I was travelling back from the airport with my family when the radio informed me it was officially the first day of summer. The irony was that mine had already come to a close. There will be no more holidays for me until next May. I’m back at work as a professional footballer and pre-season No18 is underway.

It’s crazy to think that my preparations for the new campaign started when some international players had not yet to fulfilled their commitments from last season. But that’s football: a relentless schedule that suffers no fools. You have to be willing to make countless sacrifices throughout the year, so your downtime with your friends and family is something you learn to truly treasure.

The day we return to training is similar to that first day back at school. You know the feeling when you’re ticking the days off and D-day is coming at you like a juggernaut. You can’t quite believe that the weeks have flown by so quickly and you wonder if you’ve made the most of your break. You’ve loved your time away but are also itching to get back. You’ve missed seeing your old team-mates and are excited to meet the new recruits. You’ve enjoyed your freedom but you miss the structure a training schedule gives your life.

Every summer you remain in the game gives you a scary insight into your future without it. Every footballer becomes an ex-professional at some point down the line, when you’re no longer part of the dressing room and able to do for a living what you dreamt of doing as a child. The journey will now be over for some players and pre-season beginning will be the most brutal reminder of that. So the older I get, the luckier I feel. Perhaps going back to training isn’t that bad after all.

As you approach the training ground the butterflies usually kick-in. The fitness tests will do that to you. Have you indulged too much and worked too little? Are you as fit as you were or as you need to be? Even when you’re confident with your own physical state, you still don’t know how you will compare with your team-mates, because once the handshakes and hugs are over, the competition for shirts has begun. It’s dog eat dog, survival of the fittest.

Long gone are the days when players returned to training overweight or underprepared; sports science has seen to that. The evolution of the game has demanded it. Carrying a few extra pounds into that first day is a recipe for disaster and playing catch up will catch you out. Nobody wants to be left behind. There was one pre-season when I was struggling with a calf problem, which took several weeks to properly diagnose. Unfortunately, I was away on tour in Austria when the decision was made that I needed to see a specialist at the earliest opportunity. The 16-hour train journey home via Germany and France may have been a scenic way to travel but it’s not something I wouldn’t want to do again.

Pre-season looks different at every club but you can guarantee that both your physical and mental capabilities will be pushed to the very limit. Some managers like to think out of the box to avoid monotony and keep the group on its toes. Experimentation is not always easy once the regular season has kicked off so testing new systems and formations in games are common practice.

In my career I’ve worked with an Olympic high jumper to add a spring to my stride and a sports psychologist to develop my mental edge. I’ve carried logs – and team-mates – through Epping Forest and sprinted up the sand dunes on Southport beach. My muscles have been re-educated on the pilates reformer and I even went a round in the ring with a European champion, which I can safely say was the longest three minutes of my life.

Speaking of boxing, there have been days where I’ve felt more Ivan Drago than Tony Dorigo; sessions when I’ve been more lab rat than professional footballer. Alongside blood tests and oxygen masks, I’ve been hooked up to machines to discover my VO2 max and even dunked into a water tank to get the most accurate body fat measurement there is. GPS belts and heart rate monitors are common on training grounds these days and the data and stats the sports scientists are able to gather is phenomenal. If your scores are not logged on the laptop or recorded on a clipboard, you can guarantee that someone, somewhere will be watching and assessing your performance like a hawk. No hiding place can be found.

There’s always a buzz of excitement on the training pitch when the footballs are introduced. It’s usually a case of basic movements at first but you quickly progress to more advanced practices and, before you know it, you’re back in the swing of things. There is the frustration of rustiness to overcome but, when you’ve been playing this game since you were five years old, a lifetime of muscle memory is not easily forgotten.

Most players dread the running but there’s something strangely addictive to the feeling you get when you’ve completed that last lung-busting run. Testosterone levels are through the roof, with high fives all round; it’s one of the simplest and most effective ways to initiate the team spirit that will help you deal with the highs and lows you’ll face through the season.

I’ve run over short and long distances, around running tracks and cricket pitches. It may be against the clock or the whistle, your previous best or the man in your position. One manager wanted us to run with the ball at every opportunity, another was adamant that we run in boots because he said we couldn’t play in trainers. I guess there was a lot of sense to that but every manager is different.

As you head for home, you crawl back to your car and try not to fall asleep in the supermarket queue as you do the food shop. Later that evening when you’re relaxing on the sofa – or more likely recovering in an ice bath – the sense of satisfaction you feel far outweighs the aches in your muscles. Sure, you have to do it all again tomorrow, but the pain barrier is always worth pushing through when you’re one step closer to peak physical condition.

Every challenge becomes your next opportunity to stake a claim for a place in the starting line-up on the opening day of the season. As the famous cliché goes, no medals are handed out at the beginning of July, but that’s when you put in the hard yards that will take you forward into the rest of the season. It’s a war of attrition and your 10-month rollercoaster starts right here. So be ready, because your muscles will need to pump like pistons of a machine, your heart will race and you will strain with every last sinew. When your lungs and legs give out it will be a case of mind over matter. You will have to dig deep and find a way to push yourself and each other to be the very best you can possibly be. That’s what pre-season means to me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

• This article is from These Football Times

• Follow These Football Times and Mark Roberts on Twitter