Training Log

The subject of training logs came up this weekend, and I was surprised to learn that many of you are not making use of them. So I though I'd jot down a few notes on what they are, what a good one should contain and how it can prove to be useful in your training.

The training log is a just that, an historical record of your workouts and races. At the very least, a good log will contain the type of workout (swim, bike, run, etc.), the mileage of the event and the type (easy, tempo, intervals, race). With this basic information, you can control your weekly mileage to insure that you do not increase it too rapidly. General rule of thumb is increasing weekly mileage by no more than 10-15% if you want to remain healthy and injury free. Secondly you will likely see patterns develop based on these mileage numbers. Perhaps at 40-50 running miles a week, you show good progress and good results, but at mileage over 60 a week, you find yourself sickly or more prone to injury. Likewise, at mileage less than 40 a week, you find performance results lacking.

As an aside, this is also a great way to calculate shoe and bike tire mileage to help you know when to replace.

Two other bits of information that can turn a basic training log into a detailed source of information are the conditions of the workout (temperature, weather conditions, course conditions) and your physical/mental feelings. Was Monday's recovery run sluggish because your legs were tired from Sunday's long run? Did Wednesday's pool workout make you feel fresh for Thursday's bike interval?

If the planned race is long, where nutrition will play a part, keeping track of the types and amounts of calories consumed in training can be helpful as well. Did PowerGels (nutritious and delicious) sit well on your stomach while GUs sent you running into the woods for relief? Which was better the night before the long run, pizza or burrito, Guinness or All Sport?

There are those few days each year where everything seems to fall into place, and you feel like you can ride or run faster and farther than before and with relative ease. The goal of all this training that we do is being able to replicate this feeling come race day. By having a detailed training log, we can look back on the events that led up to that day of awesomeness and employ those same strategies before the big race.

Lastly, when you have some time off during a race taper, it is cool to dig out an old training log from a few years back and reminisce about workouts and races gone by. Compare race times, see how far you've come and relive the journey.

That's all for now, gotta write about the dusty 1000's on the chip trail at Lake Johnson last night.