This section describes how I use the Digital Athletic Log in conjunction with the the method described in SERIOUS Training for Endurance Athletes by Rob Sleamaker and Ray Browning. The book is packed full of good information, which can overwhelm a beginner. The Digital Athletic Log has several features designed to work with this method.
Update on 5 September 2005: Currently I find tracking more than one or two sports with the SERIOUS method a lot of work. So I pick the two sports I'm best at (running and biking), where focused advanced training will help me. In swimming, I'm still mastering the basics of good form, so I don't worry about things like speed workouts etc.
First I found my training zones. I measured my resting heart rate for three morning in a row (before getting out of bed), and averaged them to find my resting heart rate. I entered my resting heart rate, date of birth, and gender in my profile. The Digital Athletic Log calculated a table of my training zones.
The worksheet can also calculate these training zones. Reference [1, Appendix B] has some good information on determining training zones.
On the `Cycle' sheet of the worksheet. I entered the percent time for each sport in each training type (Speed, Endurance, etc.). Then I entered the periodization for each week. The example training plans in Appendix B of SERIOUS Training for Endurance Athletes is an excellent source of values for this part too.
Now the long term training plan is complete.
I created sports in the Digital Athletic Log for each of my sports (see Section 4.1. Additionally, I created a sport for strength training.
Next I created keywords for each component of the SERIOUS method, except strength (Speed, Endurance, Race/Pace, Interval, Overdistance, Up/Vertical). When I created the keywords, I started them all with the same letter. This causes them all to appear next to each other in the keyword menu. My keywords are `tz Speed', `tz Endurance', `tz Race/Pace', etc. They store the time spent on the particular workout type, and their units are minutes.
At the end of the week I create the goals for the following week. The strength training goal is a type 'Sport Time' using my strength training sport. The other goals are of type `Sum Keyword by Sport'. Where I specify the sport and the keyword corresponds to the workout type. Here the goal value is in minutes (the same units as the keyword). I get the values from the appropriate week in the worksheet.
As I complete my workouts I enter them in the log. So if I did an hour run with 40 minutes of Overdistance and 20 minutes of Endurance, I make a running entry with a duration of 1 hour, and I link two keywords two the sport entry. The `tz Overdistance' with a value of 40, and the `tz Endurance' with a value of 20 minutes.
I enter goals for a couple of different training zone for running, because that is my best sport. The Biking and Swim I have found that just entering time (duration) goals is sufficient.
I can check my progress towards my goals at any time using the ``View Goals'' page.