Track Workout

The title is not what you think. I'm not talking about repeat quarters, or a tempo run. The New York Times Magazine ran an interesting story about people who record myriad personal data, from the basics like weight and sleep, to minutiae like intake of caffeine and flaxseed.


Most self-respecting (and self-classified) athletes keep some kind of workout log. With new gadgetry, it's becoming easier to analyze your performance down to the footstep. Personally, I only keep track of distance, time, and pace if I get really adventurous. Anecdotally, I seem to be performing better and getting injured less since I've cut out extraneous sweets, for budget reasons as much as health. But I could have just been having a long string of bad luck.


I relate to this sentiment, pulled from the NYT story:

"Watch out for those machines, though. Humans know a special trick of self-observation: when to avert our gaze. Machines don’t understand the value of forgiving a lapse, or of treating an unpleasant detail with tactful silence. A graph or a spreadsheet talks only in numbers, but there is a policeman inside all of our heads who is well equipped with punishing words. 'Each day my self-worth was tied to the data,' Alexandra Carmichael, one of the founders of the self-tracking site CureTogether, wrote in a heartfelt blog post about why she recently stopped tracking. 'One pound heavier this morning? You’re fat. Skipped a day of running? You’re lazy. It felt like being back in school. Less than 100 percent on an exam? You’re dumb.' Carmichael had been tracking 40 different things about herself. The data she was seeing every day didn’t respect her wishes or her self-esteem. It was awful, and she had to stop."


The idea of self-punishment rings true. At the point you realize that eating well, sleeping 8 hours a night and maintaining a certain weight amounts to better performance, you are naturally inclined to kick yourself if you deviate too much from that formula. If you are the type of person to have a performance goal, like a 5-hour Half-Ironman, you are probably the type of person to worry about each step on your path to that goal.


With that knowledge, there's a decision to make. Stick to your guns, track your progress, and attribute your performance (good or bad) to the rigor of your plan; or, take a step back, relax, and accept that whatever happens, will happen.


Neither of these is more right than the other. Each extreme will work for some people and not for others. In fact, elements of both probably infiltrate most peoples' decision-making process. If there's one thing I preach (and try to practice), it's moderation. Now, excuse me while I get off my soap box; I have a big race next week and it's time to go swim.