Girls X-Country Running Journal Info
The simple effort to keep a training diary increases our mental and emotional investment in the sport in ways that may positively affect our motivation and performance. The information that is recorded in a training diary can be also be practically useful.
Keeping a training diary is easy and it doesn’t take a lot of time. There are just a few basic types of information you need to record. These include the distance, duration, and format of your workout. So a training diary entry could be as simple as, “5 miles (45:59).” When you do workouts with changes in pace, your diary entries will be a little more complex, because you’ll want to record times for each segment. For example, “1-mile warmup (8:07), 4 x 100m strides, 10 x 300m (57, 57, 59, 56, 58, 57, 57, 57, 58, 58) w/ 300m recoveries, 1-mile cooldown (8:49).” The only other essential information is a weekly mileage total recorded at the end of each week. Additionally, how you feel during and after your runs is a very important indicator of how well your training is working and your current fatigue level. Very simple notes such as “Felt great!” or “Sluggish” can help you determine what’s working and what’s not working in your training and make necessary changes.
Each Page should include:
- Date
- Training Done – distance, time run, repeats, # of hills, etc. Core?
- How did you feel about your run? Good, tired, sore, etc.
- Anything else to add? Who you ran with, weather, etc.
On race days the entry would be:
- Event and Date
- What did you eat the morning/day prior to your race?
- 1st mile time (if you can remember it)
- Finishing time and place
- How did you feel about your run? Good, tired, fatigued, sore, etc
- What were some good strategies that you used to run your race? Packed well, blasted up the hill, didn’t go out too fast, strong finish, etc.
- How would you run a better race next time?