When Reality Checks the Plan-Sub-3 on 3 Runs: Week 11

Week 11 started exactly how you’d expect after Week 10.

Poorly.

The aftermath of football lingered more than I’d hoped. The Achilles was a bit sore, but it was actually the left ankle that took most of the hit — bruised, stiff, and just uncomfortable enough to make running early in the week a non-starter. It wasn’t worth forcing anything, so the first few days were about letting things settle rather than chasing sessions.

The first proper bit of “training” didn’t come until Thursday with our indoor TrainingPeaks virtual group ride. The session turned into a bit of a mess — somewhere between an elimination race and a velodrome-style smash fest. Good fun, but it definitely highlighted how poor I am at cycling, especially anything resembling sprinting.

Friday evening I managed a short run, around 6K. It was nice to move relatively smoothly again, but things were still stiff — more so through my back than the lower body, which wasn’t ideal but manageable.

Then, naturally… football again on Saturday.

Slightly sore, slightly questionable decision-making, but it was good to be out in the sunshine and moving again. That said, I’m quickly realising that with a three-runs-per-week structure, football has absolutely no place in a marathon build. The cost the next day is just too high. You lose any chance of running with quality, and when you’ve only got three opportunities a week, that matters.

Sunday confirmed that.

I was stiff — properly stiff. Too stiff to do anything meaningful. I ticked off just over 16K at an easy pace, but it was very much a case of getting it done rather than building anything. The ankle, which felt okay on the softer football pitch, didn’t enjoy the tarmac at all. The run was steady, controlled, and there was probably more there if I’d wanted to push it — but I chose not to.

Last week was a reminder of what happens when you dig a hole and try to train out of it. This week was about not repeating that mistake.

So I left something in the tank.

There were still some positives. Strength work continued to move well, and I managed to hit a bench press PB, which is always a good sign that general strength is progressing. More importantly, I’m starting to feel a bit lighter on my feet again. When I’ve been in my best shape, that’s always been a marker — leaner, more efficient, moving well. That feeling is starting to return, even if the endurance side hasn’t quite caught up yet.

And that brings me to the honest part.

Right now, sub-3 probably isn’t on the cards.

The key pieces over the last few weeks — particularly the long run — just haven’t been consistent enough. That’s not something you can easily make up, and within this plan it was always the critical piece.

I still believe it was achievable off three runs a week — but only if everything aligned. Consistency, intensity, sleep, recovery, nutrition, no interruptions, no missed sessions… and no football.

The “perfect block”.

And that’s where a lot of athletes get caught out.

It’s easy to take a 5K or 10K performance and extrapolate that into a marathon prediction. But those predictions assume best-case scenarios. They assume nothing goes wrong. They assume consistency is uninterrupted and everything lines up.

In reality, how often does that actually happen?

Life gets in the way. Sleep drops off. You pick up knocks. Sessions don’t land how you want them to. And suddenly that predicted marathon time doesn’t reflect what’s actually been done in the build.

That’s exactly where this project has landed.

The pieces are there — but they’re not fully aligned.

Playing catch-up during marathon training is hard enough as it is. On three runs a week, it puts even more pressure on each individual session. It’s got to the point where I can’t really afford to just jog for 30 minutes when I’m tired or easing back from a knock — there isn’t the wiggle room.

That doesn’t mean it’s over.

It just means expectations need to be grounded in reality.

Because that’s the process.

Not perfect plans.
Not perfect builds.

This is what training actually feels like — most of the time.