A training log is one of the most important pieces of equipment for successful training. I have trouble stressing the importance of a good training log enough. The training log doesn’t have to be complex, it just needs to include your mileage, time (and from that; pace) and some notes on how you felt during and right after the run (sick, tired legs, aches and pains, etc.) The more information you keep though, the more powerful tool the log becomes, things like heart rate, hours of sleep, body weight, weather conditions and location all give you good information that can be useful later.
A good log does a number of things for your training:
Track Your Mileage. It’s important to keep an eye on your mileage to insure that you’re building up correctly and not over doing it.
Track Previous Injuries. Keeping good notes on how you feel after each run can help give indicators of impending injuries. How long have you had that slight nagging pain in your knee? Did you have that same pain last year? What caused it? Did it lead to a more serious injury? Tacking these kinds of trends in your log can help adjust your training to avoid costly injuries.
Track Previous Performance. Tracking your workouts lets you compare your fitness level to where you were in previous years. You can look at what your workouts were before races last year and use that as a predictive tool for your races this year based on where you’re at in your training.
Adjust Your Training. Did certain workouts leave you with dead legs for that big race? Did you not have the speed or endurance you needed on race day? Having a good log of your workouts and training paces gives you the ability to properly adjust your current training schedule for peak performance. You’ll also be able to see the workouts that might have been too tough, and the ones that might need to have the intensity upped a bit.
Track Your Health. If you're tracking body weight and heart rate you have some good indicators of your health. Sudden drops or gains in body weight could indicate issues in your hydration and nutrition. If your resting heart rate is higher than normal (5-10 beats) it could indicate more stress than usual, sickness or, perhaps most importantly, overtraining. Heart rate can also be a great indicator of fitness, as you become more fit you should be able to sustain more intense workouts at the same heart rate.
Motivation. Sometimes just wanting to put those numbers and notes in your log can get you out the door. Knowing you’ll have to look back at that big gap in your training can be motivation to not take several weeks off because you’re feeling lazy. If you use an online site that can post to face book, use it as a bragging tool for your friends.
There are many different ways to keep your training log. You can go old school with paper and pencil, create a spread sheet with the information you want to track, or use one of the many online training logs to track your running. Some of the popular online sites include Runningahead.com, Dailymile.com, Mapmyrun.com, or Runkeep.com. Experiment to see what works best for you – if you have an iPhone, Runkeeper has an app, if you have a Garmin, Runningahead and Dailymile both import workouts, if you’re just entering your workouts manually any of these and others could work.
How you’re tracking your workouts doesn’t really matter as long as you are tracking those miles!
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