I encourage everyone to begin a running journal. This will serve as a record for you to keep track of your progression, your strengths and weaknesses, and your overall training throughout the season. During the off-season you can continue this trend by writing down your training runs.
This journal can be any booklet you wish. If you choose to record this data on your computer, write it on paper first! I suggest a simple spiral notebook.
Information to log in your journals:
- Date
- Time
- Workout Type (running, swimming, cycling, rowing, stair stepper, etc.)
- Duration of the workout (If it is a race/meet, put the event(s) & your finish time & place)
- Weather
- How you felt before & after (e.g. “Tired”, “Stuffy nose, but felt good on the run.”, “Excellent! I ran my best race today!”)
- Distance you covered. (e.g. If the workout was 8×400 meter repeats on Monday, you covered 1.5 miles)
- What you ate that day.
- What you can do to improve next time. (e.g. stretch more, go to bed earlier, drink more water, layer better, etc.)
Sample Online Running Journals – There are others available.
