Bench press 

235 x 5

265 x 3

295 x 4

Close-grip bench press: 225 x 10, 10, 10, 10, 9

Super-set with dumbbell rows: 115s x 5 x 10

Incline chest flyes: 35s x 12, 50s x 10, 35s x 10

Super-set with alternating dumbbell curls: 50s x 20, 50s x 16, 35s x 20

I could have sworn I already did this workout and hit 290x3, but turns out that was last month. The passage of time was alarming but the gains up for that. Felt like I had a 5th rep of 295 in me, but Jim Wendler advises not going all-out on the top sets when doing Boring But Big. 

Halloween last night was as good as a low-key night could be. I had a dentist at 9:00 a.m. this morning so my girlfriend and I stayed in and watched Halloween episodes of King of the Hill, Simpsons, and The Office. King of the Hill won. We even managed to squeeze in a little roleplaying game time before bed with Champions of Norrath for PS2.

Edit: Ended up going to a Halloween house party the next night thrown by one of Elizabeth's co-workers and that was surprisingly awesome.

Sparring on Thursday was undeniably a fun one, but a bit frustrating in that I once again started out too nice. I’ve sparred this guy before and he tends to go VERY light, to the point that I had to recalibrate my power because I’d just got done doing hard rounds with someone else. This time, it started out that way but he soon switched to harder shots that caught me by surprise. A few times my defense fell apart when he flurried as I fell back into that dumb habit of trying to parry multiple punches, but because his guard was always low, I caught him with a lot of jabs, crosses, and hooks as he was rushing in. We both ate a lot of shots to deliver our own.

My corner coach was the uncle of my previous Muay Thai coach so that was awesome. He advised between rounds to get low and dig to the body because his elbows tend to flare out. I ended up catching him with some hard body shots at the start of round 3. After taking a few of these he surged forward aggressively, some of which I blocked and others that I ate, but he slowed down a lot after this. I heard his corner coach yell out that the round is almost over and to make things count, but he didn’t really come alive after that early round flurry while I ended by peppering him with 1-2s.

My cardio held up awesome. Didn’t get tired and wanted to go more rounds.