I log all of my runs on www.running2win.com and one of the cool features on that site is the graphs you can make showing miles/week or miles/year. But I want to make my own graphs. That website only let's you include all years...and my running during 2011 and 2012 was weak and doesn't really matter to me right now. I want to compare this year to what I was doing when I was training for Columbus in 2010 or when I was training for cross country the summer of 2009 because that's when I believe I was in my best shape. That is different though since I was training for much shorter races and never ran over 12 miles but still had decent mileage because of 2-a-days and always adding strides to the end of runs. So I basically took all my weekly and monthly mileage and transferred it into an Excel file so I can make cool graphs and since we are finishing up July, I thought I should share a graph I made to analyze how marathon training is going so far in comparison to 2010.
By the way, this graphs is like beginner-level Excel. I swear I can do
cool formulas, I just haven't figured out how to work in vlookups into
my running analysis quite yet but I'm sure there's a way. Also, it looks better if you're looking at this on a computer because on the phone it looks super smushed.
I'd say so far for the 24 to 12 weeks before the marathon, I am definitely doing more mileage than I was in 2010. I was injured during the spring of 2010, so I was confined to a lot of cross training and then it took awhile to build back up to running consistently. But these past 3 weeks have been a little weaker in comparison to 2010. Time to step it up!!
I have ran 159 miles more in these 13 weeks in 2013 than I did in 2010, which is an average of 1.75 miles more per day. However, since I obviously don't run every day, the average per workout would be probably closer to 1 mile more. Boom. Analyzed.
I also know that the quality of the miles, not just the quantity is important. In 2010, I barely did any speed workouts or significant pace variation. So I'm going to keep trying to get in a track workout or fartlek each week!
Today's workout was supposed to be a bike ride and I got myself pretty pumped for it, but I made it about 2 miles before getting a flat tire and had to walk back home. I was in the suburbs and using mom's bike instead of my own. Remember when she got a flat a few weeks ago? I guess that's the risk you take using a bike that is about 25 years old now. It was originally Aunt Bernadette's and I used it in my first 2 triathlons. But then I bought my own bike last spring as my after-tax-season present to myself. And just for fun, here's a picture of my bike right after I bought it. It feels neglected now because I have been running and not biking.
Do you like Excel?
How do you track your runs?
Any good biking stories?
I pretty much lived in Excel when I was at Deloitte, and even though I hate public accounting, I do love Excel. I actually made some line graphs at work the other day, but I agree, that is beginner stuff...embedded if statements and vlookups is where it's at!
ReplyDeleteI track my runs on the Garmin website since they automatically upload there, but I also have a log (in Excel of course) where I track everything - runs, cross-training, weight training, etc.
I love spinning, but biking outside makes me nervous. I haven't really done it since senior year of college when I injured my IT band and was trying to stay in shape to run Chicago (didn't happen). During my first bike ride that summer, a car didn't stop when it was turning right even though I had the right of way, so I had to slam on the brakes and went flying off my bike...it was a long 3 weeks of biking until I realized my leg wasn't getting any better and then I took up swimming. I actually got pretty good at swimming, but I'm pretty sure I would be starting from scratch since I also haven't done that since senior year of college. I have done spinning, yoga, and weight training since. Now I am rambling.