“What gets measured gets managed.” Peter Drucker

For the last 34 years, I have kept a training log with paper and love the end of the year to reflect and see how the year unfolded. This year resulted in 1263 hours and I use it only as a guide and how it fits into hectic life and business. As the year comes to a close, time to look at the real numbers and compare to past results and goals moving forward. You may train with hours, heart rate zones, or miles or for some, nothing at all.

The benefit of tracking hours is to help with reducing injuries, evaluating race performances and determining what signature workouts offered the most benefits to your specific race.

It’s similar to keeping a daily life journal and interesting to see how training changes over time when looking back at old journals. One thing that is certain, numbers typically don’t lie. When you see poor performances at races, looking at training hours and specific workouts that you hoped to attain and missed because of life consequences or injuries will be clearly defined in the tracking guide.

As you roll into 2020 and have your list of key events scheduled, consider tracking the numbers consistently for the year.

Top 10 Ideas for Tracking

1. If you have used the computer and loads of spreadsheets – that requires having a device or computer with you, which sometimes becomes a hassle for some – me included. Track with paper.

2. If you have tracked distance, switch it up and track time.

3. Highlight your signature workouts

4. If you have not tracked your race results, consider it for 2020

5. Keep the tracking simple; you don’t need to write a book.

6. Track the workout definition, time and how you felt – that’s it.

7. Every month, tally your numbers for each sport discipline.

8. Consider just tracking workouts per week and not only time.

9. Set an aggressive but realistic goal of how many training hours or distance per sport discipline for 2020.

10. Make sure you track your race hours or distances to be included in the totals for the year.

Everyone is different, but more times than not, when I meet with a coaching client and ask them about his or her training plan the answer is they just go out and do a bunch of workouts to prepare for a race. It can absolutely work to just wing it and see how it works out. It’s much easier to just do workouts randomly for an experienced athlete that has a lot of lifetime training hours in the bank.

Do something different in 2020 if you want to shake things up and track your year. It requires some discipline and keep in mind, writing it down on paper is quick and easy and only requires simple math to add up the numbers. Wishing you all the very best 2020-racing season!