LOS ANGELES — Before the sun came up on Monday morning (Tuesday in Manila), Manny Pacquiao was already dressed in a gray sweatsuit raring to start his first roadwork here as he revs up for a Sept. 10 duel with Mexican rival Hector Velasquez.
His handlers had initially thought that Pacquiao, who arrived at 8:05 p.m. of Sunday from Manila, would just show up at the Wild Card Boxing Club of Freddie Roach in the afternoon.
But the heavy-handed Pacquiao surprisingly woke up at a little past 5 a.m. after a dinner of T-bone steak at Denny’s the previous night straight from the airport.
As soon as he stepped out of the gated entrance of his two-bedroom apartment at the high-end Palazzo, Pacquiao zoomed past fellow joggers doing their morning routine.
At the end of the roadwork, Pacquiao’s running apparel was dripping wet and by the time he drove back to his apartment after eating a hearty breakfast of beef nilaga and fried tilapia, Pacquiao was so spent it did not take long before he dozed off again.
At 12 noon, Pacquiao was ready to hit the road again, this time to report at the Wild Card gym, where nobody with official business being inside was ordered out.
“Outside the gym, I am the boss. But when I’m training, they (trainer Freddie Roach) are the boss,” said Pacquiao, as he defended his handlers’ decision to keep his fans away until the fight is over.
In his first workout with Roach, Pacquiao did the punch-mitt routine and was roundly applauded the moment he entered the gym.
