So take a moment to think about how Josh Tonna felt when he arrived in Sydney to spend two weeks locked inside a hotel room without his family, after being stopped in the second round of the biggest fight of his life.

The Canberra Muay Thai fighter had just lost his One Championship strawweight title shot against Sam-A Gaiyanghadao at Singapore Indoor Stadium.

But rather than wallow in despair with no escape from the four walls of a Sydney hotel, Tonna reflected for a moment and realised there were others doing it tougher. So this became a chance to do something positive.

He started walking. From one wall to another, he walked in pursuit of a 500 kilometre target - all in the confines of a little hotel room largely chewed up by a bed and a desk.

Now he is racking up the kilometres to raise funds for Lifeline Canberra, with a target of $5000 set before he exits hotel quarantine on Tuesday. For the record, he has already soared past $4420.

You can set your watch to it. At 4am on Tuesday, Tonna is allowed out. So at 4am on Tuesday, he'll be outside walking.

Then he will head home to spend long overdue time with his family. It's only been a couple of weeks, sure, but it takes a toll. That's been the toughest thing - not the loss, but time away from his wife and kids.

"I'm not going to fight until next year. It's just difficult to go through this, with quarantine," Tonna said.

"I hope I can wait long enough until this isn't mandatory. It's too hard to stay away from family and the gym for this long.

"It's been pretty tough. I'm talking to them every day, it's too long. I don't like spending even a week away when I have to go away for fights, it's tough to be away.

"All in all it has been a very life-changing experience, very unique. The time I've had doing this walk, I'll never get. I would never get two weeks to myself. I'm grateful for the experience, but also, it's tough."

The experience was something of a whirlwind journey. Tonna arrived at a deserted Singapore airport, underwent a COVID-19 test and was escorted to a hotel.

There he spent the first few days of fight week alone in his room. He was escorted to a training room for an hour per day. Then came the bizarre moments on fight day.

Hours before the biggest fight of his life, Tonna sat outside the venue in a van waiting to be allowed in. It is hardly the glamorous life one dreams of when they picture a world title fight.

"It was a bit of a weird vibe," Tonna said.

"There couldn't be too many people in the arena at one time, so we were just waiting in a van until one of the bouts finished. We had to wait until the first bout was finished and then we went in. It felt a little bit rushed.

"The fight, that was a cool experience fighting Sam-A. It was cool to fight a legend and that'll always stick with me, that I was good enough to fight the best and fight for the belt.

"Unfortunately it didn't go the way we wanted it to, we didn't get the fairytale ending, but it was still a great experience. No doubt I'll be better for it, and it'll give me confidence going into the next one."