Most of us have trained at one time in our lives. Chances are if you’ve ever taken your running seriously you’ve used a training journal or a training log.
The main difference between training journals and training logs, is what you record in them after each run, workout or day, etc. Training journals are just that – they are more of a journal or diary rather than a log. They will normally include things like your mental health and how you felt during the day or your workout and what shoes you run in an how fast you ran. They can reach a bit into some statistical information about improvements but this is normally saved for a training log.
Training logs are generally created of off some kind of a template such as a spreadsheet. Everyday you fill out a form that has the same fields to record things like weight, daily workout distances, running shoes worn, diet information, are all things that can be put in a training diary on a day to day basis.
I wouldn’t recommend going all one route or all the other, both using a diary and logging are important to keep an effective history of your past to see how you are going. I’ve found out through experience and that for convenience sake it’s nice to have two combined together in some way to get the best information.
Benefits of recording your training
The number one benefit of recording your training is to have a detailed history to look back on and look for problems. This can be very useful in times of planning for future training. For example to figure out what has worked for you and what hasn’t worked so well. It’s very useful for especially figuring out reasons for injuries or for times of overtraining.
Have you ever sat down and tried to plan out training with nothing to work with or discuss with it with a coach? If you have something to look back and reflect upon a detailed account of what you’ve done over the past few weeks it’s easy to plan ahead, and to effectively increase your workout intensity, etc to best improve for the future.