At this site, you plan and keep track of workouts (running,
cycling, swimming, and so on). You can manage your log from any
browser, since the data is not kept on your browsing computer, but
here at the server [Ed: if that seems obvious, remember that this
sentence was written in 1997!].
Your workout log appears as an ordinary calendar (though a more
detailed format is available as an option). To add a workout on a
specific date, click on that day number, and fill in the form. Once
the workout is submitted, a summary of it appears on the calendar.
You can edit this workout (or delete it) by clicking on its summary
and revising the same form.
Among the information you can specify are the type of workout
(such as Run, Cycle), a subtype (Intervals, RACE), the workout's
distance, duration, and pace (if you specify two, we'll calculate the
third), a brief summary to appear on the calendar (if you don't want the
summary we generate automatically), and a note containing whatever
information you like.
Cutting and Pasting
You can copy a single existing workout by clicking on it, changing the
date, and clicking on "Add workout".
The calendar cell for weekly totals includes a label Week:,
which you can click on to obtain a form for cutting or
copying that week's workouts (to a "clipboard"), or
pasting into that week the workouts already copied to the
clipboard. This makes it easy to enter workouts for similar
work-weeks.
Plots, Totals, and Averages
Clicking on the "Plot" link at the top or bottom of the log page gives
you a form for plotting the pace, distance, or duration of your
workouts over time. This will also produce a tally of total and
average distances, durations, and paces for the (selectable) period of
the plot.
(Note that to produce, for instance, an average distance for Easy
Runs, we average over only the workouts of that type for which a
distance is specified or can be calculated; similarly for duration and
pace. So if you tend to specify a duration or pace only for long easy
runs, the average will be skewed.)
Options
Clicking on the "Options" link at the top or bottom of the log page
gives you a form with several options for customizing your log. Some
options are self-explanatory. You can choose:
- whether to use the regular (calendar) display or a more detailed
one
- how many months of your log to display at a time
- which types and subtypes of workouts to display
- what units to use for weekly totals (e.g., "mi" or
"km" for distance totals, or "min" for duration totals).
- whether your log is to be considered public
- the format of the automatically generated workout summary
Making your log public
If you choose to make your log public, others who know your
username can view your log, and view the details of the individual
workouts (but they cannot change anything). The URL that others
can use to visit your log is listed in the Options page.
Customizing the summary
When you enter a workout, unless you specify a summary for inclusion in
the calendar, we generate one automatically. On the options page
you can customize this process by composing a schematic "format
string" that guides us in generating the summary. This string
simply becomes the summary, but with two exceptions: first,
variables are replaced by their values. Here are the variables:
| %d | distance
| | %p | pace
| | %t | duration
| | %y | type
| | %s | subtype
| | %u | distance unit (e.g., "mi", "km")
| | %v | pace unit (e.g., "mph", "/mi")
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A format string of %s %d%u would yield the workout's
subtype, a space, and the workout's distance followed by the chosen
distance unit; e.g.: Fartlek 8km.
The second syntactic device is conditional inclusion. This is
easiest to explain by example. The format string XXX?dYYY?ZZZ
will yield different summaries depending on whether the workout has a
specified distance. If a distance is specified, the summary would be
XXXYYYZZZ; otherwise it would be XXXZZZ. For each of
the variables listed above, you can use a question mark followed by
the variable letter, followed by material to include conditionally,
followed by a question mark. The material will be included if that
parameter of the workout has been specified. The default format
string is:
%y %s ?d%d%u? ?pat %p%v?
This generates a summary as follows: first, we include the workout type
and subtype; then, if there is a specified
distance, we include the distance and the chosen distance unit; then
if there is a specified pace, we include the word "at",
the pace, and the chosen pace unit.
One easy way to customize: if you use only one "type" of workout
(say, Run), or only one subtype for each type, just eliminate the
%y or the %s to save space.
Hints
- Specify the pace (or duration) of the part of the workout whose
pace most interests you (such as the fast part of a tempo run). This
will make the plots more informative for you.
- Use the summary addendum to specify things you'd like to see in
the calendar in addition to the automatically provided information.
You might specify the distance that "counts" (for a tempo run) or
the parameters of the workout (such as "4x1600@6:00 with 2:00jog").
Suggestions and Comments . . .
. . . are very welcome.
Enjoy!
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