Training log - how do you track your quality runs? (Read 526 times)

First of all, approach the log with the thought that it is your log -- use it how you want in the way that works for you.

I log the "type" based on my goal for the run.  If the objective was a tempo run, then I log it as 'tempo', even if only middle section was tempo. Or for an interval run, the first and last couple miles are warm-up and jog-home, I still log as 1 interval run and not 3 separate events.

Then I can quickly scan the workouts list (or calendar view), and see the pattern of my run types. If I want to know the specific details, I open the workout to see it.

I'm the opposite of MilkTruck.  If I do 3 easy before a workout and 3 easy after the workout I always log them separately.  I like to be able to look at my Summary and see those comforting easy green bars sandwiching those intense orange/red/yellow quality workouts.  Plus I can tell at a glance of my summary page about how much of a particular run was 'qualtiy'.   Introduces some more signal into the graph page.

On RA's and similar logs, I usually log a run in its entirety, like MilkTruck - including the wu/cd with the work part. But my primary logs are in Polar's ProTrainer and a log I built in MS Access (I'm behind on entering things in my main bases now because of some upgrades, glitches, etc, but have the critical notes.). In Polar, I can see stacked bars of time in HR zones, so a tempo run may show 30min of easy and 40 min of harder stuff, similar to what kencamet likes to see. Sometimes I'll break a run in half, separating uphill (45-90min) from downhill if I lolligag on top the mountain before I come down. My Access db was used for clothes and food/fluid when I was first learning what worked for me under various conditions.

As someone said, it's your personal log. Think about how you'll use it, and log accordingly. Have fun.

Thanks for all the input.  So it looks like there is not a "right" way to do it.   I like the idea of breaking them up, but I'm not sure if it's worth the extra time to do so, in my case anyway.  

I will certainly have fun with it.  I am loving the site!

Thanks for the tip!  I hadn't thought of doing it that way, but that would definitely make it easy.

If you want to break the workout into separate sections, you may want to reset your watch during the workout -- that is, record the pieces separately -- to avoid having to manually monkey with them after-the-fact to achieve the desired division.

 I do this. I like to break it up because I can visually see how each type of run relates to the total volume on my reports. I can tell if my long runs are about 33% of my total volume or if my speed work is around 10% of my total volume. If I run 30 miles per week and did intervals with a warm-up and cool down totaling 10 miles, then, I would not get a good representation of my speed work if I didn't split the warm-up, workout and cool down. It would show 33% speed work against the 30 weekly miles. 

I like to see my data split up but others don't care. What are you trying to achieve?

I'm glad I could help, wcrunner(2), after all the helpful advice you've given me and others over the years.

What am I trying to achieve?   I'd like to have a graph with lots and lots of tall, colorful bars.  No, honestly, I'm not sure which way would be best.  I'm usually following some training program but for the rest of the winter, I'll be winging it and just running what I feel like running.  After giving it some thought, I'm leaning towards just categorizing the entire run as tempo or interval, because I think the most important thing for me will be to have the ability to scan through my past daily workouts to see if it's time to throw in another speed work session.  If I'm interested in speed work as a percentage of the weekly total, that would be easy enough to analyze without breaking it out.