Sub-3 on 3 Runs: Week 2 — When Life Pushes Back

If Week 1 was about resetting the system, Week 2 was a reminder of something far more uncomfortable: this is harder when you do it honestly and in public.

The first run of the week landed with a bit of a thud. One of those sessions where, partway through, you’re very aware of the scale of what you’ve set yourself. Sub-3 on three runs a week can feel like a neat idea when you’re writing it down; it feels very different when the legs are heavy and the gap between where you are and where you want to be feels… sizeable.

There was definitely a moment of, why on earth did I decide to document this publicly?
That’s the double-edged sword of sharing the process. You don’t get to hide the average days.

Midweek brought a shift in tone. Wednesday turned into an impromptu social run with a local group, ticking along at around ten-minute miles. It was genuinely easy — maybe too easy at times — but that was the point. There’s a temptation in projects like this to overvalue “purposeful” running and forget that easy aerobic mileage, even when it feels almost boring, still counts. I’ll take relaxed, conversational miles every time if they keep the system ticking over.

That same day, I squeezed in a 30-minute TrainerRoad virtual ride at work during lunch. Nothing heroic, averaging around 140 watts, but it did exactly what it needed to do. A small aerobic nudge, no stress, and I finished the day feeling fairly fresh. That’s the balance this whole approach lives on.

The back end of the week is where reality really showed up. Friday was another short 30-minute turbo session, slotted in before a long workday. Again, not exciting, but done. Saturday disappeared into parenting duties, watching my youngest compete at a swim meet down in Brighton, followed by celebrating my wife’s birthday in the evening. Exactly the sort of life stuff that doesn’t show up neatly in a training plan.

We travelled home early Sunday morning and, despite feeling tired on waking, I managed to get a 10-mile easy run done before leaving Brighton. It wasn’t forced and it wasn’t heroic, but it mattered. The pace was comfortable, the legs actually felt better than they did last week, and for the first time in this project there was a small sense that things are beginning to move in the right direction. That said, it’s still a long way off where it needs to be. There’s no illusion of fitness here yet — just early signs that consistency, even when imperfect, is starting to do its job.

In the end, it was one of those weeks that doesn’t quite look how you imagined it would when you sketched the plan out. Not disastrous. Not a failure. Just… human.

And that’s the key lesson from Week 2.

No real damage was done. I came out of the week feeling relatively fresh, not beaten up. But you also can’t afford too many weeks like this when you’re trying to rebuild consistency and lay down an aerobic foundation. Momentum in these early phases is fragile. You don’t need perfection, but you do need enough repeatable weeks to let adaptation quietly stack up.

This is where the difference between theory and practice shows itself. On paper, the structure works. In real life, it only works if you’re prepared to adapt without panicking and accept that some weeks are about containment rather than progression.

Week 2 wasn’t what I hoped for when I looked ahead. But it’s also exactly the kind of week most everyday athletes experience — competing priorities, disrupted routines, and decisions made under fatigue. The win is not forcing it and not letting one imperfect week derail the bigger picture.

Consistency is still the priority. Aerobic development still matters. And the margin for error isn’t huge.

Week 3 needs to tighten things back up. Not by doing more, but by doing enough, more often.

That’s the reality of this project. And that’s why it’s worth documenting properly.