What I'm Loving Right Now: Believe Training Journal

Last fall, I ordered a Believe Training journal prior to starting marathon training (which just didn't ever start). It arrived the week of the Sioux Falls half marathon, and I have absolutely loved journaling in it for the past year. I've always tracked my training online, but that's typically time, distance, pace, what shoes worn. The journal allows me space to include how the run felt and anything else of note.



I also love using it to track my recovery practices. I would never log my core work, or foam rolling, epsom baths, massages, etc. But instead of having a big ol' REST written on a day, I enjoy writing down my recovery practices. It also helps remind me that on days off I can still do a lot to make my running stronger.

Prior to this year's Sioux Falls half, I went through the journal from start to finish (well almost, I made it until June before Kyle got bored and wanted attention) reviewing my goals, both short term and long term, and seeing how much my running has progressed over the last year was really inspiring. I have some BIG goals for running, some may say crazy or impossible, but having a big long-term goal makes it easier to put in the small work day-to-day. I know I'm still a couple of training cycles away from PR shape, and that would be really defeating to deal with if I wasn't working toward longer term goals.



To see my progress from one year of working really hard has been a lot of fun, and I can't wait to look back a year from now to see that continued progress.

I bought a new journal last winter, because I found the Compete one on sale, I picked up a couple of the other ones for gifts for running friends, and I just dug mine out, as I knew mine would be running out because I've been using it for a year. When I flipped to the end of my journal, I discovered that the very last entry day is October 1, the day of the Twin Cities 10 Mile.

That couldn't have worked out any better.

Tracking Your Running

I will not lie. I love data. I think maybe I've said that a time or 1200 on here before. To further prove my insanity, there have been some runs this winter where I've worn TWO WATCHES to compare data and see how accurate things are. Data, data, data. My next pug might be named Data.

I have been tracking my runs since 2005. I originally started tracking on a paper log that I got from Runner's World. Sometime after that I started tracking on Cool Running (lol, I first typed Cool Runnings, and had to search it to see if that was correct. No I wasn't tracking my information with a Jamaican bobsled team). At some point in time, they shut down their running log, or it was bought out by Runners World. They automatically transferred all of my data over there, which was awfully nice of them and made the transition seamless.

Somewhere during this point I started using Daily Mile, which as I've talked about before, felt more like BragBook. I continued tracking my mileage and details privately on Runners World as well. About a year and a half ago, Runners World announced that they were shutting down their online log too. [Sidenote: I'm starting to feel like I've been dumped several times over here....]

A lot of my friends were on Strava, and that seemed really fun. Until I quickly realized that there was no easy way to transfer TEN YEARS OF DATA. Runners World gave me several different files with all of my data on it, and of course none of them were compatible with Strava. I even reached out to them to see if there was anything I could do to make it work. Nope.

I found Running Ahead, and honestly the biggest appeal to me was that my data was able to be uploaded from my giant files of information! I have been using it for the last year and a half, which hasn't been the strongest year and a half of running so at the start of 2017 I realized there were some under utilized summary functions. I was able to add a yearly goal, and a monthly goal and it gives me metrics toward my progress and I L-O-V-E it.

This fall, I ordered myself a Believe Training Journal. It arrived the week before the Sioux Falls Half, and a I love it. While I love having an online log that I can access from anywhere, there is something about putting a pen to paper and recording your immediate thoughts and reactions. I also love that there are goals and journaling exercises interspersed throughout the log to keep you motivated. Journaling has rekindled some big goals and dreams, and it's been fun to have a renewed since of inspiration.

What do you use to track your mileage? What goals are you dreaming of, big/small/medium?!