Granite Grit (Fighting's in the Blood #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

approach to his job as trainer inside the gym. Pushing the men hard, giving them the motivation they needed. Not teaching any kind of technique, but really good at egging them on.
      “Of course I remember, you cheeky cunt.” Tim walked away, back to work.
      “OK chumps, circuits start on my shout. OK, on ye go!” He said, pushing the start button on his stopwatch.
      Beginning on the bag, I took it from there to move around the room from station-to-station, getting more exhausted with every round that passed, and was soon breathing out my arse.
      The sweat ran down through my hair and forehead like rainwater. That was only after twenty minutes. Tim was right, no spring chicken now. 
      The other boxers in the room banged away like men possessed and didn’t look like putting the brakes on. Grunting and growling at every fist thrown at the bag. Thrashing the speed-ball and getting encouraging shouts from Tim and the big character that decided to join in on the coaching.
      He had a mean and arrogant attitude, yelling straight into a couple of guy’s faces as if it was as normal as the day was long. The circuit was surely coming to an end, I hoped. I needed a timeout.
      A couple of rounds later, shadow boxing around the middle of the floor, Tim finally calls out. “Time, boys. Roy and Chris, you two in the ring.” He nodded his head toward two guys.
      “Alright, boss.” One of them answered.
      Roy was a big man, the biggest of the boxers here. Six foot two, wearing a loose bodybuilder’s vest exposing his hairy chest, making his bald head look even larger than it was. Around thirty something and a body shaped like a Coke can. Looked more like a retired bodybuilder than a boxer if you ask me, but looks mean nothing in this game and judging how he hammered the bag, I think he knew his stuff.
      Chris on the other hand had a smaller frame, probably just under six foot but not nearly as chunky as Roy. In his late-twenties with a full head of black hair, toned muscles bursting through his light grey t-shirt. His calves, for fuck sake, were massive. Like Popeye’s arms, they were.
      They geared up, entered the ring, taking a corner each. Tim had the stopwatch, leaning over the top rope, waiting to start the clock.
      “Alright boys, you two ready?” Tim said as he gave them both a customary look like a referee would in a bout, and both replied with a grunt. “OK, I’ll start the clock, three minutes.”
      The two men came squaring up to each other in the centre of the ring, without the traditional headgear on for sparring. They started a raw-looking spar, throwing bombs to and fro as if it was a fight. It looked brutal from the start, no feeling-out process. It was straight to the point of trying to hurt one another.
      Roy stood his ground, letting Chris’s punches bounce off his rounded face and bald head with no second thought, or signaling of any pain to his brain.
      Standing his ground, his left foot in front of his right, staring menacingly into Chris's eyes with a fiendish grin, all his size used as intimidation.
      Chris was losing the so-called spar as time went past. With a couple of rounds done and dusted and into the third, he was getting pushed further and further back onto the ropes. Slouching onto them, cowering into a shell, hands tucked up by his head and elbows over his ribs as Roy’s true nature poured out. Bullying Chris into a corner, he was pounding away at him like he was a toy, eventually resulting in Chris taking a knee on the ground. The big burly character told him to get back up, without pity.
      Chris couldn't cope with Roy’s strength and aggressiveness. He weakened as every second passed. He wasn't as fit as Roy either, which did him no favours. “Get on your feet, boy!” This was a savage way to spar. My Dad’s preferred way to spar, brutal, so it would build up your resistance to pain.
      It turned out Chris had to take a few more knees in that last