The worst day of the year............

With only the lingering Christmas half-stone to remind us of the festivities of just four weeks ago, this Saturday marked the most feared, most loathed, day in the calendar. The day that every club players anticipates with a mix of fear and anticipation. The dreaded first training session of the year.

Just three months have passed since our last outing together, yet the appearances on Saturday morning (b&w included) could have convinced onlookers that it had been three years.
As we huddled together in the car park of Rosses Point beach, looks of horror crept across faces as a trundlewheel and a stopwatch were produced from an baineastoir's car.
Down we trooped to the beach, and our beloved captain (fittest man alive) is asked to lead the warm-up. Some fooking warm-up it was, a brisk jog measuring (we were to discover later) some 400m, followed by some well needed stretching.
More looks of horror and fear appeared, as management proceded past us down the beach, trundlewheel trundling away with them. The collective trudged down the beach after them, knowing whatever was to follow couldn't be good. Those who spotted the single cone seemingly abandoned at the point we had entered the beach hoped that it wasn't one of ours (it was).
Just before the river, the trundlewheel stopped. 800 metres, we were informed, was the distance back to the aforementioned cone.
"Run to it, and back. We'll time ye and see what state ye're in. And ye can do two more of them, but we won't time the second or third run."
Cue moans, groans, and general mutterings, but with one blast of the whistle off we take.
The group quickly strings out, and it become apparant who has been training over the winter, and who enjoyed a few too many turkey sandwiches.
25 minutes later and the last of the stragglers pant their way over the finish line. The early finishers are streching, the late ones are dying, and all are looking suspicious as management inform us to pair up. Some pens and sheets of paper are distributed, and the suspicion grows. The sheets look for some basic information for each player, name, age, height and weight. There are also some exercises listed in the bottom half.
As the information is filled in, an baineastoir outlines the torture he has devised for the next 10-15 minutes.
Five exercises to do; sit-ups, press-ups, star-jumps, squat-thrusts and burpees.
60 seconds on each one, with a ten second break between. Each man does a full circuit, with the other half of the pair recording the number of repitions.
Two circuits each later, and some lads are running to the dunes to empty their stomachs.
Finally, some footballs appear and a grid is marked out for a game. 10 minutes of football and it's time for the warm down. A nice run back to the car-park (another 800m), and a good stretching session ensures, but the final blow is yet to come.

"See you all here at 11 tomorrow morning lads...................."

I feel your pain man, our first training back was this evening in the astro turf and it was a ladies session so mixture of junior and intermediate players, with a couple of intercounty girls in attendance. Started off not to bad, 5 laps (about half or a bit less than that of a full pitch) so that was grand got in and did some stretching which is really my strong point as all the ballet has left me fairly flexible. So after that we were told 3 fast laps, which I did and nearly died, I can do fast or I can do over a long distance but not at the same time. We then finally got to do some ball work which really was just running, one person on either side of the hall hitting it to a person in the middle and they have to run in to the ball and give it back to whoever hit it. So after 10 minutes of that we did some lovely sprinting, lie on your back, lie on your front, stand backwards etc and run to the wall. After 4 or 5 minutes of that we did some push ups and sit ups with laps in between each one. It was fun though really...

reading posts like those above make me 'glad' i no longer need to go through this pain and torture on an annual basis. Training never was my strong point - i could play football/hurling all day long but by god i hated pre season training where it was 40minutes of circuits indoor followed by about an hour of hell on earth doing 150m and 400m sprints.

That said i often miss the craic that came with being involved with the team, while the training was tough the slagging and banter always made it bearable.

bocerty wrote:reading posts like those above make me 'glad' i no longer need to go through this pain and torture on an annual basis. Training never was my strong point - i could play football/hurling all day long but by god i hated pre season training where it was 40minutes of circuits indoor followed by about an hour of hell on earth doing 150m and 400m sprints.

That said i often miss the craic that came with being involved with the team, while the training was tough the slagging and banter always made it bearable.

become a selector or manager sure boc ye have the craic with the after training pints AND can become yer own dictator

Black&White in "I'm dropped to the Junior B squad" revelation here.....

That hardly qualifies as "pre-season training" for any self respecting clubman.
The whole exercise only took about 45 minutes surely. Our lads don't make a start on any form of training until the fortnight before the first round of the champo in the belief that it's important not to peak too early and minimising the risk of burn-out.
Their burn-out, funnily, tends to coincide with the closing weekend of the Ballinamore festival in early August, irrespective where we are in the championship.
The attending philosophy being that it's a balls killing themselves for a month for the sake of a few games....

Well done b&w, keep it up, if I see a lean,mean,hungry looking chap in the Sligo colours with a calculator in the pocket of his togs later in the summer I'll know it's yourself....

Boxtyeater wrote:Black&White in "I'm dropped to the Junior B squad" revelation here.....

Junior B........ about the equivalent of Sligo Intermediate all right!

Training me hole. A lock of pints is your only man.