For any beginner, triathlon has many challenges. Finding a pool, getting a bike, figuring out how often to swim, bike, and run. These type of situations can be difficult for many athletes to figure out. Does adding one more task to your long list help or is it more of a burden? For us at Triple Threat Tough, a workout log is worth its weight in gold and anyone following the commodities market right now knows gold is pretty expensive.

While to a novice a workout log may seem like a waste of time, but to a good coach a workout log from the past 2 years or even 6 months can provide valuable insight on how to design a training plan. Any good training plan monitors many aspects such as, duration of workouts both planned and actual, intensity of workouts, and frequency of workouts. These are 3 parameters that are crucial in achieving success in the sport of triathlon.

Some of the other benefits of a workout log is that over time one can observe trends in training. For example, if you are keeping record of what you eat prior to all your workouts you can take notice that on days where a busy working athlete is grabbing lunch at a fast food chain, trying to get in a hard bike trainer session or swim after work may not be the best option. You can take note that your performance is off. Continuing to see this trend over time, as a coach, I would suggest working on your nutrition prior to your workouts. Even as a novice, being able to look back at what might be happening to cause your workouts to be “off”, whether its rest, over-training, or nutrition, is invaluable.

A favorite saying that I have adopted from someone over the years is “Junk in equals Junk out”. This means in so few words, you put junk food into your body and your body will respond by giving you training sessions that turn to junk. But how do you know this if you haven’t been keeping track of it? I have noticed this trend over the years via my workout log and have worked to improve it. This has resulted in eating healthier and getting better results in workouts and recovering better. All of which leads to progress in the sport of triathlon.

In the technology era we live in today, many people elect to use online journals, others opt for paper books. What ever direction you decide to go with logging your workouts, it will pay off in the end. Enjoy and remember keep up your logs because to a trained, and even untrained, eye they can provide a good indicator of an athlete’s limiters.