Why You Should Be Tracking Your Running Progress
Reasons To Track Your Running Progress
Any serious runner will tell you that while you can just put on a pair of running shoes and go for it, you need to have something to keep you motivated. The best thing you can do to stay motivated is to track your progress. This is especially important when you’re just starting out because tracking your running progress means you can see your improvements in all areas of running.
Tracking your running progress doesn’t need to be complicated and all you really need to do is keep track of distance, times, different routes, and how well you handle hills. All this information is essential to keep you on track and when you see the results, you’ll want to keep going.
How Do I Track A Run?
Tracking a run used to be about getting a notebook and manually recording the important aspects of your running progress like different routes, distances you ran, times, heart rate, and any other relevant information. These days tracking your running progress has gotten a lot simpler and a lot more accurate too. We all have smartphones, sport watches, and available running apps and this means we can avail ourselves of any one of dozens of excellent running apps that use GPS to track our distance and routes, the time we spent running and some even give us the option of tracking our heart rate before, during, and after our run. It just doesn’t get any simpler. You can then check over each aspect and see how well you are doing.
How Do You Carry Your Phone While Running?
Okay, so you’ve got your app downloaded to your phone and it’s time to run. You don’t want to keep your phone in your hands, which isn’t comfortable or practical anyway, so where do you put your phone while you run? The most obvious place to put your phone while running is in the pocket of your running pants, running vest, or running jacket. These are all good on older days, but when it’s hot you may not have these items of apparel on you. A vest is still a good option as you can wear a sleeveless top with a vest but you can also invest in a flip belt or running bag to keep your phone on your person but not in your hands.
Motivate Yourself On Bad Days
We all have days when it’s a struggle to put one foot in front of the other, much less motivate ourselves to go running. This is when tracking your running progress can be a real motivator. When you’re not feeling up to a run, look at the statistics you have collected on your running apps. Staring straight at this information may be all the motivation you need to put on your running shoes and step out the door. Don’t forget to make a note of how you felt after each run and you’ll see that even on bad days, you felt better after a run.
Discover Your Strengths And Weaknesses
Tracking your running purposes has a definite purpose and one of the main ones is so that you can discover your strengths and weaknesses. By tracking your progress, you can see what spurns you on and what slows you down. Which weather conditions are helpful and which are a hindrance. Even down to certain foods, beverages and medications can slow you down. By identifying your strengths, you can use them to improve your running in terms of stride, time, and overall performance, and when you know your weaknesses you have a clear picture of how to overcome them or, at the very least, deal with them.
Be Your Own Competitor
The only time you need to beat someone in a running race is when you’re in a competition so if you’re a recreational runner, the only person you need to beat is the person you were yesterday. By tracking your running progress, you can see your improvement day by day, week by week and you can use this information to go a little further tomorrow or run a little faster. This also allows you to set specific goals and work your way towards them as well.
