Training Peaks Thoughts and Workout Summary

Yesterday I did my monthly goal update. This keeps me focused and keeps me honest. Plus it's fun to look back on the month and look ahead at the rest of the year.

Today you're getting my thought in my first month using Training Peaks - a workout logging website that I started using on January 1st.

I used to log all of my runs in a spreadsheet and I didn't keep track of my swimming or my cycling at all. That has all changed now and I'm documenting every swim, run and bike session.

It's important to note at this time that I'm using the free version. There is a paid version I can upgrade to should I choose (Doug uses it) that would all me to see more analyses of my workouts, add training plans and set workout targets among other things. I may upgrade down the road but I'm still getting used to it all and am pretty happy with what I've seen so far.

What I really like is the ability to see how much time I've spent each day, week or month doing physical activity as well as the distance I've done in each sport. What I don't like is that there are some workouts that don't fit nicely into a time/distance breakdown and I lose some of the work I've done in the monthly distance totals. For example: last month I did three Bending Crank Arms cycling workouts that were just under an hour in length but I spent about 20 minutes of each workout off the bike doing squats. So I've logged the time but the resulting pace looks pretty pathetic. Also, I did one swim workout that involved cords and buckets. So I worked really hard but my overall distance was impossible to measure.

So here are the numbers for January 2014:

Total time:
Cycling - 9 hours and 11 minutes (10 workouts)
Running - 8 hours and 47 minutes (7 workouts)
Swimming - 12 hours and 15 minutes (9 workouts)
Rest days - 5

Total distance
Cycling - 166.62km (plus 950 squats for good measure)
Running - 78.2km
Swimming - 25km (plus one cords and buckets workout)

I'm pretty happy with that.

Things I've noticed:
I've cut my swims down to two days per week from the three days per week I was doing in 2013. Even so, I spent more time swimming in January than I did running or cycling. I miss my thrice weekly swims but I'm happy that I've been able to get more cycling in. It's all about balance.

My running doesn't seem to have suffered too much despite fewer runs that usual. I should have completed 13 runs in January but I only managed 7. That's just over half. I'm not happy with that but relieved that I've managed to get the distance in for my half marathon in March.

I'm loving spending more time on the bike and I have already noticed that I'm stronger than I was. Stronger in the tough gears and better at spinning in the easier ones. I can't wait to see what that will do once we hit the roads again in the spring.