IT’S a Saturday morning and as I lay face down on the pitch gasping for air while at the same time trying to hold down the contents of my stomach, in my head I am having one of those personal battles.

You know the point you get to where your body is aching and you feel like you just can’t do this anymore and you question if it’s time to leave it all behind. It’s time to have a lie in like every other person your age. Well, that’s how I felt last weekend as we trained.

I’m sure most players are like this but I go through at least three of these episodes during the process of finding my match fitness. Training is cruel and you find yourself asking the question ‘is this all really worth it? Why do I put myself through this torture?’

The answer is, of course, the feeling that when you reach championship Sunday the body can do what the mind is asking of it.

Players all over the country will be experiencing the exact same feeling as we all try and get out of our lockdown routine and find our fitness.

I spoke over the last number of weeks about the difference between training on your own and training as a group, it’s night and day and you only realise that when you are in the midst of one of those ball-breaking sessions.

With club championship just around the corner it’s going to take a lot of hard work and dedication. In some cases it will be a case of mind over matter as we all try and claw our way out of that dark place that I found myself in last Saturday.

When you are in this place you doubt everything. You doubt your desire, you doubt your age, you doubt your ability but the key to overcoming all of this is to set yourself a date.

By that I mean give yourself a period of time and allow yourself the opportunity to get into shape. Store those feelings of how you felt laying on that ground and when you reach your date it will give you huge satisfaction – providing you do what you need to in order to get yourself to where you need to be.

There is no doubt that this season will be a testing one and with the short window we have to get our bodies right I can honestly see a lot of guys who may throw in the towel. There is nothing worse than seeing your championship start date coming down the tracks and you knowing in your heart of hearts that you are just not at the races.

The key here is to keep the head down, make every session, make the sacrifice and trust me you will get there.

By the time this goes to print we here in Donegal will be hours away from knowing our championship opponents so that will sharpen the focus even more.

When those doubts that I spoke about creep into your mindset then you will be able to draw upon that knowledge and it just might keep you going.

My advice this week is to keep the faith and believe that you will get to where you need to be and trust me when the sun is shining on championship Sunday all of that pain will be well worth it.

A few weeks back it looked like we might not see any action this summer so now that we have been given this opportunity we must make the most of it.

For the first time in a long time club championship takes centre stage and it will be played at the height of the summer so as I told myself last Saturday morning “get up off that ground, suck it up and get ready for action.”

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