James_DeGale's Blog by James_DeGale

Life as an athlete can be so exciting and other times you just have to get your head down and put in the hard work. This week feels like one of those weeks. I feel like all I have done is trained, eaten and slept, mainly because that’s what I have done. I get invited to go to lots of events however most of the time I have to turn them down. Not because I don’t want to go, but because I have to put my training and rest before anything else in life. I'm not looking for sympathy by the way. I love my life and wouldn’t change it for the world. And when I’m standing in that ring with the title belt around my waist, every painful training session disappears out of my memory. The gym where I train is a bit of a trek to get to. I live in north-west London and my gym is in Essex. It’s a round trip of 50 miles per day, but when you drive it every day it does get a bit tedious.

So on Tuesday my trainer Jim came over to my house and we trained at our local gym Hooks. After the session we both chilled out at my place. After a couple of hours, we got back in the car and drove over to Earlsfield Amateur Gym for an evening sparring session. I dragged myself home and fell straight into bed. I woke up on Wednesday and the sun was shining. Apparently it was the hottest day of the year. On days like this I want to be outdoors all day, but I had a training session to do in the gym. This time my session was over in Loughton. Luckily I was not stuck in the gym all day. I sometimes wonder how the rest of the world cope working indoors all day when the sun is shining. I was pretty tired in the evening though, so I was glad I had planned to put my feet up and watch Prizefighter on Sky Sports. This time round it was the Super-Middleweight division, which is the weight I fight at. Once again it was good entertainment with one of the underdogs winning again. Rocky Fielding was a late replacement and only had five days notice. He was impressive. I've known Rocky Fielding since the amateurs and he’s a good fighter. I must say a big WELL DONE to Jahmaine Smyle who had recently helped me with sparring. He lost in a close semi-final bout, but showed lots of heart and potential.

Thursday was a rest day. Sometimes as an athlete you feel guilty for not training every day. However you have to learn that your body has to recover for the next training session to be productive. Many athletes over the years have thought that more training means better results. However there is that fine line, if you do too much your body starts getting injured, or you get ill or you can also just become stale and unmotivated. It’s really important that Jim and I talk about what training I’m doing and when. In the evening a group of us went out to the Harvester for dinner. My last experience of a Harvester was pretty disastrous but the food was good this time. I’d recommend a visit if you are watching your weight as it tells you the calories there are in all the food.

It was more training for me on Friday morning. Luckily Jim came over to my house to train there. A quick shower then I was back in the car driving with my family to the University of West London awards ceremony. Now don’t panic, I haven’t gone and got myself a degree. When I returned from the Olympics they invited me in to show my gold medal to some of the first year students. Since then the staff and students have followed my professional career. The manager approached my Dad about me sponsoring an award, so I went to the Awards Ceremony to hand out the "James DeGale Award". My award was for the student that everyone thought would fail, but proved everyone wrong. I donated a goody bag with signed gloves, t-shirt, etc and two tickets for my next fight. This award will be given every year to the underachiever who achieves. I loved giving out this award because it’s so easy to label people early on in life and give them no hope of achieving things. It puts a smile on my face when I see people who are not naturally academically gifted achieve success. These people have real hunger in their belief to overcome obstacles. I wasn’t a brain box at school, but I didn’t let that stop me. I just channeled all my energies into boxing. But after that, there was no rest for the wicked, because when we got back, we went to Hooks for another training session! Have a great week!