Not posted in a week as I've been busy with college work and training every day.

I've been feeling a bit crap this week so far. Had diarrhea which made me feel weak, was careful to make sure I was hydrated all the time but still felt rubbish. In any case I've been training as hard as I can. Yesterday seen me do sprints on my bike, as many as I could physically handle, up a steep hill. I think I managed 6 which I was quite happy with, since the wind was coming right into my face the whole time!

Last week was tough on the shins so we've started off this week working on footwork and clinching techniques to let Graham's shins heal a bit as he was getting a lot of clobbering despite the shin guards. My only problem bruising-wise is around my knees but that's really just from a bunch of knee to knee and knee to shin clashes. Since tweaking my stance on Monday I feel that I can utilize my reach advantage much easier with my legs and my kicks are much stronger as a result, from both my right and left legs. Tuesday's class demonstrated this to me further as my kicks just felt right. It's hard to explain but you just know when your shots are landing sweet. Good power and technique on the pads and this effectively makes my legs much more dangerous from any range, since my technique is looking sweet and my stance and movment is comfortable.

After only a week I'm feeling much stronger than I was before. I feel faster and fitter too. On paper, I'm keeping a diary of what I've been doing each day in terms of interval training, sprints, running or whatever and changing it week by week to fit round college work or other commitments and I hope this will prove useful to look back on.

Not sure what we will be doing tonight, hopefully some sparring as well as the usual padwork and conditioning. I've no excuse for not doing extra training today other than that I was at college until 12 and after that I've been eating, watching UFC 1 and WEC 36 while reading and tidying the flat. Tomorrow instead of sprints I think I will go for a run of maybe 3 miles in my 2 hr lunch break.

BTW, first UFC is awesome! The sumo guy gets totally taken out!