Jimmy Takes On Golden Gloves

I love boxing. I always have for some reason. When I was little, I honestly wanted to be Rocky more than anything and I love those movies so much (except the fifth, booo). There's a scene in Rocky IV where he's training and he runs in the snow, throws logs, does abs hanging upside down...all things that I convinced myself I could and would do one day, ha!

My choice last year to hire the amazing boxer, Jimmy Clarke, as my personal trainer has been one of my best decisions, ever. He's totally driven and motivating and he crushes me weekly. The best part is I get to live out my boxing dream every Monday night, heehee. I'm definitely an aggressive person when it comes to working out so boxing has been an amazing fit for me. The addition of it to my workout routine has helped increase endurance and stamina for me like you wouldn't believe. Jimmy just knows what he's doing and he's freaking good at it. It sounds kinda sick but I also get a sort of odd satisfaction when my knuckles get busted up. It's like my battle scars or something. :P

I've been super excited for him this past month because he's been fighting in the Golden Gloves tournament and doing awesome. He won every fight leading up to the finals which took place last night at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. I have a bunch of friends that train with Jimmy too so a big group of us decided to get tickets and go support him. I've never been to a live fight so I was totally psyched up for it!

We met at Tempest Bar for a few beers beforehand which is where Camille proceeded to pull out her special surprise of the night - Jimmy heads on a stick. I almost peed my pants because there were nearly 20 of us going and she'd made enough for everyone to wave around. When we got settled in our seats, I couldn't wait to take a picture:

Hahahaha! Holy crap, were they funny. We definitely went crazy screaming for him though and I think everyone around us loved Jimmy as much as we do. With Golden Gloves, the fighters are only allotted three rounds so the fight itself was really quick. It was so great watching Jimmy do his thing:

Unfortunately, Jimmy lost the fight and it seemed really unfair. Scott sent around an article about it this morning with this blurb:

In the following fight, the crowd saw a standing-eight count in one round, then a fighter fall almost entirely out of the ring in the next.

James Clarke landed a right hook to Joseph Scalafani in the middle of the second round that sent him into the standing-eight in the 165-pound novice class.

As he stood waiting for the bout to resume, Scalafani became even more determined to win."I just said to myself I'm not losing these gloves," Scalafani said. "I worked too hard the last four months to come up short."

Scalafani landed a flurry of punches right after the eight count and continued his momentum into the third. Toward the end of the third round, the two became tangled up in the corner and Clarke refused to let go of Scalafani. Scalafani pushed his opponent off and Clarke fell into the ropes, sliding through and almost falling fully out of the ring.

The referee penalized Clarke for holding and minutes later, Scalafani was announced the winner by a 3-2 decision.

We all felt so sad for Jimmy. He'd worked so hard and it was tough seeing him lose. We took him out for a beer after to console him:

Hahahaha! I'll always giggle about this. It was an awesome evening overall and a true pleasure going to support our boy. You're a winner to all of us, Jimmy!

SIG Training Begins!

I think I'll take a break from talking about chefs, food and restaurants for a bit and turn instead to another passion of mine - cycling! Back in 2009, I got a fabulous road bike complete with clipless pedals and the whole nine. At that point, I'd never been on a road bike, much less while being clipped in, so my first few rides were most certainly very rocky. I may or may not have fallen down within the first 5 minutes of being on. I'm really lucky to live just a few blocks from Central Park so I can easily get up there to ride but it's honestly become so annoying. There are so many people in the park these days and now it's a law in NYC that all cyclists must stop at red lights. There are probably 10 or so lights around the 6 mile circumference of the park so that gets incredibly annoying to stop, clip out, wait and resume. The fine is something like $275 though so I would just be pissed off if I had to pay this city another dime than I already do. Sooo, needless to say, riding in the city has become extra aggravating but I'm just not advanced enough quite yet to go out of the city on my own.

I've written about NY Cycle Club before but I'll just mention again what a tremendous group of people lead it. I've been to a couple of meetings and met some really wonderful folks who are so welcoming and sweet. Last year, I had read about their SIG program, short for Special Interest Group, and it's basically like a cycling college, if you will. There are three levels and it's designed to take a solo rider from the ground up and train them in group riding along with all the tiny details of bike maintenance and the like. I'm solid on the bike now and my fitness level is high but I know nothing about changing a flat, fixing a dropped chain, riding in a group; any of the nitty gritty stuff that makes up the cycling world. While I'm a runner at heart, I absolutely love being on the bike and I've conquered some personal hurdles because of it. There's a different relationship you have with the road when you're a runner vs. cyclist and I feel pretty lucky to see both worlds. Anyway, I'd missed the deadline to sign up for the SIG last year but I was sure to be one of the first to do so this year.

I decided to do the lowest level so I could be a part of learning all the small details of what I mentioned above. It's a rather large committment of 8 straight weeks every Saturday but I'm very excited to do this! Last Saturday morning was the classification ride for our group which was really so fun. It was just three laps of Central Park (a little over 18 miles) and then you wait a couple of weeks to hear which group you'll be in. I appreciate that they do this even amongst the lowest level because there are a fair amount of people who have a great fitness level but feel the same as I do. Basically, it'll be nice to ride with people at the same pace as you even in a lower level group. I got my bike all tuned up and was so excited to get back out on the road:

I had a fantastic ride and I definitely think my training sessions with Jimmy the past few months have boosted my endurance level big time. I'd been sick last week and that, coupled with not having been on the bike since last fall, I thought for sure I'd do some major huffing and puffing (especially up Harlem Hill!). That actually wasn't the case and I had a really strong ride. I surprised myself! Thanks for kicking my behind each and every week, Jimmy. ;)

I haven't heard what group I'm in yet but I look forward to getting that info soon. We officially start on Saturday, 3/26. Woooo! Hopefully, I'll have some fun adventures to share as we finally ride out of this crazy damn city. I can't wait to ride into some beautiful areas of Jersey and upstate NY, soon!