Dear athlete:
I get it, you’re busy, and our world is becoming increasingly distracting. But you’re paying me real money to give you feedback and direction so that YOU can get better at what you want to get better at.
And dammit, my coaching is only as effective as the information you give me. In order to give you good feedback, and write you a really good plan, I need three things: 1) GOOD GPS/power/speed data, 2) GOOD HR data, and 3) REFLECTION, damnit!
If I don’t know 1) what you did, 2) how hard it was for your body, and 3) how you felt/what you learned, I can’t really give you much feedback, and I sure as hell can’t give you a really good next plan.
The watch/computer companies have done a pretty good job of making it pretty easy to get the first two. Make sure your watch battery isn’t dead, put on a chest strap, and hit start. Then hit stop, and your watch will probably automatically send me that data.
But here’s the key part: That watch data isn’t very useful without context. If I don’t know HOW YOU FELT during that workout, I can guess a couple things, but mostly I’m shooting in the dark. “Hmm, interesting, Athlete X’s heart rate was really high during that workout. And no comments, shit, was she tired? Did she feel sick? Had she just had coffee? Was she stressed and running it off?” Because I don’t know what the hell was happening in her head/life, I can’t give her good feedback, I can’t make an educated decision on what to do the next day, and as a result her progress WILL SLOW DOWN.
And dammit, write it down the same day. I can’t remember what I had for breakfast four days ago, let alone whether or not the fourth interval of my VO2 day felt better than my third, or that “some dickhead cut me off on the way to training and I rage-ran the first 5 miles.”
Importantly (especially for those of you just following a training plan) this isn’t just a box to check, or a tool to only use with coaching. The better you are at reflecting on your training and actually writing it down, the faster you improve your athlete skills. You get better at listening to your body. You get better at choosing the best terrain for the workout. You get better at remembering how much to eat. You get better at avoiding behaviors that make your next workout feel like shit. It’s much easier to not make mistakes multiple times if you take a couple minutes and write down what you learned from today’s workout.
This runs double for workouts that weren’t followed exactly to plan. Did you not complete this because you were tired? Or because you were sick? Or because you were hungover? All those mean DIFFERENT feedback and alterations to your training plan.
Remember, this is YOUR process. I’m a consultant, a tool you’re using for you to get the most progress. Not giving me good data is like buying a $10,000 table saw and using it as a hat rack.
REFLECT, DAMNIT.
Coach
