Charting Your Progress

KEEPING A LOG

A training log is an important tool for recording and monitoring your progress toward your decided goals.

For me it is an invaluable tool and I start a new log at the beginning of each year. I enter detailed information into it daily. The pay off is this; the log conveys to me if I am responding to particular types of training - in short if I am making progress and obtaining my goals.

Your log must be maintained with consistent information. Design your log so that the information may be compiled and measured. In many respects, your log and the information that it will give back to you is why you get out and do your physical training.

Below are my logging criteria:

Each morning I record my resting heart rate and weight, the number of hours and quality of sleep I had the night before.
After a training session I enter the type of workout I've done, the shoes I'm wearing, the time of day, the duration of the workout, distance, pace, location (i.e., road, treadmill, track, etc.) and the weather. On the back of the log, I have an area where I give details of the workout. For example, if it was a speed workout I would give details on pace and distance, of the repeats and intervals etc. I also give details on how I feel physically. If I've done a long run of 10 miles or more I'll record what I drank and ate before the run, during and after the run.
At the end of the week I write a short summary of how the week went and if I feel I made progress or not and why.

It may sound a little time consuming and over kill on details, but it is worth the effort and I'm a nut for details anyway. You will find all this information extremely useful later in determining your ability to adapt to your training.

Enjoy Every Step

Al