Eimear Ryan: Sport only cares about what you can do right now
In Marlay Pic: On: Runners The Dublin Daly, Are The Sportsfile At Pictured Participants Seb Get Parkrun
At a recent book event, an audience member asked me how I had replaced camogie in my routine, having retired over a year ago. I had to admit that, quite simply, I hadn’t.
I said that it was almost impossible to replace camogie because it gives you three essentials at once – fresh air, exercise, and community.
All of us need these three essentials to stay regulated and sane, and to get them all in one go is incredibly potent. Camogie – or hurling, or football – is not easily replaced.
For players on the cusp of retiring, it can be tricky to think in terms of replacing the sport, because inevitably you’ll end up frustrated.
Maybe it’s better to acknowledge, at the outset, that nothing is going to hit the spot in exactly the same way. Instead, it might be better to build up a spectrum of activities to fill the gap that the GAA leaves.
Did you love the competitive aspect? Was it a sense of being part of a team? Was it the creativity, the problem-solving? What hobbies, cultural activities or social outlets could address some of these needs?
Understandably, people often suggest going into management, coaching, or even reffing, but you aren’t replacing like with like. Those are completely different roles – brilliant, challenging and worthy roles – but it’s not enough to simply be on the pitch: the player in you is always going to need something else besides.
There are numerous ways to engage with hurling – playing, pucking, watching, debating, coaching – but they’re different planets orbiting the same sun.
In my own retirement, I initially became so distracted that I ended up letting my fitness slip.
In 2023, my first year ever without regular training, I enjoyed my time off: I travelled and wrote and went to the cinema and went to the pub and watched Netflix and read books.
There’s no end to the sedentary activities that I enjoy. And there’s a smug sense of having earned it: you tell yourself that you’ve done your time.
In chats with friends, I’d used phrases like ‘flogging a dead horse’ to describe my final year of playing camogie; surely I deserved a rest? But the ‘use it or lose it’ truism for languages also pertains to fitness.
And if you try to jump back into exercise after a long break, all those old, dormant injuries will flare up with a vengeance.
After ankle surgery a couple of years ago, I developed something called Morton’s neuroma, an inflammation of a nerve in my foot, which made running and even walking uncomfortable. Orthotics, or custom insoles, sorted it; the only trade-off is that I can now only wear shoes that are large enough to accommodate them. Cute shoes are out. But thankfully, running is back on the table.
I was advised to buy a pair of Hokas, a shoe brand often recommended to the bockety-jointed. They are expensive and they look ridiculous, with layers of cushiony foam piled up in a meringue-like heap.
Looking down, they seem to me to be the size and shape of table-tennis rackets. But they do the job. In running, they make the calves and quads do most of the work, alleviating pressure on the feet.
There has to be a reason why so many people in their thirties and forties take up running, and I think part of it is its ease: you simply leave the house and come back within the hour, having gotten your exercise and fresh air and a bit of time to yourself. It can be done at any time of day, with very little fuss.
I followed a programme designed to ease the runner back into exercise after a long break, and I found myself looking forward to each new appointment with the pavement.
It felt good to have the mechanics of my body back. Simple things: fresh air! Trees! Listening to music! Watching other people’s dogs chasing tennis balls! Breaking a very small sweat!
After six weeks of gradual buildup, I arrived at the day of reckoning: running a 5K without stopping for the first time in years.
I used to occasionally do the parkrun in Ballincollig, and I decided it was time to jump back in. The parkrun website mercilessly keeps a record of all your results from over the years, and I winced at my old times.
Those times might as well have been logged by a different person, and in a way they were. As much as we like to talk about legacy, history and track records, in reality, sport doesn’t care about what you’ve done before. Sport only cares about what you can do right now in the moment.
I dress for comfort: my favourite leggings, an old training top, the ridiculous Hokas. For my earphones I also choose comfort: Garbage, a band which I loved in my teens and haven’t listened to for years, but still know the lyrics to every song by heart.
The starting line is thronged with runners of all ages and genders. The first lap is crowded, claustrophobic, and it seems to take forever to reach the 1km mark.
The encouragement of the volunteers is appreciated, as is the distraction of the music. Shirley Manson sings ‘The Trick is to Keep Breathing’: sage advice.
The second lap is easier, somehow, with the crowd strung out, and there’s a lot more room to manoeuvre. I play mind games to distract myself: I’ll keep pace with the lad in the Kilkenny jersey, say, or I’ll try to get past the woman in the purple t-shirt.
I’m overtaken far more often than I overtake: along the way, I’m passed by runners in their fifties, by kids, by parents pushing buggies.
But I get over the line, sweaty and delighted and grinning at the runners around me. It’s not much, but it’s a start.