As the story has it, one day I headed to the opposite side of the globe – the Flipside. I arrived in Korea February 16th, 2005 and thought I’d do a year, then leave. I was wrong. I stayed, launched my first company, Flipside Fitness, and then opened Korea's largest boxing club, Hulk's Boxing (now called Hulk's Club).

After 11.5yrs in Korea, I then picked up one day and returned to Toronto, Canada. But then I left again.

Now I live in the Philippines where I am the CEO and head coach of Empowered Clubhouse, the Philippines' first and only boxing clubhouse exclusively just for women. I also am the founder of the Lil' Sistas Project, CEO and designer of Slay Gear and Baa Baa Black Sheep .Ph.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Fabulous Days make Me Miss Fabulous Friends in Canada... Tuesday, April 29

HALF MARATHON -- MAY 11th...
Am officially signed up for my next half marathon and, upon looking at the calendar, it hit me that it's next week.  Time flies, wow.  May starts this week, woozers.  I signed up a small crew of four of us -- two doing the 10km and two of us doing the half -- for the May 11th races that are happening here in Cheonan.  Today was the last day of registration but I had only heard of the event yesterday so it surely wasn't enough time to ask all 27 participants from our cancelled Day At the Races, Round Three, if they wanted to jump in on this one.  This half marathon may be the death of me.  I've been working on my endurance via excessive rounds of boxing sandbag work but I really haven't kept up with my running.  Am simply going to wing this.

LAST MONTH IN OUR HOME...
Today we officially paid our anticipated last month's rent for Mi Gung (my current apartment).  I find myself getting somewhat sentimental about our apartment, like when I wake up and come home.  I take a little extra time to clean up and find myself just enjoying it's disconnection from the club.  I know it's going to be a bit of an emotional move for me.  I think it'll do me good but I question what the heck I'm going to do with my personal days off -- Wednesdays.  There's going to be surely a lack of quiet private time if it's spent at the club.

NO TRAINING TODAY...
There's pushing yourself at training and over-pushing yourself and on account that last night I clearly pushed myself into the over-pushing category, I didn't train today.  I've three solid days of very intense training, clocking in an estimated 32 rounds of sandbag work alone.

LATE NIGHT CREW OF SEVEN...
Around 10:30pm I came flying out of my office, all overly excited that I may have landed new Adidas boxing boots, when what to my surprise should be in front of me but a pack full of boys.  The juice bar was buzzing with a crew of seven young guys, all wanting and eager to join Hulk's and break out into training -- awesome.  I literally jumped back and then broke out into a full fledge blush at my childish jumping they had all just witnessed -- great first impression.

Registered them, measured them, weighed them, and then started pre-training stretching with them.

I suspect they thought I was going to go easy on them with the crossfit class and a lot of them thought my effortless demonstration of each exercise meant it'd be an easy workout -- no such luck boys.  I had warned them beforehand, "this is going to be a shorter class but it's going to require full energy" and that exactly summed up my class -- shorter but definitely intense.  It was really great to see seven guys, all close friends of each other, training hard and pushing each other equally hard.  There is definitely strength in numbers and there's surely a particular strength and encouragement to be found when training with friends.  I applaud them for taking on this fitness journey together; I think that's very cool and so very supportive for each of them.

I'M A POTENTIAL EBAY AUCTION ADDICT IN THE MAKING...
Must... stay... up... till 5am.. on account that I'm officially addicted to eBay auctions and am hoping to score the winning bid on a particular pair of boxing boots.  Almost ended up holding the winning bid for two pairs I was bidding on but I guess two is better than one, especially because they together still cost a lot less than one pair in the shop.  And I could always make one a prize for one of my Hulkies!

TOMORROW'S SCHEDULE...
... stay up until 5am for the ebay auction
... meet up with Cat at 9am for our coffee date
... grab the 11:30am bus out to Seoul
... tattoo meeting at 1pm
... return home to get in a run
... stock-cook this week's worth of meals
... be at Hulk's by 7pm for work
... get in my own boxing training before closed


Today was one of those days when I would have loved to meet up with long time friends in Canada and ramble on and on about just how awesome it was.  After ten years of not being able to do this you'd think it'd get easier but it doesn't.  It only has started to get all that harder, that is since we started Hulk's, because I really have no idea when it is I will see my friends again.  Sure I have close friends here but most of them don't speak English because about 95% of them are Korean.  Whether it's things getting lost in translation, further explanations required or additional background info needed, it's just not the same as sitting across the table from someone who has known you for years, knows you so well and doesn't really need words to understand you.  From killing it in this week's round of Hulk points today to being excited about signing up for my next half marathon, it's days like this that really miss my friends and family back in Canada.  

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