Keeping Track of Your Workouts with DailyMile.com
As you continue to progress through this season’s training plans, you’re likely starting to accumulate some significant miles. One of the things we encourage new runners to do when starting out is to track those miles and how long it takes you to complete them in each training session. There are two main benefits to tracking your workouts:
- You’ll have a fairly accurate record of just how many miles you’ve completed as part of your training. This can be a tremendous source of encouragement and can even help with goal setting for future races.
- It can help you track the improvement in your performance. As the weeks roll by in the training plan, you will build fitness and endurance, both of which will allow you to go faster. Tracking your progress will show you how much faster you are and offer encouragement to make even greater progress in the remaining weeks before the race.
There are several ways you can log your workouts ranging from a simple Excel spreadsheet/notebook where you write down the times and distances from your workouts all the way up to some very sophisticated online tools that will perform interesting and insightful calculations to provide detailed analysis.
If you are looking for a resource to get started with tracking your workouts, we recommend DailyMile.com. This Web site is very simple to use and allows you to “friend” other runners/walkers so you can encourage each other. Once you create your free account, you’ll enter the time and distance for your workout and that data is stored within your profile. DailyMile.com does provide the option to sync with your Facebook or Twitter account so you can post information about your workouts to Facebook or Twitter (note: this is optional). You can also add other information such as maps of your routes, heart rate, effort level and more if you so choose.
Whether you use DailyMile.com or some other approach, we do encourage you to track your workouts in some way so that you’ll have a record of your progress. And, if you do decide to create a free DailyMile.com account, be sure to search for Jon Parks and Brett “Coach Chick” Ciancanelli on the site and send us a friend request!
This post was written by
Jon Parks is a co-founder and team leader of The Second Wind. Jon competes in triathlons as an "age grouper" and thoroughly enjoys helping others get started with running, swimming and cycling. He is married to his lovely wife, Melinda, and is the proud father to three amazing children. Jon is also the President and Lead Dijital Strategist with Dijital Farm, a digital marketing agency based in Raleigh, NC. When he isn't training for his next triathlon, Jon can be found serving at his home church, Wake Cross Roads Baptist, or enjoying a hockey, basketball or football game.