Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Do You Keep Track Of Your Training?

Are you serious about your training activities?  Are you recording your activities in a log? 

If “yes” to the first question, but “no” to the second; it’s time to start a training log.

It’s so easy to do this – I simply use a steno notebook, record the dates and log my activities for each day.  I include mileage, times, how I feel, etc.  Just a few things that will help me recreate the activities of the day so that I better know what I should schedule as I move forward.  Through the way I use these notebooks, I can record up to two years of activities in one book. 

You can get a little more technical with the recording of your training activities by consulting the web for a variety of tools.  There are free tools and those available at a cost – check out http://tinyurl.com/cqspce for a look at some options.

Logs can be important for a variety of reasons.  I believe it’s most important to have a log as a reference point to measure success.  This is particularly effective if you’re looking to target certain times for an event, lose a certain  amount of weight or gauge your recovery progress following a recent injury and beyond.  Believe me, when you start to compete, you will want to be tracking your times more closely and a log is the best way to do it.

In my mind, keeping a training log is a “no brainer”.  Some people actually use blogs to keep track of their training activities.  This is a great strategy because you can share your training activities with others.

Check out this blogpost for more reflection on the importance of keeping a training log --   http://tinyurl.com/c4j594.

3 comments:

Mark said...

Coach, I am thankful for my logs of past years. Reminders of what worked, etc. I'm really relying on the blog more nowadays, though.
Great post

Coachhrd said...

It's amazing how often I go back to my logs for different bits of information.

Christine Luff said...

I love looking back at old training logs to see how I prepared for specific. It helps me do better next time.