The worst thing about commuting home for training is also the best thing

You love how much you hate it.

You hate how much you love it. It's 10.00 of a Wednesday morning and you're up in the college gym grimacing through the pain of a tough foam rolling session. It's boring enough up there but you know you have to do it because you don't want to get injured at training tonight. One of the lads who was on your freshers team last year plonks down beside you and takes into his stretching routine. You ask him if he has any craic for you and when he says he doesn't, you tell him about training. It's a bigger pain in the arse than a sore glute but you're still talking to them about it and it was you who brought it up in the conversation in the first place. It was actually the first thing you wanted to talk about in truth. It was the only thing you wanted to talk about. Then he says he's jumping out of lectures early today too to get home for a club session and the pair of you are there, united by the bullshit. United by the GAA. You could be talking about anything, really. This April club month is some joke but it's nowhere near as bad as that Wednesday night training session. It's always the Wednesday night training session because even when there's no competitive game for months, it's still there. It's not going anywhere. Everyone has to be there. It doesn't matter a damn if you've exams starting the next morning or if you'll get your own bit done anyway because it's just not the same. Every last lad within the four walls has to make the effort now. So then you decide to sacrifice your evening and more for it. For a quiet life, maybe? Or is it for a busy life? For God's sake you were waiting outside the dressing rooms for 20 minutes on Wednesday evening before you could get in. This was after you took a chance with your boss asking to get off work early. There's nothing quiet about that. This was after you got called every name under the sun by your housemates for bottling yet another night out for the love of the game. This was after you spent 50 minutes covering 2km of road on the Naas motorway home. Live like a monk, do whatever you can for your club but don't expect much in response. You're not going to get thanked for coming down because this is what you're expected to do. You probably won't get reimbursed for the €20 you spent on diesel in Junction 14. You'll probably just about get a cold, trickly shower after training. The sacrifices are tough to make and your pride tough to swallow but while you mightn't see the benefits there in front of you, just think about it for a second. This is the reason why you were chatting to that fella earlier on in the college gym in the first place. This is the reason why you had something to talk to him about. The pride of the parish extends far beyond the club half-zip you wear around the college library but it's the small things that count. Because you're proud of your club colours. You're proud of the sacrifices you make to play with your club, that's the reason you want to talk about them in the first place. You get your shower after a tough training session and you're ready to set off back to the motherland knowing you won't be home until the next day. But you feel good about yourself. You know you'll be wrecked all day in work tomorrow but at least you've done something worthwhile, at least you've something to talk about. Something to moan about, something to bitch about, something to care about. When training is over and you buzz back up the road on a quiet motorway with the clock ticking towards midnight, it all starts to make sense then, because who wants a quiet life anyway?