Week 3 of Couch to 5K was nothing to be scared of. In retrospect, in a way, it was a reduction of total time in motion, total run time was equal to week 2, and was really there to get me comfortable with taking fewer breaks in my run.

In weeks 1 through 4, each week changes 1 thing — each one, a minor improvement. The changes in the first 3 weeks are subtle and seem more designed to make the running become habitual. Waking up expecting to run is inherently easier than waking up feeling forced to run. The small successes built into the program are definitely designed to help that happen.

Since the program is designed for you to run 3 times per week (every other day), a week can be finished in 6 days or 7. I have been doing 6 day weeks. So, when I woke up this morning without having run yesterday, habit drove me to start week 4.

Week 4 is significantly longer than weeks 1 through 3. Week 1 totalled 8 minutes of running per session. Weeks 2 and 3 each totalled 9 minutes of running per session. And week 4 totals 16 minutes of running per session. The earlier runs definitely prepared me for the change.

Week 3 saw other changes along the way. My Bluetooth Headset started cutting out quite a bit. It was enough of a problem that I started looking for replacements. I couldn’t decide upon one before my run this morning, so I switched to a pair of corded Mee Audio M6 Pro IEMs that I had picked up a while back. The audio did not drop out once (old tech for the win). The seal in the ear blocked out a significant amount of street noise. And, the cord was not a problem to manage at all. I may keep using these for my run until I have a compelling reason to change.

Not long after week 3 began, I decided to delete all social media apps from my phone. I actually found it easier than trying to limit my social media time on my phone. And, I figured that if I really needed to use a social media account from my phone, I could use the network’s website to get whatever it was done. You can tell a lot about each network about what they choose to allow/deny you to achieve via their websites, especially these days since the advent of Progressive Web Apps.

Have you tried to use Facebook from a mobile web browser lately? How about Twitter?

Both Facebook and Twitter have been around long enough that they pre-date the first iPhone. Both were usable (to some extent) on non-smartphones. So, neither network has an excuse if their core feature set is not usable on a modern mobile web browser.

Twitter succeeds here. In fact, Twitter’s mobile site is actually a full-blown Progressive Web App. It’s so well done, that there is very little reason to actually install their Android or iOS app (unless you manage multiple twitter accounts).

Facebook utterly fails. They intentionally block functionality that should work fine and try to direct you to the app store at every turn, attempting to force you into reinstalling their app. Messenger should work fine in your mobile browser as well, but they don’t want you to know that. Just request the Desktop Version of the page and see for yourself.

My takeaway is that Twitter is trying to optimize accessibility while Facebook is trying to maximize addiction. Thinking about this when I unconsciously go to check Facebook helps me do it less often.

I am still using StayFocusd on my laptop and desktop. It’s gentle reminders about how much time I have wasted on social media networks along with its hard limit seem to be working for me. I haven’t hit the hard limit for a few days now. I might reduce it 5 minutes at a time, for each week in which I don’t hit the limit.

By the way, for those of you who use Instagram, they have a Progressive Web App as well. It is definitely limited compared to their app. It doesn’t have many of the video features. They do have a valid excuse since they are a young enough network to never have run on a pre-iPhone anything.

Two more runs in Week 4! Then, the scary part begins: Week 5 is the first week with 3 different runs in 1 week. Wish me luck!

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