Garmins and Logging

There is a management dictum that what you don’t measure you can’t manage. Oblivious of this rule most runners do not keep a running log.

It doesn’t take much. A paper, pencil and a decent Rs 200/- watch is all it takes to maintain a log.

Serious athletes in the days gone by would stringently maintain a log to keep a track of their training progress. However with electronics entering every aspects of our life, a large part of the logging is now capable of being automated.

Heart Rate Monitors of various makes and especially, the more popular Garmin enable automated logging of your runs. Yet many runners that I know of, do not use the full strength of the Garmin features. They use it only for recording the regular runs and delete the history instead of transfering it to the desktop or laptop and keeping a track of past runs. Without a training log it becomes very difficult for a professional trainer to prescribe a training plan for the runner.

In the workshop this coming Saturday, I intend to touch upon this topic in depth. I will run through the whole range of how logs can be kept from the simple paper and pencil, to using the full strength of your Heart Rate Monitor and its desktop / web based companion.

For those who want to see how I maintain my log you can follow this link.
http://connect.garmin.com/profile/pvenkat

You can register for the workshop to gets a hands-on exposure to maintaining a good log here.
http://plans.dumbelled.com/marathon-workshop