Simple… be diligent about updating my workout log spreadsheet. Most of my workouts are had between the hours of 4:30am and 7:30am. I do squeeze in some lunch swims, but I don’t like doing that too often since it runs me over my lunch hour a little bit. I have my spreadsheet on a jump drive so I can plug in at work and update it real quick right after my workout. Your plan is no good if you don’t know you’re following it… I also use daily mile, but it doesn’t give me the ability to analyze my workouts like I want.
I usually train anywhere from 6 to 10 hours a week at the moment. I’m preparing to up that as I get a last few large volume weeks for the KS ½ IM. In order to improve you need to keep track of your training in order to compare your race results as it relates to training volume and workout types.
If you don’t keep track, even with a busy life, how are you going to know if that new speed workout you’re follow is helping you when you don’t know when you ran it? Is that hill workout having an impact? What about that new bike trainer drill? When did I do that? Which triathlon did I start that??? Are my speeds improving? What was my distance last week compared to a month ago???? With my log, I can keep track!
I’ll post a few screen shots and go over what I find important to my training. Also a disclaimer, I don’t have time to play around with power tap for the bike, heart rate monitors, or most other detailed performance measuring devices. When I go pro (ya right) I’ll invest in that gear. I use one simple tool, my Garmin 310XT. It’s the pinnacle of all GPS tracking for athletes as far as I’m concerned. The only thing it won’t do is accurately measure swims… and if you find a GPS that tracks under water, you let me know!
First, I have where I enter the data and when the week is going on, I want to know how many hours I’ve spent training and what I’ve done. You can see it all there. This is after 5 years of perfecting to show what I need.
Color coded to separate weeks and divided by each discipline.
Right now I have 8 graphs set up with this data:
1. By week, averages for run, bike, swim and total workout time. It’s a little convoluted but a good way to see your training volume by time. It’s also good for looking at past years to watch your volume and averages to see improvements.
2. Swim average speed (time per 100 yards) per week. It’s laid out over 52 weeks and each year is assigned to a data set and transposed over each other. I also plotted the average to see where that places each year. This is good to focus on improvement of speed each year. It also works in concert with #3 so you can see if increasing swimming volume has a correlation to becoming faster.
3. Swim volume per week. Same concept as #2 only with yards per week. It gives you a flavor of knowing if you put your butt in the pool for more yards, does that make you faster? So far, YES!
4. Same concept as #2, only with run average speed (min/miles).
5. Same as #2, only with run volume per week.
6. Same as #2, only with bike speed per week.
7. Same as #2, only with bike volume per week.
8. Same as #2, only with average hours per week training.
1. Screen shot
3. Screen shot
8. Screen shot
So as you can see from some examples, I’m a little OCD about tracking my training… as are most triathlete type people! BUT, it does help me to see if I’m getting more work in this year than last at this point. It helps me to determine if increasing my volume helps with speed. In the case of swimming, I believe so. However, in my running I have incorporated more hill and sprint workouts. Short bursts and rest periods. My average speed for running has gone up this year (takes me longer to run a mile) since I’ve instituted these workouts, but I PR’d my 10k time this year. So by looking back at the data, I can see that I have a lot of hill and sprint runs that drag down my average but with that incorporation, I have improved my running. Proof is in the pudding!
Otherwise, you could be trying all these fad workouts and not able to pinpoint what’s helping you and what’s not. I like, I think I’ll stay with it. =)
Also, don't forget to check out the CONTEST and vote on your favorite story!
3 comments:
Ryan, that's awesome the way you keep track of your training. Right now, that would be overwhelming to me. I use DailyMile and enjoy it, but honestly, the community part of it can be tiring at times. On the other hand, it's nice to get a pat on the back occasionally.
PS You had asked about SocialSpark - not sure if you saw my follow-on comment to the post, but I've deleted my account, it just wasn't what I expected. I'll look back into it in 6 months or a year, see if it's improved or not.
I really like the spreadsheet and want to try and do something similar to that. Your spreadsheet didn't have headings so I couldn't quite figure out what all the numbers you had going on in the Swim category. Could you explain what exactly those are?
For the swim graph, I charted the average swim yards per week and I ordered the weeks 1 through 52 and graphed each year I tracked.
The data entry part, I have a column for a description, time in minutes, how many laps I swam, the lap distance, total yards swam, and average speed per 100 yards. Total yards and average speed are calculated colums.
Post a Comment