A log can be very helpful in recognizing patterns that affect your running performance. They are useful in determining factors that may contribute to injury and also in assessing the efficacy of a particular training program. Detailed logs are essential in aiding coaches in their job to boost your performance and physical therapists in their efforts to help you prevent and recover from injury.

A log can be basic or very detailed. Logs can include:

Distance
Speed
How you felt
Cross training activities
Nutrition
Sleep
New shoes
Other things going on in your life (new job, divorce, illness)

There are lots of running logs to choose from. They vary widely from good old fashioned paper and pen or pre-printed bound booklets to fancy websites connected to mapping services and timing devices.

Many area runners and several PB runners are logging their mileage on a social network site for runners called Daily Mile If you mention Personal Best runs and classes in your posts it helps promote PB too! Daily Mile is like Facebook for runners putting you in touch with runners all over the world, in your neck of the woods or you can limit it to your own circle of running buddies.

Coach Amy is ON and although she sometimes falls off the wagon, she has spurts of participation and loves to keep tabs on her runners! If you run into troubles like burn out or injury it helps her to be able to look at your daily mile records for patterns.

Let Coach Amy know kcrunning@hotmail.com so she can friend you. Or, you can friend her: search for Amy Parkerson-Mitchell.

Running Tips

Logging