Last week I went into some
basics of the journal I have been keeping. A big part of it revolves around my running. Here are a few items that are specific to that.
I have my 2018 Race Calendar. I list all of the races that I have done or plan to do throughout the year. If there is a race I'm thinking about, I list it with it's date in pencil. For next year (2019), I want to add an extra row at the bottom for the 2020 race dates that I'm interested in. That way I'm not always looking up a specific race/date online.
My plan in the next couple weeks is to create a list of races that I want to do again, or interest me and the month that they are usually run in. That way I can do a quick glance of races and the time of year. And the great thing with the discbound journal is that I can slip that right in after my 2018 Race Calendar as well as put it into my 2019 journal.
Right now I am just running 2-3 times a week with nothing specific to train for. Before, when I am training for a race, I would use different things to track my schedule. Mostly, I would print out calendar months and put the mileage on them. I do like having it in my journal better because I always know where it is and it's not all crumpled up cause I put it in my work bag or something like that. I had put what I planned to do in pencil (since that seems to change every so often depending on my schedule or injury) and then came back and put the mileage in pen. I don't think I really want to change much to it, except, maybe making it neater. :)
On a weekly basis I track two things that have to do with my running. The first is my mileage. When I was in training, I would put how many miles I planned for the week, but now it's just a plan to run that day. I also list my Functional Training class that I take at the gym. The R/S to the right is if I rolled and stretched. I like to keep track of that because when I am sore, I can look back and see if I did my stretching and if not, that's probably why. And it's a good reminder to do it every day.
The other thing I track on a weekly basis is my water intake. While I'm usually really good about drinking water, there are days that I just don't get enough in. Tracking it helps me remember to keep drinking as well as looking back from a bad run to see if I had enough.
On a weekly basis, I don't really comment on my runs. I use a separate log for that. I've used this log for the last few years and like the format that tracks my stats.
I have thought of just doing the list of stats somewhere in my daily journal to see if I can see fluctuations between heart rate, spm, average pace, etc. I created a page, but never got very far with it as I'm not sure if I like the format I set up.
The last thing that I do keep in this journal is my race recap. A race recap is too long to keep in my running journal. They are also too long to include on my weekly pages, so I have separate pages for them. I like to hand write my recaps before I post them here on the blog. Mainly because I can put all the boring facts and feelings in there that would bore most of my audience. I want to keep my race recaps for the blog to be the fun and interesting things. The fun part of my handwritten recaps is that I try to find fun washi tape that matches the theme of the race to mark the pages so that they can be found easily. For the Run and Ride, I found amusement park washi tape.
For my runDisney Star Wars, I found a ton of cool Star Wars washi tape. I also like to use themed or running stickers as well as cutouts from handouts that might be passed out during the expo/packet pickup.
If you keep a hand written journal, what do you keep track of for your running?
