U-U-USA!

About a month ago I was bestowed the honor of being asked to join the USA Boxing Team. Since then, I've been in a bit of a haze - signing contracts, accepting invites to training camps, training harder than I ever have.

On Sunday, June 8th, I left Minneapolis for my first training camp with the team. We are at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO. I've now been here for three and a half days and am already sore and tired.

It's been an awesome experience thus far. The other girls on the team are pretty cool and have welcomed me warmly. It's an incredibly competitive environment though so practices have been more on the "no-muss, no-fuss" side. Everyone sort of puts their head down and goes all in. We have two coaches working with us. Pedro Roque is a decorated Cuban coach who has been coaching Olympians for more than 40 years. USA Boxing recently brought him on and he has been working us hard the last couple of days. Ramon Franco is our other coach. He translates for Pedro (who only speaks Spanish) and has been a great motivator for all of us.

Our practices include a lot of conditioning work and many rounds of "tech sparring" - we wear headgear, gloves and a mouthpiece while we work with a partner at about 50% of full power and speed. We typically have a conditioning practice in the morning, boxing practice in the afternoon. Today will be our first formal sparring session. I will likely spar with the Olympic Gold Medalist from the 2012 London Games. I'm pretty nervous. I'm the newest girl to the team and my experience pales in comparison to many of these girls.

Despite that, I feel like I am getting stronger every day. I'm also learning from each of the girls - they all have different styles of movement and their punches are incredibly sharp and accurate. I'm hopeful that within the next 8 months, my skill level matches that of my team mates.



It has been beautiful weather so far in CO. Lots of sunshine and an occasional rain/thunder storm. And the view of the mountains is beautiful. I'm looking forward to another week of mountain views, kick-ass conditioning sessions and lots more sparring. Who knows, maybe that Olympic weight class won't be far off come next week...

That's all for now! I'll keep you posted as the week presses on!