It’s incredible but it’s already one year since we did this for the first time. Running From FM. We were playing the Football Manager and we ran based on the results within the save. The time we spent together with Matt and Tony while playing the FM21 save with Wisla in the Polish top tier was absolutely perfect. It was that type of save I will remember for a long time. Especially thanks to my FM22 save in Poland as I think about some players from that Wisla team every time I meet Wisla in my save. Matt wrote about it in the LQ8 if you want to read about it.

For example, Zan Medved 🐻 and Yaw Yeboah 🌪️. It’s also fun that a short time after Tony decided to do this FM/running challenge again, these two players moved to the same team within my FM22 save.

Tony shared his spreadsheet with the results from his side save with Hertha publicly and I decided to join again. The rules remained the same and simple as last year. Win - 1km run, draw - 2km run, defeat - 3km run. I was not able to run exactly this amount of kilometres last year and it was the same this year. Not because it would be too many kilometres but because I’m used to running more.

• I’m not a long-distance runner and I rarely run more than 7-9 kilometres.

• My favourite workout is around 30-40 minutes/5-6,5km.

If you would ask me about fifteen or twenty years ago if I like running, my immediate response would be simply no, I don’t! The main reason is that I play football for the whole of my life. It’s already been more than thirty years and I always hated long-distance running and workouts. The summer and winter pre-seasons were nightmares for me.

“Say hi, this is a ball, you won’t see him for the next two weeks.” This was a favourite sentence of one of my coaches in the youth team. And it was Mordor. I have no good memories of it but the time flies and I like running now due to many reasons.

One of them is freedom 100%. I have an advantage that I live in a very small town and I have a protected area very close to my home. To be able to run in the forest peacefully is one of the best things now. Especially while working from home with two small kids and a wife on maternity leave.

🤯🤯🤯

The calendar year of 2022 was not too kind to me so far in many ways. I already had sprained ankle three times this year and the only way how I can run or play football is with the ankle taped. The war conflict in Ukraine, the loss of some friends and relatives here and many other personal things also didn’t help me. But running is one of the things that helps me.

As I already mentioned, the Running From FM challenge has simple rules. But I made my own rules this time. My June workouts were mainly to get back into good shape to be able to play football. My runs consisted usually of 45 minutes run. No matter the distance or pace, just run for 45 minutes with the main aim - to run without a break as long as possible to be able to play at least one half of the match when the football schedule will restore.

The most common issue of my running usually is that football is always more important and that means whenever my running shape is good, the football sessions take place on my calendar. Another thing is that I usually pick some injury like the sprained ankle this year…

I also considered stopping playing football after thirty years but it looks like I will continue one more season. My initial idea was to run 10, 20 or 30 minutes instead of 1, 2 or 3 kilometres. But I decided against it in the end. And I set my own schedule for the whole month.

• 30 minutes workout from Monday to Saturday

• 45 minutes workout on Sunday

The 45 minutes-long run on Sunday was something like the match after a whole week of training. I can’t imagine running something between 6-8 kilometres during the football first half as it’s a different type of running/movement but it really is the ideal type of workout for me personally.

The training sessions of my local team (the Czech 8th tier) restarted on Thursday, July 21, 2022. That means I had 20 days prior to the first training session to run every day. The last week of July (should) offered me two training sessions, four 30 minutes runs and the first summer pre-season friendly match on Sunday, July 31, 2022.

During the first Running From FM last year, I ran very often also during the day when I had the training session and I had two workouts per day. But I decided against it this time because of my ankles, knees…

So, yes, the plan was clear - try to prepare me as best as possible for the opening friendly match on the last day of the month.

I also made one important decision prior to the first day of Running From FM 2022 - I took the last beer for the entire month on the eve of June 30. I love beer. I love good Czech beer and I’m used to drink it every day. But I decided I will try to not drink during July and this workout/running schedule I set to myself. Mainly to be able to sleep enough and not read books while drinking until midnight.

Anyone who knows me a little bit also knows that this is not an easy decision. Goodbye, Budvar. Goodbye, Pilsner. Goodbye, Zichovec. Goodbye, Kozel… See you in August. 🍺👋🏻

Week 1

The first week was, in some way, the easiest but also the hardest. It was easy to get out as I was hyped and motivated to do it. It was hard between the second and fifth run because I was probably the most fatigued within this week. Mainly because July and the running started on Friday so I had to run 45 minutes on Sunday (July 3) probably in the biggest fatigue. But I think I did very well. I absolutely didn’t care about the distance, pace and other stats of my runs. The main point was to work as hard as possible within 30/45 minutes of workouts. The fact I run further and faster at the end of the first week was just a bonus.

