TrailRunner Icon

Workout diary

Keep your log in the built-in diary and document your training progress, personal condition and mutual experiences today.

Chart

In the toolbar, switch the area above the entries table to display either calendar based data entry fields or a comparison chart.

The chart reflects the current selection in the diary table, displaying at least 10 weeks previous to the most recent selected entry. If you select more entries in the table, the chart will update to accommodate the new range.

Entries will always display as a grouped value based on the current interval. The base interval is by weeks and can extend to months if you select a large amount of entries.

In the legend on the right you can see the overall values for the displayed data. If you need to know the data for one data point, select it and you'll see the specific values in the lower legend.

Fitness

Fitness is a calculated value based on pace and heart rate. The idea is that if you where very fast with a low heart rate you're fitter, whilethe opposite applies if you where very slow and had a high heart rate. This value is just for orientation and does not have the accuracy of the methods used in Polar watches or other biometric methods, but it gives a pretty good overall impression.

The scale of the values is in the value range of the Polar watches, but that's only a lucky coincidence.

To track your overall body fitness use the fitness, weight and body fat columns (see extended columns below). Body fat is just a number you can track over time. It could either be your BMI (body mass index) or better your BIA result (body fat percentage). To learn about these indexes, visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_fat_percentage

Flag

Just as is the case for Mail.app, entries can be flagged in the leftmost column. If you start a series of exercises with the aim of reaching a certain goal, flag the first one. If you had a very good workout or a good competition result, flag it.

Extended Columns and workout types

The diary contains some more data columns not visible by default. These include data fields for weight, maximum heart-rate, workout-type and speed cadence. You can show and hide columns with the action-button. As in all Mac applications you reorder columns by holding the alternate-key and dragging the column header.

The column workout-type can hold values from a dynamic selection list that fills itself by values you previously entered. Values could possibly be something like Run, MTB, lgDL or whatever kind of workouts you do.

Search

The search field in the lower right corner will search for diary entries (looks into column route and personal notes) that contain the given search term. The diary table will then only display matching entries.

This provides various ways to tag and filter diary entries, to later compare entries of the same class. For example if you want to filter for workout-types, enter for example just MTB into the search field or, for a fully qualified search, use x-workoutType:MTB. Following some other examples on how you can tag your entries by coding custom attributes into the personal comment field:

Export

If you select diary entries, Edit > Copy will put them as tab separated columns into the clipboard. An easy method to transfer entries into Excel or other analysis tools.

Where to go from here

Publish

You can publish your diary to a web-server containing the public comments you made and the course of the route.

Using your iPod
Export Route directions or import workout data from Nike and iPod Sports Kit.

Managing Workouts
Import and archive workouts from your training device.

Improve your fitness
Use the exercise plan to Improve your fitness in small steps.

More questions?
Write the author to improve this documentation.