1. Objective Setting
No matter your goal – working a sure variety of occasions per week, finishing a race or ending a race in a particular time, you may be much more prone to obtain your goal if in case you have an organized plan to get there – every day targets that you have recorded in your log.
2. Motivational Device
Many runners (me included) hate recording zeroes on days which can be scheduled run days. Realizing that your log will maintain you accountable will assist get you out the door on days while you simply do not feel like working and preserve you on observe together with your dedication.
3. Builds Confidence
Evaluating earlier months’ coaching to present offers a quantifiable measurement of your progress up to now, which is a vital confidence builder. It feels nice while you understand that your present future is 30% longer than it was 2 months earlier, or {that a} observe or hill exercise that you just had robust time finishing one month in the past is now simple.
4. Improves Your Private Coaching Program
After finishing a race, analyzing your log to judge your coaching will yield clues about how your physique reacted to the totally different parts of your coaching program. This offers you helpful info that you would be able to implement to coach smarter to your subsequent occasion. I skilled significantly for a half-marathon two years in the past. After I reviewed my working log post-race, I seen that my hamstrings and hips had been very sore for days following lengthy or quick runs on routes with vital downhill parts. I concluded that I wanted to extend my leg and glute power to be able to higher face up to downhill working, prepare extra successfully and race sooner.
5. Prevents Sickness and Burnout
Just like the canary within the mineshaft, a working log can present an early warning signal of impending hazard — sickness, staleness or burnout – earlier than the bodily signs manifest themselves. For me, three consecutive runs that I assign a ranking in my log of 4 (out of 10) or much less is a surefire sign that I am combating an an infection or struggling extreme fatigue. By taking 3-4 days off from working, I give myself an opportunity to recuperate, thus heading off a extra severe illness that will entail an extended layoff.
6. Prevents Accidents
Cautious overview of your log after an damage typically yields necessary clues as to what precipitated the damage. Was it a sudden improve in coaching? A change to a unique kind of terrain? Too many miles in your sneakers to the purpose the place they stopped offering enough stability or shock absorption? Figuring out the tipping level will information you to coach extra properly.
7. Facilitates Development Evaluation — Seeing the Forest From the Timber
Reviewing your logs over a interval of a number of months will present beneficial details about you and your working that will not be in any other case evident. For instance, throughout a six month coaching interval a number of years in the past, I seen that I took time without work from working on 5 separate events as a result of I felt I used to be catching a chilly. Upon additional inspection, I seen that the “icky” feeling at all times occurred on a Tuesday that adopted an extended arduous run. By ensuring that I acquired enough sleep on Sundays and Mondays, paying particular consideration to post-run diet and bolstering my immune system by Vitamin C and Echinacea supplementation, I used to be capable of scale back my time without work in future coaching.
8. Private Historical past
Reviewing a number of years of logs is like reviewing previous diaries or journals. You may see how a lot you may have grown as a runner. Extra importantly, you may be afforded the chance to replicate on the challenges that you have overcome, classes that you have discovered and constructive character traits that you have developed over the lengthy haul that you just now apply in different features of your life.