Power playlists, cathartic crying, and fitness tracking: Eimear Ryan on the joys of solo training

The most reliable option for a ball wall thus far? The big poured-concrete walls of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, writes Eimear Ryan. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

Things are starting to look up. The kids are back training this week, there are upcoming league matches on our TV schedules, and at the tennis club up the road, they’ve started to thwock the ball over and back across the net once again. 

There isn’t yet a definite date for adult club players to return to play yet, but collectively our fingers are crossed for next month.

Just like last year, we’ll be thrown headlong into summer hurling, with no astroturf or indoor preamble to the season. No throat-clearing: we’ll all have to hit the ground running. 

In the past couple of months, you’ve really missed those drives over and back to the club grounds for training: signposts in your week. You can’t wait to get back into the schedule.

And of course, you miss your teammates. Aside from the craic, it’s great to have people to compete with and measure yourself against; people who will celebrate your successes and share in your pain. The collective effort. The squad ranges from teens to thirtysomethings, and you’re in the older cohort; at this stage in your career, you value every summer you get.

But initially, it will be a little strange to be around people again, especially for introverts such as yourself. You’ve gotten used to the solitary fitness schedule, in a way, and there are even aspects of it that you strangely enjoy. 

Here are some aspects of solo training that you’ll —well, ‘miss’ might be a strong word — fondly remember:

The control over your schedule

You intend to go running in the morning. You wake up early, throw on the gear, make your coffee, and open the curtains, only to realise that it’s spilling out of the heavens. Never mind; keep the gear on, do all your work calls in O’Neills shorts, and wait for a break in the weather. This is the privilege of solo training. 

If you were in a traditional training schedule, you’d have to stick to the appointed time, and listen to your coach’s barely concealed delight at the wind and rain: we could have bad conditions on matchday too, lads!

The perfectly curated power playlist

What solo workout is complete without a motivational Spotify playlist? ‘Gold Lion’ by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs for when you want to strum your hurley like a guitar. ‘Dog Days Are Over’ by Florence and the Machine for when you want to feel energised and triumphant. The Riverdance theme for when you want to feel energised and triumphant with a side of Celtic mysticism.

And most importantly, there’s ‘Apeshit’ by the Carters for when you want to hype yourself up for a shift at full-forward. Beyoncé literally sings the words ‘Gimme the ball’. Relatable content. (She also sings about buying Jay-Z a jet and shutting down boutiques so that she can shop without being mobbed by fans, which one supposes is relatable content in Beyoncé’s world.) 

Perhaps someday Mycro will invent a helmet with built-in bluetooth headphones, allowing us to rock out to our power playlists even while on the pitch, but not quite yet.

The ability to vocalise your agony during a workout

When you collapse, broken, while trying to hold a plank for several minutes, go ahead and allow yourself a good, cathartic bellow. You can even have a discreet cry, if it helps. After all, the workout is being delivered via Zoom and you’re on mute. 

On the other hand, emitting a stream of curses or bursting into tears when you’re in a stretching circle with your teammates in real life? Well, it just wouldn’t be seemly.

The hunt for the perfect ball wall

At this stage, it has become a game. The walls of your terraced house have too many windows, and are pebbledash anyway, so the rebound is untrustworthy. The walls in the yard are too low and you want to remain on good terms with your neighbours. There’s a promising wall in the alleyway around the corner, but you have to pick your moment: sometimes people park in front of it. 

You never used to have this issue where you grew up, in the Tipp countryside. There, you had your pick: the gable end (classic), the front wall of the shed, and the converted garage, a nice windowless stretch. It’s a different story in the city.

The most reliable option thus far? The big poured-concrete walls of Páirc Uí Chaoimh. If you go there at the weekend you’ll usually have company — hurlers of all ages and genders keeping the touch in. 

After a while, you start to think of the thunk, thunk, thunk of sliotars hopping off the stadium as being like a barrage of frantic knocking: Open up! Let us back in!

The constant self-monitoring

You were recently gifted a smartwatch and it now runs your life, sleekly and efficiently. You’d resisted getting one before, because you knew you would take to it too well, commit to it too entirely, becoming an eager co-conspirator in the constant monitoring of the self that it entails. 

Time to stand up, the watch gently reminds you when you’ve been hunched over your laptop for a couple of hours. Breathe, it advises helpfully when your heartrate starts going wild during an especially tense episode of Line of Duty. Turn down the volume, it tells you as you feed yet another murder podcast into your headphones.

Best of all, though, is the little set of stats it gives you after every run, walk or cycle, telling you through a series of numbers and graphs that you’re doing a great job altogether. 

The smartwatch is too delicate to bring onto the pitch, though, so there’ll be no more smug post-workout reports once training starts back. You think about those integrated GPS sports-bra things — maybe Apple do one? When the iBra hits the market, you’ll be the first in line.