Week 2

The eighth day of Running From FM, and the first day of the second week, were without the traditional run for me. My teammates decided we are missing each other and they called me to play 5/6-aside. And as I wrote above, I decided to not run on the same day as I have a football training session to avoid injuries/burnout/fatigue. But as I am unable to just stay on the pitch, it resulted in 6.12 kilometres within one hour and four minutes of playing football.

July 9, the ninth day was my first miss. A sick younger son, a lot of work around the Women’s U19 EURO final match and the fact that my wife was sick too resulted in the day when I was without a chance to go out for even 30 minutes. It was one day and I already missed that running feeling and freedom.

The second week of running resulted in my best run in probably around 20 years as I managed to run 5.7km in 30 minutes - 5k in 26:10 was my fastest 5k since I started using some watches or running apps. I didn’t run so fast since I had to end my ‘pro career’ when I was 17/18 years old. I felt very strong at the end of the second week.

Week 3

The third week started with another football training session. I also felt I need a change of scenery where I run. I went to the nearby town where I grew up with my family and I decided to run around the football pitch of my elementary school as they made the simple tartan running track here. It was a tough and intensive workout as I ran very fast and I set a couple of new personal records.

It was also weird when some unknown 70 years old woman came to the field and started walking/running around the pitch despite she had a skirt and blouse as she would go to some shop or theatre. I need to get back there to find out if she bought the new running shoes as she wanted to buy mine…

The end of the third week also meant the same thing as the last year - curious fellow citizens in our small village. As I ran (almost) every day, more people wanted to stop me and ask why I’m running every day, especially as they know that I’m playing football here etc. Sometimes, I thought that I met more people (and talked with them) just because of these daily runs than in a normal regime. I also didn’t run the whole 30 minutes two days in a row as 1) it was really hot outside and 2) I felt I had enough after I was already over 5k. The last day of the third week, July 21, also was the first day of the summer pre-season with my local team… 36°C when the training session kicked off…

The last 10 days

The last ten days of July should be divided into more parts. I felt tired initially but I still have enough energy in my legs to run every day. For some weird reason, I ran very fast between football training sessions on Wednesday, July 27. But that was my last proper run when I felt power in both legs. The last run on Friday afternoon was slow and the main idea was to go out and refresh my legs after a training session from the previous day.

The last July’s Saturday was a proper crisis and I moved the run by every thirty minutes I instead spent the whole day with family and just went for a short walk. I thought my legs would explode and I knew that if I want to play a friendly football match on Sunday evening, I have to take a rest.

The friendly match was absolute as I expected before. Our opponent is playing in the higher division and they were better, we play against them regularly during summer or winter pre-season but we didn’t beat them since the summer of 2020. But the result (a 1:6 defeat) was not important as we are trying to put together an almost completely new team with seven or eight new players who made it through from the U19s team.

It was for the first time in probably one and a half years that we produced some good football and our play had a system, at least for the first 60 minutes of the match before most of my teammates were no longer physically fit and we conceded four goals in the last part of the match.

But it was great for me personally as I managed to run almost ten kilometres during the match and there was no part during the game when I would not have enough energy or power. It’s also probably good to mention that I was the eldest player of all from both teams…

If my main aim for the entire month was to prepare myself for the opening summer match, it really paid off because I felt very good on the pitch. Probably better than during most of the matches in the previous season.

Conclusion

I managed to do thirty activities during 31 days if we will count the walks. These activities lasted 21:40:31 ⏱️ and I managed to run/walk 168.4 kilometres.

• 22x runs 🏃🏻‍♂️

• 5x training session ⚽️

• 2x walk 🚶🏻‍♂️

• 1x friendly match ⚽️

The most important thing is that I didn’t pick some injuries during the entire month and my problematic right ankle hurt mainly only during the first week when I had to get used to some rhythm/tempo/fatigue etc. One thing is certain - when we did the Running From FM for the first time in summer 2021, it was, at least for me, more fun mainly because we played the save together with Matt and Tony, and we talked about everything much more regularly and I think we lived by the whole thing. Not only thanks to regular streams. On the other hand, if there would not been this challenge, I’m sure I would not do something every day for the entire month. Another positive thing is that more people were involved in this and they were able to combine their favourite game with some movement, not only from the desk to the fridge and back.

Don’t forget, Matt/fmadventure, wrote and continuously updated about his Running From FM month too - READ HERE.

Did I actually play some Football Manager during July? Despite I didn’t run based on some specific results, I finished the 2028/2029 season with Warta Poznan and I wrote some kind of four seasons summary. The save will continue to reach 10 seasons.

Thanks for reading and let’s run/walk/do anything.

And now, I can take some beers…🍺