round, are you kidding me!?!?
• I used my mobility and was working my lateral movement in the first round, which Mexican Style convinces is me is a mistake, a waste of energy against this guy. This guy has slow feet and just ok footwork and I wasn’t keeping him off anyway. So I concentrate on moving one step and working my jab in the 2^nd & 3^rd rounds – when I get the energy.
• Second round is terrible, he lands more and get’s off some flurries. I’m still landing some when I can muster the strength, but punch output is low. Mouth is open sucking wind, now my jaw is a little sore from getting hit with it open.
• Third round Mexican Style says I’ll get my 2^nd wind, I don’t. I throw little to nothing. He’s flurrying, putting me on the ropes, shining the shoes. Twice I’m stuck on the ropes thinking, “I’m so tired, I’d rather eat this entire flurry than try to punch.”

How can I work harder this week but yet have so much less endurance than last week? I gave Old School trainer the benefit of the doubt, but now I have real doubts. Mexican Style mentions he thought I was overtraining too.

Old School is out of town this week, but wanted me to do a really long run Saturday morning then show up at 11:30 for sparring. Mexican Style says screw the run, do it Sunday. Right now Mexican Style is making more sense, I’m going to stick with him.

A Death March, as in a soldier traveling a long distance in harsh conditions without the proper rest or supplies, entering battle already exhausted and beat down. Napoleon sent his men on a death march into the Russian Winter and sealed his (and their) fate before the fight even started. I’m starting to think I’m on a conditioning death march.

In order to discuss my trainers difference in philosophy more clearly, I will name them Old School and Mexican Style respectively.

I’m into shorter intensity training, I know most amateur boxers run only a couple miles/day with sprints, because boxing is a sprint not a marathon. But at the same time I want to stick with my trainer Old School, even though he’s going crazy on the conditioning.

This week in response to my trainer I cut calories, I’m pushing my runs, I’m doing uber-intense bag work to push punch output way up. I feel the weight come off, but I’m feeling bad.

I’m exhausted, my knuckles and foot are sore. Worse yet I’m getting the chills in the afternoon. I bundle up but I can’t get warm (it’s like 70 degrees in LA). According to a google search a temperature drop in the following day of exercise is from overtraining. But I ignore this, because I want to stick with the program, overtraining the body is training the mind I tell myself.

Former world champion, future hall-of-famer and recent heavyweight contender James Toney has signed a multi-fight deal with the UFC! Wow.

I’ve already given my thoughts on James Toney entering the UFC and how he’d do. Now I get to sit back and enjoy the show. I can’t wait to see who he fights first, the early rumors are Kimbo Slice and Chuck Liddell.

Some people will say this is a freak show signing, but it’s not. Toney is a world class fighter having mastered one of MMA’s subarts (boxing) and having wrestled back in the day. The UFC signs elite but one dimensional fighters from the other MMA subarts of Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling all the time.

Toney will certainly have an adjustment period but it looks like he’s taking it seriously and has signed on with former UFC champion Rampage Jackson’s recent trainer Juanito Ibarra. Hopefully he develops a good sprawl so he can actually have a chance to use his boxing skills in the octagon.

Before the lecture Friday coach lays out his simple philosophy:

1. Run a LOT
2. Spar a LOT
3. Train hard
4. Then spar and run a lot more

He wants me to have 40-50 rounds of sparring minimum before this fight. I already have logged 11 and at the rate we’re going traveling to gyms for partners, I’ll make 40 no problem. If we schedule some extra trips I should be able to get 50+.

We’re doing organized sprint work Saturdays and he wants me to do steady runs all the other days but Thursday, where he says I should start building up for the organized hill runs.

I run three 8 minute miles right now, but he wants me to push towards 7 minute miles daily. He says a good boxer can do 6 min miles (personally I’m skeptical at how many could, but I’m all for being ambitious).

Also he wants to organize a few long hill runs before the fight and a 5 mile run. The 5 mile run is to build mental toughness he says. Coach says boxers get up at 5 AM (er well, 7 AM in my case) to run every morning because it builds the mental discipline to get up when you get knocked down in the ring. Sounds good to me.

After my trainer dressed me down a bit Friday night, he says he wants me to go running with him and an Olympic sprinter in-training the following morning at 8:30 AM.

I left the conversation a little put off and decided to have my last undisciplined night for the next 6 weeks of “camp.” My wife & son are out of town so I went to a little sushi place a short walk from home. Had some spicy tuna rolls and more importantly, 2 pints of beer. On the walk home I’m thirsty as hell, so pick up a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke and down the whole caffiene infused bottle.

That night it rains hard all night. I know this sounds sounds lame, especially since I’m an ex-East Coaster, but I’m not used to the noise of it raining really hard at night so I can’t sleep. Oddly enough all my running partners had the exact same issue. I admit it, Southern California makes you soft. Anyway combine the rain with the alcohol and Diet Coke and I only put in 2-3 hours of sleep before the run.

The trainer that organizes runs is old school, he worships boxers that used to run 14 miles/day and box 20 rounds or whatever the hell they did, so I knew he’d abuse us. The original plan was jogging a warm up mile, 2 miles of light-then-medium jogging intervals, then 30 all out sprint job intervals. They sprint the straight aways of a quarter mile track and jog the turns, which means 15 laps, or 3.75 miles of sprints completed after another 3 miles of jogging. 6.75 miles, come on!!!

So we do the warm-up mile and light-then-medium jog intervals completing the first 3 miles. It’s not as bad as I thought, we stopped to stretch between the warm-up mile and the other 2 and I usually run my 3 miles faster, so I’m feeling fine. But then again here comes the sprints.

Then it starts hammering down rain. I swear I wasn’t the person complaining, but one of the non-boxing sprinters is worried about getting sick. So we go into a nearby parking garage and do as best we can our sprint work. Garage starts to fill and we cut it short after a mile by our count. Not as bad as planned, but still 4 miles total.

I’m stepping it up, so I take a nap, then go to the gym for some bag work. Next morning (Sunday) I do a 3 mile run on my own and later in the day do some more bag work. With my bag work I’m focusing on upping my punch output. I either shoot for 3 fast 300 punch rounds, or do 3 rounds of 30 second power punch intervals.

I have two trainers which has some advantages and disadvantages. The one who’s watched my sparring recently has been very pleased with my progress. But the other one gave me a big kick in the pants Friday night.

The conversation started with him asking me to remind him of the timetable to fight before my 35th birthday (6 weeks out). Then he makes a face, shakes his head and says I need to get moving. He wants to see my weight go down 10 lbs at least and my punch output go up, way up.

His concern is that I’ll fight a taller fighter and I need to outwork him. I’m a little surprised at this because every sparring partner I’ve had in my weight class has been within a few inches, which doesn’t bother me at all. I can’t tell if he’s just a worrier, his concern is legit, or he’s playing mind games to push me harder. Either way I’m just going to work harder.