Anyone Else Lost Interest in Logs & WKO+?
Historically, I've been a numbers hound. TSS, ATL, Performance Management Charts, Mean Maximal Charts, TrainingPeaks, etc. Logging, downloading, analyzing, fixing, etc. - I have no time or interest in it anymore. And this mentality started AFTER joining EN. Why? I don't know. For the most part, I just do what I am told by following the plan. And my Garmin 310XT and Joule and Pace Clock at the pool tell me what's going on real-time. It's like lather, rinse, repeat - day after day. And if I follow the plan, I accomplish the goal at the daily level but also the season level. Sure, I will download big rides, races or tests and do the analysis, graphs, charts and fun stuff. But I don't have time to log every workout, measure where I am with TSS this week vs. last week, etc.
Who's with me?
Comments
Now that Jan OS is here, I'm back on, tho.
I understand what your hinting at. Just stick to the plan and we'll get faster. Bare bones and hard work. Got it.
Yes, for sure. Though I now train with power and pace, I just use my 310xt and upload the data to Garmin Connect to look at, roughly weekly. Only exception are unique rides or races and an old-school Excel sheet that I've kept for ~ 12 yrs that tracks time and distance, by sport. I know that some (incl possibly Coach R) might say that I'm just using the PT and 310xt as a fancy cyclocomputer, but not sure I'd agree. I track 3s avg watts and interval times on the screen. Total time and distance takes care of itself or I can use time of day. I really like the simplicity of one device that can track all 3 sports and races and a wireless web interface. Much, much easier than monkeying around with a lot of software, cables, etc. If you do the work, IMO, that's all that really matters.
I'm jealous of all you guys who take advantage of the solid EN plan progressions, and trust that by meeting the daily numbers, there's no need to worry about how they add up - we all knowthey will. I know I'll never be able to give logging my workouts, and then, on a regular basis, look at the metrics (hours, meters, miles, TSS with ATL/CTL/TSB) build over time. I know this because I have counted every stroke I've swum for the past 40+ years; I know this because as an MD, I've spent decades looking at patients' charts and following the progression of their temperature, or lab value, or whatever we're trying to improve; and I know this because when I was in the business world, I had to make sure all the numbers kept going in the right direction every month.
Is there a support group or intervention program for this? Or am I stuck with it for life?
I doubt there's any buzzards circling. I mean it's only plantar fasciitis. So, keep logging.
There are a lot of toys and gadgets that are out there to track and analyze our workouts, but I wonder if people actually bother to make sense out of all the data. Sure, it's nice to have a training log to see how much we've accomplished and to keep ourselves accountable, but the real purpose of tools like WKO is to really dig deep and find trends and patterns in our training. Aside from some technical know-how, this requires a lot of headspace and data analysis skills to process meaningfully.
I have a fairly good scientific and technical background (degree in astrophysics), but I still find it difficult to make good use of all this data. The only data I actually use from my training log are small little notes like "Didn't take enough calories before a long run, bonked hard", instead of a whole bunch of power from a ride a few weeks back. There are even pro and really fast AG athletes who don't bother training/racing with all these power/HR numbers. I think part of the obsession with having lots of data to look at is the mindset that doing "more" is better and will somehow make us faster.
Being the data geek that I am, it should come as no surprise that I log every workout. This year I have added Raceday Apollo to the mix. It appears to have a better set of training load / fatigue algorithms. It allows you to record performance test and it develops constants for the performance predicting algorithms based on you results. I have committed to use it for a year and see what I learn about me.
On the recovery front I have added daily recording in Restwise to try and capture a second view of fatigue / recovery. Will see how this year develops.
Yes maybe a bit over the top! Thats the way I tend to do things.
Track Always, Review As Needed
I also am in Al and P's camp. I enjoy tracking and monitoring my progression plus I also enter it into a bound paper training log. How's that for OCD? That way I can compare to same races I've done and body weight, body fat %, etc, since I started exercising in 2000. Just got a PM and WKO in past 5 years so I have a lot of data from 2000-present on paper logs.
More of an interest and I think I'd like to have this written down so when I'm in my 70's I can peruse it and not worry about Garmin Connect or Training Peaks being long gone. Maybe it is the physician in me like Al.
I must be on the bottom end of the tracking totem pole, LOL. I have a small paper notebook, one for each year. That's it. I tend to pay close attention to how I feel, and go by that as far as whether or not to push a workout or back off. I feel like I know my body better than any numbers are going to tell me. I think I spent too many years as a data geek in software engineering, so in my private life I don't want to be a slave to my spreadsheets. But that's just what works for me.
It reminds me of when I bought my first HR monitor. I was going to use it to nail my pace for a really important Oly distance race. I wanted to peg my heart rate right around 163. But then I forgot to look at it for the entire race, since I wasn't used to using it. When I downloaded the data afterwards, I found that my heart rate averaged exactly 163! And good for a 3rd OA women's finish.
Since then, I've repeated this experiment with power meters and HR monitors. It seems like I've got a fairly exact read on what my body is doing and can put it where it needs to be. So usually the gadgets stay in the drawer.
@ Robin - I agree 100% on the value of NOT looking at HR and other metrics during a race, and going by RPE. Until this past IM AZ, when I was unsure due to my accident/recovery cycle, I routinely was taking off my HR monitor strap going into an IM run, and never used a GPS wastch for races.
But that's different than what some of us are describing, which is recording data on a daily basis, and then going back after the fact to follow trends, compare similar workouts over time, see what might work or not work in a taper, and even compare season to season, all in the service of learning.
Then, on race day, I can feel more confident that I can actually race, rather than just to run by numbers. But I don't advocate that approach (race by RPE) for first time and more anxious IMer's. The EN strategy for race execution is the Bible for getting a good performance right out of the box, and repeating it until one has the chance to ingrain the learning, which takes a number of races to happen. And with IMs, doing at most one or two a year, or less, that can take quite a while.
@Al, I understand what you're saying about the difference between training and racing. And I can totally see the value in it for athletes. For me, even within workouts I think my RPE is close enough for me. Since I do about half my bike rides in the pain cave at home (no PM) and half at the Tri store on the Computrainer, I can see that when I think I'm at Z5, I look down at my numbers on the Computrainer and yep, that's exactly where I'm at, wattage-wise too. So I think when I'm without the numbers at home and just going by RPE, I'm still doing pretty much okay. Maybe it's just that with almost 30 years of straight training, the effort/zones are just dialed into my head, more or less.
For me, closely tracking numbers like some folks do would I think leach a lot of the joy from my training, so it's just not something I tend to do. I know for some folks it has the exact opposite effect! Different strokes and all that...
My notes:
But, bottomline, you get faster because you're training effectively. With EN that means that a damn good training plan. Logging your stuff isn't a substitute for training smartly and is a big reason why PnI have avoided adding training log features to the website: we only have so many resources to coach you and we don't want to apply any of those to making sure you can upload your data from your Garmin 9000. That's what TP.com and others are for.