Why You Should Track Your Training
Tracking your workouts isn’t always the most fun or glorious part of training. But it is necessary.
How to track my workouts
Tracking your workout can be as easy or as complicated as you make it. Some people track using modern technologies like watches and apps. Other athletes use simple old-fashioned pen and paper. GCE suggests four ways to track your training.
Strava
Strava is the Facebook of fitness. Strava is a social media app that allows its yours to log their workouts. This log can be shared with your fitness community and new communities can be found through the platform. Strava stores your fitness data for you to look at later on.
Strava Premium offers advanced tracking and monitoring options for a simple price of either $11.99/month or $79.99/year.
Apple Fitness
Do you have an Apple watch? An Apple watch syncs with your iPhone to track all the needs in its health and fitness apps. These apps provide extensive data. The fitness apps are nice because they are integrated within the IOS system and have ease of use.
Nike Running
The Nike Running app is a fantastic digital logbook. It’s a lot like Strava's minums the social media aspect. Unforntuely Nike Running doesn’t allow its users to track anything other than running.
A Good Old Fashion Notebook
Sometimes pen and paper are just needed to stick to your goals or understand how your training is going. It might be harder or less accurate than digital logs, but a log journal is classic. There is something to noting down your training and reading over it later.
Luckily, GCE has built a log book tailored to track running and help reach your goals.
What to track in my workouts
Knowing what to track depends on your personal goals. Are you trying to get faster? Track your paces. Are you trying to build endurance? Track your distances and heart rate.
Many different things can be tracked. But for a simple full-encompassing understanding of your training, there are three things you should focus on tracking.
Top Tech to track with
There are a handful of different pieces of tech you can use to track your runs depending on how much of a budget you have. Listed below are the team at GCE’s top pieces of tech for tracking our workouts.
Garmin Watches
Garmin smartwatches are the most ideal all-around fitness tracker. They track heart rate, steps, sleep, and a variety of workouts. The price range for a Garmin watch varies from $100 to $1000+.
These watches are best for all-around athletes and serious endurance athletes. The worlds of running and triathlons are scattered with advanced Garmin tech providing data.
Apple Watches
Almost everyone has heard of Apple’s watches. But they understaminate their ability to track workouts. They may be a little less accurate than the above Garmin watched because they are designed to do more than fitness. That being said, they provide the needed data for the hobbyist.
Smart Phone
Smart watches are expensive and not everyone can afford the steep price for them. But it’s safe to say the majority of people have smartphones nowadays. Downloading the right apps can help track your fitness data. Without a tracker that straps around you heart rate data can’t be tracked by a smartphone.
Fitbit
If a specialized watch interests you, but the expensive price tags that go along with the Garmin watches turn you off, try a Fitbit. The Fitbit was big when it first came out but quickly lost out to other smartwatches. Over the years they have built back up and designed a beautiful fitness tracker for a reasonable price of $50 to $100. Fitbit does it all now. Heart rate, GPS, and many other trackable data.
Google Pixel Watch
Not everyone has an iPhone that can work with an Apple watch. But another great option is the Google Pixel Watch. This watch is compatible with any modern Android phone, allowing for many options. This watch ranges from a typical price of $150 to $300. With this moderate price point, this watch does everything an Apple watch does. It tracks heart rate and has a built-in GPS for running.
