When I competed in college and after, when I trained for the Olympics, I logged of all my mileage and workouts. It was a great way to see how my training changed month to month, and year to year, as my fitness level increased. I also tracked my PBs or personal bests.
This is my actual training log from February 12 – February 18 when I was training for the Olympics. At the start of this particular week, I was in Maebashi, Japan after competing in an IAAF indoor track meet.
Since you might not be able to see very clearly, here’s a synthesis of my training week:
- Monday – 8 miles (1:02) around Maebashi – I can still remember this run vividly and the beauty of snow capped Mt. Akagi in the distance.
- Tues/Wednesday – Fly back from Japan & lost a day due to time difference – Day off
- Thursday – 4 miles (30 min).
- Friday – track workout at Haverford that consisted of a 1200 and then modified 4 x 800 repeats.
- Saturday – 3.5 miles (27 min).
- Sunday – long run – 7.5 miles (1:00).
As a low mileage runner, that was one of my higher weeks – 33.5 miles. (Don’t laugh – I was a half-miler with a sprinting background.)
Once I stopped training, I stopped keeping track of my mileage. I’d run three miles here and five miles there, but I wasn’t shooting for a goal, wasn’t doing workouts and didn’t feel the need to write anything down.
Last week, my critique partner sent me a link to an article that mentioned a writer needs to keep track of their writing. Keep a log where you track the number of words you write every day and the time you spent writing those words. That speaks to me as a runner. It would be my writing pace. Hmmm – how many words can I write in half an hour? If I could write 500 words in thirty minutes, that would be 1000 in an hour. Gimme a block of six hours, imagine the pages I could fill! 
Can you hear my competitive drive kicking into gear? But wait! Here comes Logic, applying the brakes.
My time is precious and limited. I need to write quality, not just quantity. Quality takes practice. A lot of practice. And then more practice. However, with enough practice, just like running, a writer will be efficient, fast and fit.
Here’s a thought…combine my running log with a writing log… I’m liking the idea.
- Sunday: 3 miles – treadmill – 1,500 words on WIP
- Monday: Pilates – 847 words on WIP
- Tuesday: 2.5 miles – treadmill – 483 words on WIP
- Wednesday: Interval weight training – 758 words on WIP
- Thursday: 4 miles – treadmill – TBD words on WIP
How do you track your progress?
