MOST OF MY columns to date have been based on training.
I’ve written quite a lot about balancing the training load with both Gaelic football and soccer, and pieced together some workouts to help you replicate my pitch training.
Then I’ve written about more personal experiences through my career, sporting influences as well and highs and lows across the years.
One thing I’ve only mentioned in passing is nutrition.
Everyone knows how important it has become over the past few years, and how the right diet is key to success and could be the extra one per cent to get you over the line.
Here’s a look at a day in my life and what I’d eat to fuel my training:
9am: Every morning’s the same. I’d always have a slice of brown bread with poached egg, and a turkey rasher and sausage. I’d follow that up then with a piece of fruit, normally either an apple or a banana.
12pm: My breakfast would keep me full through the morning so at midday I’d have a few pieces of fruit — an apple and a banana would do the job — to keep me going until lunch.
2pm: These times aren’t fixed but it’s just to give you a rough idea. An example of a lunch I’d make would be a pitta bread with chicken and lettuce. I get meals from Bodychef.ie (I’ll talk more about them below) so I’d take the chicken out of that and if it’s a heavy training day, I’d definitely go for more carbs.
5pm: Dinner time varies depending on what evenings I have training with the Cork footballers and Cork City but generally I’d have a similar meal every day — Meat, loads of vegetables and potatoes. A lot of the time my meat would just be chicken again with the veg everything and anything, usually carrots, broccoli and peas with spuds anyway.
9pm: Again, this depends on the day and how I’m feeling after training. I might have a Bodychef meal but then again I could just have a small snack before I go to bed. Most nights it’d be a cup of tea and two digestive biscuits — or a chocolate bar as a treat the odd time!
Just on Bodychef, they’ve been such a great help to me personally. It’s so easy and convenient but not only that, the meals are nutritious and really nice. It’s handy because you can get the meals delivered to your house or collect them yourself on a Sunday night and you’re set for the next few days, and the same thing on a Wednesday.
It saves so much time and takes the pressure off you. It’s all ready to go once you come in the door from training, pop it into the microwave for three minutes and the job’s a good one. They’re in containers too so there’s no need for washing plates and what not after.
Of course, like many things, if I had the time I’d love to do more cooking and meal preparation but between training, matches, Gaelic, soccer, gym, recovery, work and other off the field commitments with family and friends, that’s not always possible.
It seems like it’s always go go go, but I think unwinding is so important too. I’m not a big TV person so I’d rather listen to music to chill out and relax in my room.
Hanging out with friends is another thing I love doing with my free time. Obviously when I was in school I could do it then and likewise at training, but it’s just not the same. At least one evening a week we’d all just hop in the car and go for a spin, go to the beach or do something nice to enjoy the summer weather.
On another note, this weekend we face Armagh in our last round-robin game in the TG4 All-Ireland senior championship. We had a good win over Monaghan on Saturday so hopefully we can build on that and get better and better going forward.
We had a loss with Cork City last weekend too so hopefully we can get back on track on that front too as the league heats up.
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Tell that to limerick, on the cusp of the double
@Ave it: There’s always an exception or two but the normality is complete non-events and a predictable outcome until the later stages of the championship.
@Rochelle: it wouldn’t be like that if we have tiers and open draw and dispensed with the provincial championship or ran provincial at a different time of year
@Ave it: Limerick beat a division 3 team hardly that much of an upset?
Imagine trying to get a ticket with six teams playing on the same day
@Eugene O’ Sullivan: exactly. Terrible idea. Double header of tier 2 and 3 on the Saturday evening and Tier 1 / minor final as tradition on its own the Sunday.
- Abolish Provincial Championships
- Champions League format with seeded draws
- 8 groups of 4
- Teams that finish first and Second play for Sam
- Third team and fourth team play in Bed and C Championships respectively
- All players still get the opportunity to pull off shocks and play for Sam.
- all players have something to play for
- Plus think of how the fixtures being so structured would also allow the club game to flourish.
Think I’ll run for the County council now too
@Séamus Tierney: Probably one of the best ideas, because one of the main complaints along with lack of coverage is that a ‘B’ championship would take away a players chance for a upset or a big day out in Croke Park against a top team. At least with this they get both that and chance of winning some silverware.
@Séamus Tierney: that’s a good idea and Zi used to be for it, but it wouldn’t work because you can pretty much pick which 16 teams will qualify with 1 or 2 surprises. 2/3 of the marches would be drubbings that will attract no public interest and the 1 decent game really a dead rubber as both teams guaranteed 2 wins from the other matches.
@Séamus Tierney: that’s a good idea and I used to be for it, but it wouldn’t work because you can pretty much pick which 16 teams will qualify with 1 or 2 surprises. 2/3 of the matches would be drubbings/hammerings that will attract no public interest and the 1 decent game really a dead rubber as both teams guaranteed 2 wins from the other matches.
@Séamus Tierney: still the same amount of hammerings in champions league format
All they need to do is reduce the size of the ball to little more than tennis ball size and let them bring sticks onto the pitch to hit the reduced size ball, problem solved.
@Dino: nice idea but I could see this becoming a niche product, played by an elite few counties and generally ignored by everyone else.
@Etherman: As opposed to the big ball game we have ATM played by one ‘elite’ county and where everyone yearns after the competitiveness of the niche product??
The league is a far better competition. Can we not just swap them around and play the championship in the spring?
@Brian Dunne: what???
@Brian Dunne: the league is very competitive, but it’s not the competition teams really want to win. The Kerry manager said all throughout the league that they weren’t interested in winning it. He got his wish in the end.
@Stephen Walsh: yea but if it was the championship they would
Works for the ladies also as TG4 cover all grades. RTE who pay Brolly are part of the problem zero coverage of lower profile games .
Intercounty League starts 1st Jan. Champions league format starting in April. Finished by end of June All Ireland final. Players back to the clubs by mid July. Then county finals played worse case end of Sept. Solved both Hurling and football in 261 characters.
There is no perfect format. A champions league type group system or an NFL type fixture competition would work best in my opinion. Teams can come against opposition of all levels and benefit from each. Eliminated teams can go into a second tier competition. Every team would play at least 4 games at a minimum. Season tickets & game planning could also be organised well in advance.