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What's the point of keeping a journal?
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 2007-06-20 4:00 PM |
New user 111 |  Subject: What's the point of keeping a journal?So I keep hearing you need to keep track of your workouts. "get a journal" "keep track" Can someone explain why? I've tried it. I've even done it for a few months but seriously what's the point? I rarely ever go back and see what I did. I know what my workouts are and should be and I know if they were good or not. Am I missing something? |
| 2007-06-20 4:02 PM in reply to: #853083 |
Elite 3130   | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? Kidblue - 2007-06-20 3:00 PM So I keep hearing you need to keep track of your workouts. "get a journal" "keep track" Can someone explain why? I've tried it. I've even done it for a few months but seriously what's the point? I rarely ever go back and see what I did. I know what my workouts are and should be and I know if they were good or not. Am I missing something? How else is the bear going to tell you "ride lots" when you post asking how to get faster on the bike?
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| 2007-06-20 4:03 PM in reply to: #853083 |
Pro 4206 Los Angeles, CA | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? If you ran a 6 mile run 2 weeks ago and then ran it again now, are you going to remember the times, HR, etc? Now, what if it's a 9 month IM program? How are you going to keep track of r/b/s and the progress or lack of? |
| 2007-06-20 4:04 PM in reply to: #853086 |
Resident Curmudgeon 25290 The Road Back Gold member | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? ScottoNM - 2007-06-20 4:02 PM Kidblue - 2007-06-20 3:00 PM So I keep hearing you need to keep track of your workouts. "get a journal" "keep track" Can someone explain why? I've tried it. I've even done it for a few months but seriously what's the point? I rarely ever go back and see what I did. I know what my workouts are and should be and I know if they were good or not. Am I missing something? How else is the bear going to tell you "ride lots" when you post asking how to get faster on the bike?
I don't have to look, it's an automatic recommendation. If someone is looking to get faster on the bike, 99% of the time it's because they don't have enough T.I.T.S. |
| 2007-06-20 4:06 PM in reply to: #853093 |
| Elite 3130 | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? the bear - 2007-06-20 3:04 PM ScottoNM - 2007-06-20 4:02 PM Kidblue - 2007-06-20 3:00 PM So I keep hearing you need to keep track of your workouts. "get a journal" "keep track" Can someone explain why? I've tried it. I've even done it for a few months but seriously what's the point? I rarely ever go back and see what I did. I know what my workouts are and should be and I know if they were good or not. Am I missing something? How else is the bear going to tell you "ride lots" when you post asking how to get faster on the bike?
I don't have to look, it's an automatic recommendation. If someone is looking to get faster on the bike, 99% of the time it's because they don't have enough T.I.T.S. OK so I guess that's not a very good reason then.
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| 2007-06-20 4:06 PM in reply to: #853083 |
Champion 10668 Tacoma, Washington | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? "Am I missing something?" Maybe not. If you're in it for the joy of movement, have a well established routine, aren't trying to improve speed or endurance, or anything like that, the journal may well be a waste of time (and electrons). It's not required, by any means. |
| 2007-06-20 4:49 PM in reply to: #853099 |
| New user 111 | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? briderdt - 2007-06-20 3:06 PM "Am I missing something?" Maybe not. If you're in it for the joy of movement, have a well established routine, aren't trying to improve speed or endurance, or anything like that, the journal may well be a waste of time (and electrons). It's not required, by any means. Basically my goal is to have a stronger workout than the time before. Maybe once I start tracking times or my goal is to get faster then it will be more applicable. |
| 2007-06-20 4:56 PM in reply to: #853193 |
Extreme Veteran 563 Allen, TX | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? Kidblue - 2007-06-20 4:49 PM briderdt - 2007-06-20 3:06 PM "Am I missing something?" Maybe not. If you're in it for the joy of movement, have a well established routine, aren't trying to improve speed or endurance, or anything like that, the journal may well be a waste of time (and electrons). It's not required, by any means. Basically my goal is to have a stronger workout than the time before. Maybe once I start tracking times or my goal is to get faster then it will be more applicable. Yeah, this is the 1970s cyclist mentality. Cyclist 1: "Wow I think I ruptured my spleen on that last split..." Cyclist 2: "That means you had a great workout! GOOD JOB!" ***Cyclist 1 falls dead*** For those of us that think that heart rate, metabolic/anaerobic threshold, periodization and nutrition actually are more important than feeling like you 'had a really hard workout', logs make alot of sense. For those you that don't care about doing the math, there is no reason to have a log. But if you think you're going to care about going faster in the future then you're going to want to have a log. |
