For athletes

The Combined Training-Log and Year-Planner is available here. The swim-workout generator is here. The race-day long-course Triathlon Nutrition-Analysis tool is here.

The Training log's Trend Analysis feature is proving popular. This 2013 feature allows trivial analysis of your performance trends and gives immediate feedback of run or bike performance without all of the hassle of uploading Garmin data etc. HR and bike-power or run-speed are the sole inputs (click to enlarge).

For coaches

Many features have been added specifically for coaches, in order to share plans and to manage and collaborate efficiently with clients. Daily summary emails, warning emails, an integrated periodization plan generator and a web-based client manager page are just some of the features, with more features coming very soon. The log's columns specific to coaching are highly configurable.

Best viewed by clicking 720p and large-size or Full-screen

There are new improvements to ease navigation and introduce more windows and menus. The shoe-tracker now allows multiple shoes in one day, and the automatic periodization-plan generator is much enhanced, daily data entry ought to even be faster and simpler now. The logs can also easily be accessed from an iPhone or Android-based phone (see pic).

There are lots of reasons for using a log based upon Google-Apps:

• • We own our data, not a third party that might later change their terms of service

  • Access from a plethora of platforms

  • Ability to collaborate with friend or coaches for no additional fees

  • Very simple and fast data entry, very low overhead

  • Very simple configurable shoe wear tracker

  • Lifetime data ownership. Google not deemed likely to sell out or go out of business any time soon

  • Very innovative periodization plan generator

  • Much cheaper

  • Lots more

The features are all free to coaches. After the evaluation period, each athlete with whom you collaborate using these tools pays $35, or you may pay it on their behalf. It will be worth your while.

Create a coach's account (with your google login, no fee, no additional usernames/passwords etc) by simply filling out the setup form.

Picture of the online Client manager (click to enlarge)

Click here for more info, or here to request a personalized log be sent to you.

Optional daily activity emails and warning emails: (click to enlarge)

Why you need a training log: 

• • To plan a schedule and periodization

  • To manage valuable time more efficiently

  • To apply feedback by looking back and determining where you went right/wrong.

  • To avoid injury, for example  by ensuring you don't inadvertently increase your mileage at too high a rate, or even over-use a particular pair of shoes.

  • To monitor trends (e.g. if you track Resting HR or other such metrics)

  • To collaborate with a coach, or just let friends see what you're up to

The log isn't simply a record, but rather it is a planning, training, and evaluation tool.

There are a few free logging tools and also some you can pay for as you go (e.g. Training Peaks). However none met my exact needs so I developed my own system within Google-Docs to very quickly record my workouts from anywhere, on any platform, and have metrics collated in Summary worksheets which allow me to track training time etc, plus any other metrics that I deem important (e.g. race nutrition, shoe mileage, RHR, average pace etc).

Why is this approach better than, say, Training Peaks?

• • We own our data, not a third party that might later change their terms of service

  • Ability to collaborate with friend or coaches for no additional fees

  • Very simple and fast data entry, very low overhead

  • Very simple configurable shoe wear tracker

  • Many optional configurations and views to suit most needs, tastes and requirements

  • Google not deemed likely to sell out or go out of business any time soon

  • Very innovative periodization plan generator

  • Much cheaper

  • Lots more

This method makes recording of information a breeze, just one click from anywhere, including smartphones, and eliminates the need for backup. Managing any log needs to be trivial.

My personal log is embedded at the bottom of this page. All worksheets are viewable (normally this occupies the full browser):

Some features of this log format are:

• • Integrated automatic periodization planner populates the year-plan and monthly worksheets based upon your user-configurable periodization pattern for up to three 'A' races. 

  • Optionally Record details of all workouts very simply, very little clicking is involved, the goal was to reduce the overhead of entering information.

  • Shoe mileage tracker automatically logs the distance run on each pair of shoes, simply select the shoe number from a pull down menu after logging each run. Logs up to 15 pairs of shoes and there are configurable color coded thresholds so you immediately know how far each shoe has done without having to go to the "Shoes" worksheet.

  • Year planner allows easy at-a-glance planning of periodization and goal setting etc.

  • Use of Google-Docs ensures fast secure access from anywhere with automatic backup and full change-history with undo capabilities. Plus you own your data, unlike on most proprietary logs/planners - with Google Docs you can be confident that the data will always remain available, not some company that you give money to until they go out of business.

  • Configurable for Metric or English units, or a mixture of both.

  • Pace automatically calculated if you record both the distance and the time for a run or bike.

  • Works on iPhone, Android, anything with a browser, as shown in the picture. (Works best with the google-docs app).

  • Training zones for bike and run automatically calculated and placed on each worksheet, based on you Lactate Threshold HR.

  • 3 user-configurable columns added - track optional items like body weight, calories, ski time, golf score or whatever the heck you wish. These are graphed and sum or average data for each week and month is calculated. 

  • URLs to race results or workouts (eg on connect.garmin or mapmyrun) can be inserted in the url column, they are then clickable.

  • Accurate weekly and monthly time tracking - if you record a workout distance but not a time, the time is estimated based on user-configurable averages in order to determine weekly and monthly training time.

  • Configure which columns you wish to have appear on the monthly worksheets, anything not of use to you can easily be removed from the Settings menus.

  • A summary of all of your races this year is generated when you click on "Training Log Menu" -> "Generate Race Summary", a new sheet then contains all events from the monthly worksheets where the first word of the workout notes is "Race".

Various other summary graphs are automatically generated.

The periodization-plan generator helps coaches quickly define all of the recovery weeks through the year along with details of all mesocycles. It is integrated with the year-plan page and, of particular use to the coach, with the monthly worksheets. All periodization plan data and year-plan data is immediately passed to the blue "weekly plan" lines on the monthly worksheets, so the coach can easily place detailed daily workouts while being able to see exactly what the high level plan called for this week. (Click to enlarge).

When the year plan data is populated with planned weekly distances, a summary graph showing the planned total time and time for each sport is automatically generated:

Other features for coaches include:

There are many features of particular use to coaches looking to more easily collaborate with athletes, or looking to easily generate and evaluate plans. Shown below is a configurable menu a coach can use to select a workout type, if he/she prefers to give only workout type, not workout details. Plan-Columns can be enabled for workout distance, time, and type. Workout details can then be added in the "Workout Notes" column.

For more information see the "For Coaches" page LINK HERE.

• • You can get a personalized log/planner by clicking here.