Thanks for the encouragement all - I am trying really hard not to let myself get 'stuck' again and keep progressing, but it's so hard sometimes to keep going and get out for a run when there's so much else on! I'm really impressed with how well everyone else is doing - it inspires me to keep trying to sort myself out!
rowing I normally do one run a week in the dark once it gets to winter - so one is in the morning at/after sunrise, one at the weekend (normally just before lunch), and then one in the evening before dinner (6ish), as I'm bad at doing 2 morning runs a week. I always stick to running around the neighbourhood for the evening one even though it's not that late, not least because I don't want to fall over in a hole or anything. I'd agree with Glow that it also tends to be the one I drop in a busy week, as it is a bit of a pain. I am very lucky though - I can adjust my work schedule a lot as it's very flexible, or work from home a couple of days a week, so I can occasionally also do a lunchtime run during the week which helps.
I don't run when I'm ill if at all possible - recovering/getting a minor cold, maybe, but occasionally those develop into bad coughs if I push it, so even then I try not to. And, like you've found, my performance is so awful if I do keep running when ill that it's not really worth it - it just seems to delay getting better for no especially good reason.
Welcome MrTCakes! As may be apparent from the above, I do quite often run twice a week because I manage to provide myself lots of excuses not to do the third - but I really don't recommend it if there's any way to avoid it. I find both runs are much harder with only two, and I never feel quite ready to increase the distance/times. Three seems to be the perfect balance. If you are running 2 days in a row, can you do one morning, one evening to space them out? Or would they be at the same time each day? That might be quite hard on your muscles etc. while you're just starting.