My Triathlon Adventure

A while back ago I posted about a training log that I have been using to track my workouts.  I have tweaked and modified a google spread sheet that was created by Ray Suarez.  I don’t know Ray, in fact I just emailed him today to tell him about the changes, but I do know that he put a ton of work into the original google docs conversion, and I have just added a few tweaks using the new scripting abilities of google spreadsheets that weren’t available when Ray made his conversion.

I have added a few things, like training outside of bike, run and swim, a way to interactively add entries, and a way to automatically reset the spreadsheet at the end of the new year while maintaining lifetime totals.  There is an instruction tab in the spreadsheet so take a look at that before you get started.

There are some caveats.  The graphs need work.  I haven’t touched them, but I think they need to be redone or at least tested.  Other than that, I’m not aware of any bugs, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  Use the spreadsheet at your own risk, and keep in mind that you should keep copies of this info elsewhere.  I have never had issues with losing data, but there is always the possibility that a rouge script, or a google oops could wipe out your data.

You can find the spreadsheet here.  You’ll need to have, or create, a free google account to make a copy of the spreadsheet and start using it.

If you find any bugs, have suggestions for new features, or make improvements of your own please let me know.

Enjoy!

I need to buy a new heart rate monitor.  My current one works well but it is dead basic.  It doesn’t track average heart rate or really do anything other than just tell you your current heart rate.  Here is the criteria I’m looking for (I’ll build the list as I go on):

• Stop watch with laps
• Track heart rate and average heart rate at each lap and overall
• a programmable timer that I can set to beep and remind me when I should do something, like eat during a long run/ride
• I’d like to be able to extract the data easily to a computer
• I don’t want to spend a ton of money on it
• Needs to work for swimming

Optional:

• Warning beep if my heart rate moves above a set threshold

I’ll update this as my research progresses.

UPDATE (1/13/2010): I chose the Timex T5J031 it seems to have all the features I was looking for at the right price point.  It does need an additional component to record data, but I’ll wait to get that at a later date.  I’ll post a review once I get a chance to use it a little.

I have been reading Triathlon Training Blog and various other sites and see how much these athletes depend on data in order to improve performance.  I feel like I am way  too early for most of the data to be useful.  I am still at a point where I have little technique, and even less endurance.  However, I think that it will be fun later to be able to look at early data.  That way when I get down about how little progress I’m making I can look back and see how far I’ve come.  And they say I’m not proactive!

Now I need to figure out what data is the most important so that I can make sure to track that.  What?  I’m a computer programming geek, what do you expect?

Oh, and my Pose Running book should be arriving today!  Yay!