| 2007-06-20 5:00 PM in reply to: #853083 |
Expert 706 Spring (Houston), TX | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? It could help if you get an overuse injury or overtrain. By looking back you can see where the mistake was so you don't make it again. I also find it helps to keep me accountable. Writing my workout down for the world to see makes me want to push a little harder. But, I went for a year with no journal and got faster (not fast-just faster) without one. |
| 2007-06-20 5:06 PM in reply to: #853083 |
| New user 111 | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? Having a "really hard workout" isn't that important it's just that I felt stronger (if that makes sense). I usually run one of 3 trails each time, if I ran it better, not necessarily faster, than that's a good work out same for bike. Swim I do masters so they are always hard. The accountability is a great point. I did actually look back at my journal once and noticed I had cut my workouts short several days in a row  |
| 2007-06-20 5:20 PM in reply to: #853083 |
Champion 6056 Menomonee Falls, WI | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? OK, well how about these reasons? - Tracking your weekly and monthly volume for periodization purposes. - Tracking your annual volume so you can look back and take pride in all the work you put in. - Tracking volume to know when you may be close to overtraining or when you want to check when you took your last off-day. - Noting what nutrition approaches worked and didn't. - Allowing you to see your improvement over thje same routes. - Allowing others to comment on and help you improve your training approach. Or just send you "inspires" that tell you you need to drag your lazy butt out of bed in the morning. That's just a few off the top of my head. |
| 2007-06-20 5:31 PM in reply to: #853083 |
Lethbridge, Alberta Bronze member | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? When I bought a copy of "The Triathlete's Training Bible", one of the first things it wanted me to do was estimate my annual training volume. Can you guess where I went for that?  |
 2007-06-20 6:29 PM in reply to: #853200 |
| Subject: ... This user's post has been ignored. |
| 2007-06-20 8:33 PM in reply to: #853083 |
| Coach 10487 Boston, MA | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? If your tri just as a hobby and don’t really care about improving you don’t need one for sure. As a coach a training log provides a lot of great information for me to plan and make the necessary adjustments to help an athlete to improve. Plus in short, the goal of a coach is to push an athlete close to breaking point in order for him/her to get close to her absolute potential. Without the info provided by logs we might risk pushing the athlete too much over that breaking point. |
| 2007-06-20 9:14 PM in reply to: #853083 |
| Master 1670 Harvard, Illinois | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? I like keeping track of workouts because I like to look back and see what has worked for me and what hasn't in my training. |
| 2007-06-20 9:36 PM in reply to: #853083 |
| Elite 3020 Bay Area, CA | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? For me, it's nice to see year over year improvements or compare how I'm doing now to how I did before. Also, if I had a really great race (or month etc.) it's helpful to see exactly what I was doing. You may think you will remember everything that you do, but trust me, you will not. |
| 2007-06-21 7:35 AM in reply to: #853083 |
| Veteran 136 Flower Mound, Texas | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? |
| 2007-06-21 9:43 AM in reply to: #853193 |
| Champion 10668 Tacoma, Washington | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? "Basically my goal is to have a stronger workout than the time before." Can't be done on a continuing basis. You're going to break down somewhere along the way. |
| 2007-06-21 9:55 AM in reply to: #853083 |
| Cycling Guru 15134 Fulton, MD | Subject: RE: What's the point of keeping a journal? The majority of triathletes are anal Type A people and having concrete data in front of them is almost an absolute must so they can micro-analyze their data. Why do you think GPS and Heartrate Monitor manufacturers love the tri crowd so much! Edited by Daremo 2007-06-21 9:56 AM |
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