Replace Excel and WhatsApp: A Track Club Workflow

Most track and field clubs run on two tools that were never built for coaching: an Excel sheet with the training plan and a WhatsApp group where everything else happens. The sheet is out of date by Wednesday because the Tuesday speed session moved. The group chat holds a jumper's "knee is a bit sore" between a meme and a car-pool question, and by the weekend nobody can find it. Coach-athlete communication in a club is not a motivation problem. It is a workflow problem, and this guide describes a weekly workflow that fixes it.

The workflow has five steps, each with a fixed time and a fixed place. It works on paper, in a shared document or in an app. What matters is that the plan, the feedback and the body notes end up in one place, attached to the session they belong to.

Why Excel and WhatsApp break down in a training group

A sprint and jumps group of 20 athletes produces a lot of small information every week: who trained, how hard it felt, what hurt, who has an exam, who is competing on Saturday. Spreadsheets and chats fail at this in predictable ways.

• The plan and the reality drift apart. The coach writes 6 × 150 m into the sheet, the athlete does 4 because the calf was tight, and the sheet never finds out. Weekly load totals calculated from the sheet are fiction.
• Messages have no address. "Felt heavy today" in a group of 20 does not say which session, which athlete's plan to adjust, or whether it was already handled.
• Pain disappears. The most important sentence of the week, "my Achilles has been sore for three days", is written once in a chat and scrolls away. Three weeks later it is a physio appointment.
• Nobody can review. At the end of a block, the coach wants to know what the athletes actually did and how they rated it. The sheet shows the plan, the chat shows noise.
• Athletes get thirty notifications a day. Group chats train athletes to ignore their phone, including the one message that mattered.

None of these are fixed by a better spreadsheet or a second WhatsApp group. They are fixed by deciding where each piece of information lives.

The weekly workflow in five steps

Step 1: Sunday, the coach publishes the week

The coach writes the week for each athlete or group: session type, main content, intent. "Tuesday: speed, 3 × 3 × 60 m from blocks, first ten metres. Thursday: tempo, 2 × 4 × 150 m at 90%." Throwers and middle-distance runners get their own version. Published once, in the one place every athlete opens, by Sunday evening.

Changes during the week are made in the same place, not announced in a chat. The plan is the single source of truth.

Step 2: Every morning, the athlete checks in

Before training, each athlete logs five things in about 60 seconds: sleep, soreness, mood, pain and one note. The exact fields are described in the training diary guide. This is the context the coach needs before the session, and it replaces the "how are you feeling" round at the track that never gets an honest answer.

Step 3: After every session, the athlete gives structured feedback

Four lines: session and goal, RPE and duration, what changed, readiness for the next session. The format is explained in how to answer "how was training?". Attached to the session in the plan, not sent to a group.

This is what makes the plan and reality match. The 6 × 150 m that became 4 × 150 m are now recorded, with the reason.

Step 4: Every evening, the coach reviews in five minutes

The coach reads the day's check-ins and session feedback, sorted by readiness. Greens with normal load get a glance. Yellows get a short reply in the session thread: "Skip the 150s on Thursday, do the block starts and we look at the calf after." Reds get a call or a conversation at the next session.

Five minutes for 20 athletes is realistic when the information is structured and in one place. It is impossible when it is spread across a sheet and a chat.

Step 5: Friday, the coach reads the week

Fifteen minutes with the weekly load per athlete, the sleep and soreness trends and the pain notes. This is where a load jump from 2,000 to 3,100 units shows up before it becomes a problem, and where the next week's plan gets its adjustments. The ACWR guide explains how to read these trends.

What stays in the group chat

The group chat does not disappear. It gets a narrower job: logistics and team life. Car pools, meet entries, a photo from Saturday's competition, the reminder that the track is closed on Monday. What leaves the chat is anything that belongs to one athlete's training: plans, feedback, pain, readiness. One sentence to the group at the start makes this clear: "Training questions and how you feel go in the diary, everything else stays here."

Rolling it out in a club

• Start with one training group. The coach who wants it most runs it for four weeks. Success spreads faster than a club-wide announcement.
• Introduce one step per week. Week one, the plan in one place. Week two, the morning check-in. Week three, session feedback. Week four, the Friday review. Adding everything at once is how rollouts die.
• Explain what each step gives the athlete. Fewer notifications, a plan that is always current, and a coach who already knows about the sore Achilles before the session.
• Make it visible. When the coach replies to a yellow in the session thread, the whole system proves itself. Athletes keep logging when logging changes what happens on the track.

Common mistakes

• Running the new workflow and the old chat in parallel for training questions. Information splits, and the new system loses.
• Letting the plan live in two places. If the sheet still exists, it will be the one that is out of date.
• Reading check-ins only when something goes wrong. The five-minute evening review is the habit that makes the data worth collecting.
• Asking for more than five fields in the morning. Compliance falls off a cliff after 60 seconds.

How Athlog helps

Athlog was built for track and field clubs that were running exactly this setup, a spreadsheet plus a group chat, and wanted one place instead. The coach plans sessions per athlete or group, athletes check in and give session feedback, and the coach sees the whole training group sorted by what needs attention.

• Training plans with templates and group functions, changed in one place
• Daily check-ins and session feedback attached to the planned session
• Group overview with load, readiness and pain flags per athlete
• Comment threads per session instead of a chat scroll

See the full setup for clubs on the Athlog track and field page.

FAQ

Do we have to stop using WhatsApp completely?

No. Keep it for logistics and team life. What should leave the chat is anything about one athlete's training, because a chat cannot attach a message to a session or a person's history. Most clubs find the chat becomes quieter and more useful once training talk moves out.

What about athletes who refuse to log?

Shorten the entry, show them that it changes decisions, and ask for 14 days instead of forever. The usual reasons are an entry that takes too long or a coach who never refers to it. An athlete who sees "your calf was yellow on Tuesday, so Thursday is adjusted" starts logging.

Can this work for a volunteer coach with two evenings a week?

Yes, and it saves time rather than costing it. The Sunday plan takes 20 minutes with templates, the evening review takes 5, the Friday read takes 15. The time it replaces is the chasing of updates in the chat and the re-sending of the plan.

How long before the club sees a difference?

The first week already removes the "where is the plan" messages. After four weeks the coach has weekly load trends and a pain history per athlete, which is the point at which planning decisions start to change.

Start this week

• Pick one training group and one place for the plan. Publish next week's sessions there by Sunday.
• Tell the group which messages stay in the chat and which go in the diary.
• Add the 60-second morning check-in on Monday.
• Reply to every yellow in the session thread with a concrete change.
• Block 15 minutes on Friday to read the week before you plan the next one.