10 May 2009

Friday. Ran 5km in 29:53 minutes (5.9 min/km pace). Good enough, although I still need to improve. Checked my time when I hit the 3k-mark and I was at 16-something minutes. I notice that every time I run, my speed dwindles after 5km and I end up with an average pace of 6 min/km or more. Must learn to sustain a sub-6 pace in my 5km runs at least.

After my run, hurried to meet up with Bun in Greenbelt 3 to watch the midnight screening of Star Trek. I've never been a Trekkie, but I thought the movie was just plain awesome. To my surprise, I found myself crushing on Spock. And Bun, who's usually picky when it comes to men's looks, had to agree that he was smokin' hot in spite of the pointy ears and his cold, stand-offish attitude. Complicated men are so sexy.

Of course, being in love with a Vulcan is right up there in the weird crush category, along with my crush on the animated character of Simba (yes, The Lion King himself) back in high school.

Saturday. Woke up early morning, still in giddy, happy, post-Spock/Star Trek mode. However, I wasn't smiling anymore when I went over to my boxing gym that same afternoon and I landed my first straight right punch for the day on Ryan's mitt.

Fuckin' shit. I didn't realize that the small wound on my knuckle, which I got from last Wednesday's session, would hurt that much. Well, it did effing hurt, and I needed more bandaging to cushion my knuckles from further pain. At first, Ryan didn't take me seriously and wanted me to continue punching. But the pinched look of pain never left my face as I obligingly punched--and my right-hand punches got noticeably weaker during that first round--so he finally took off my gloves and handwraps for a look at my right hand.

The wound was sore and red, and he had to clean it and put layers of plaster tape. I doubted that the tape would cushion the blows, but I wasn't wimpy enough to quit boxing for the day. Boxers get all bloodied up most of the time, and even if I'm eons away from being a professional boxer, I didn't want to quit because of some small, silly wound.

It helped that my trainer was as bullheaded as me. When we resumed the boxing drills, the wound was still smarting and bothering me like hell, but I continued punching. I kept swearing and groaning over the pain, and there were many times when I felt like stopping, but it was clear to me that Ryan would never allow me to quit.

That whole time, he kept shouting, "Keep punching!! Napakaliit ng sugat mo. Wala yan!! Punch harder! Wag magpaka-totoy!" And he took sadistic pleasure in making me do repeated straight right punches: "Harder! Punch harder! Magmamanhid rin yan at di mo na mararamdaman yung sugat!"

Of course, I felt the total opposite. Every time I punched with my right hand, I had the urge to puke because the feeling of pain was quite intense and I could just imagine blood oozing out of the wound in spite of the plaster tape and the hand wraps. But my right punches were still solid and strong, and I took satisfaction in seeing the approving look on my trainer's face as I boxed continuously for over 30 minutes, with only two 30-second water breaks.

(Pain is awful, but you have to be a little masochistic in order to put up with it and still enjoy what you're doing. That thought totally applies to boxing and running.)

When I couldn't take it anymore, Ryan obliged and we sat on the edge of the boxing ring so he could take off my wraps. True to his sadistic self, he peeled off the plaster tape in one swift movement and I groaned at the sight of blood on my raw wound and on the tape. It wasn't a lot of blood, but still. (I hate seeing blood. It makes me want to hurl. I can never be a nurse or medic, that's for sure. Once, I vomited right after a nurse stuck a needle on my arm for a blood test.)

Ryan was laughing at me and said, "Sus, wala yan. Tiisin mo. Parang hindi ka lalaki!" I shot him a dirty look to remind him that I was, quite obviously, not a man. But I couldn't stay mad for long and I started laughing--and he took the opportunity during my distracted state to rapidly douse, like, half a bottle of isopropyl alcohol on my open wound.

Wtf. My trainer's really something.

And I'm supposed to box with him again on Monday. Jesus.

After that session of pain, met up with Randy in Starbucks for a quick chat and a drink. I was craving for milk, and milk alone, and I had to pay a hundred bucks for a grande-sized order of chilled non-fat milk. Pretty steep for milk that doesn't taste like anything, but my exhausted, pained self was just happy to sit there and sip my milk while watching Randy edit some photos on his Mac.

Had poker with the usual suspects that same night until the early hours of the morning. The same good old college friends and the same brand of mayhem that comes with playing poker with these people. It felt good to sit back and watch Marie and the boys yell, and to reminisce with them about Sputnik (and make plans to reclaim our space there, haha), and to talk about Star Trek, Dollhouse, and other stuff while playing long, drawn-out poker games. My playing was awful that night, although I managed to win one round with pocket aces.

Two or three years from now, we'd probably still be the same, resolutely unmarried bunch of people at the same poker table.

Sunday. Mother's Day today! Wasn't able to run and instead, binged with the family over pizza, pasta, roasted chicken and two kinds of ice cream. My mom ought to check her BP tomorrow morning.

I also watched the last two episodes of Dollhouse Season 1 today. Because Joss Whedon is so damn good, he left me and the rest of the global Dollhouse audience hungry for more. Here's hoping Season 2 pushes through.

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