Training Diary: What Track Athletes Should Log Daily
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A training diary only works if athletes log the right things and log them every day. Most track and field groups already record sessions in some form: the 150 m splits, the long-jump distances, the squat loads. What is usually missing is the context around those numbers. How did the athlete sleep before the speed session? Was the calf already tight on Monday? Did the 3 x 300 m feel like an 8 or a 10?
That context is what turns a training history into coaching decisions. This guide sets out a daily logging standard for track and field athletes that takes under a minute, plus the session details that are worth recording for each discipline group. It works for a 15-year-old hurdler and a senior 800 m runner alike.
Why a daily training diary beats occasional testing
Testing days are snapshots. A 30 m flying time in March and another in June tell you where the athlete ended up, not what happened in between. Coaching problems are trend problems: load rising faster than the athlete adapts, a small pain that is ignored until it becomes an injury, a drop in readiness that shows up two weeks before the drop in times.
A short daily diary gives you a continuous signal. Saw and colleagues (2016) reviewed decades of athlete monitoring research and concluded that simple self-reported measures such as sleep, soreness and mood tracked changes in training load more consistently than many objective tests. For a club coach without a lab, that is the whole argument.
The five daily fields every track and field athlete should log
Keep the daily entry short. The best diaries are completed in under 60 seconds, ideally in the morning or on the way to training.
1. Sleep
Log hours and quality on a 1 to 5 scale. Sleep is the strongest practical indicator of how much load an athlete can absorb that day. A sprinter who slept five hours before a block session will produce slower starts and, more importantly, higher hamstring risk at the same prescribed intensity.
2. Soreness
Log overall muscle soreness from 1 to 5 and the location when it is specific: calves after a hill session, adductors after hurdle drills, lower back after a heavy throws week. The useful information is the trend. Soreness that resets between hard days is normal. Soreness that sits at 3 all week is not.
3. Mood and energy
Log mood or motivation from 1 to 5. Mood often drops before anything physical does, and it is the field that catches non-training stress: exams, work, travel. A jumper who rates mood 2 three days running in April probably has something going on outside the pit.
4. Pain
Log whether pain is present, where, its intensity from 0 to 10, and whether it is better, same or worse than yesterday. That last question is the one most diaries skip and the one coaches need most. A 3/10 Achilles that reads "better" every day is a different situation from a 3/10 Achilles that reads "same" for two weeks.
5. A one-line note
Anything the numbers miss: "new spikes", "exam tomorrow", "ran on the road because the track was closed", "felt flat in the warm-up but fine once moving". These notes explain the trends in the other four fields and save the coach from guessing.
Session fields: what to log after training
The daily check-in covers how the athlete arrived. The session entry covers what they did and how it felt.
For every session:
- Session RPE from 1 to 10 and duration in minutes. Multiplied, they give session load, the method Foster and colleagues (2001) validated as a simple, reliable measure of training load across session types. A 75-minute speed session at RPE 7 is 525 units.
- Session type: speed, speed endurance, tempo, technique, strength, plyometrics, aerobic, competition.
- One line on quality: "hit target times", "lost rhythm from hurdle 6", "technique fell apart on the last two throws".
Discipline-specific extras worth recording:
| Group | What to add | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Sprints, hurdles | Fast-running volume above 90% (metres), best and average times per rep | Hamstring risk follows fast metres, not total minutes |
| Jumps | Number of full-approach jumps, plyometric contacts, take-off leg soreness | Tendon load scales with contacts, not time |
| Throws | Throw count by implement weight, top three distances, main lift loads | Back and shoulder load come from throws plus lifting in the same week |
| Middle and long distance | Kilometres, pace zones, surface, shoes | Shin and bone stress follow mileage jumps and surface changes |
| Multi-events | Which events were covered and the time split between them | Fatigue builds across events in ways a single RPE hides |
None of this needs to be elaborate. A sprinter writing "6 x 60 m from blocks, best 7.12, 360 fast metres, RPE 7, 70 min" has logged everything their coach needs.
What good compliance looks like
Chasing 100% completion is the fastest way to kill a training diary. A realistic and useful target for a club group:
- 80 to 90% of days logged over a four-week block
- Daily fields done in the morning, session fields within an hour of training
- Scales with no more than five or ten points, so answering takes seconds
Consistency beats detail. A diary with five fields filled in daily tells you more than one with twenty fields filled in twice a week.
How the coach reads the diary
The diary is only valuable if someone acts on it. A workable routine for a coach with 20 athletes:
- Before each session, two minutes: scan for pain marked "worse", sleep under six hours, or two wellness markers down for three days. Those athletes get a word before the warm-up and, usually, a reduced version of the hardest element.
- Once a week, fifteen minutes: look at weekly session load against the four-week average and at the soreness trend. Anyone above about 1.3 times their average, or whose soreness never resets, gets their next week adjusted.
- End of each block: read the notes. They explain why the numbers moved and what to plan differently next time.
Keep responses neutral. If reporting a sore hamstring gets an athlete dropped from the relay, the diary will go quiet within a fortnight.
Rolling out a training diary in a club group
Week one: introduce only the five daily fields and explain, in one sentence each, how they change your decisions. Week two: add session RPE and minutes. Week three onward: add the discipline-specific extras for the athletes who are ready for them, usually U18 and up. Review the first month's data with the group so they see the diary being used; athletes keep logging when they can tell it matters.
How Athlog helps
Athlog was built for track and field, so the diary is already structured the way this guide describes. Athletes complete the daily check-in on their phone in under a minute and add session RPE, minutes and a note straight after training.
- Sleep, soreness, mood and energy are logged on simple scales, with pain on a body map and a better-same-worse trend.
- Session load is calculated automatically and shown per athlete and per week, so the four-week comparison takes no spreadsheet work.
- Coaches see the whole track and field training group on one screen before the session and can attach notes to any entry.
- Session plans and diary entries sit side by side, so "what was prescribed" and "what was done" are never in two different places.
FAQ
What should a track and field athlete write in a training diary?
Five daily fields: sleep, soreness, mood, pain with a better-same-worse trend, and a one-line note. After each session: RPE, minutes, session type and one line on quality. Sprinters add fast metres, jumpers add contacts, throwers add throw counts, runners add kilometres.
How long should a daily training diary entry take?
Under a minute for the daily check-in and under two minutes for the session entry. If it takes longer, the diary has too many fields and compliance will drop.
Should I use a paper diary or an app?
Paper works for an individual athlete. For a coach with a group, an app is the only way to see trends across 20 athletes without copying numbers into a spreadsheet every evening. The content of the entry is what matters, not the medium.
How often should the coach look at the diary?
A two-minute scan before every session for pain and readiness flags, and a fifteen-minute weekly review of load and soreness trends. Reading notes at the end of each block closes the loop.
What to do this week
- Set up the five daily fields and nothing else for the first week.
- Add "better, same or worse" to your pain question.
- Agree with the group that session RPE and minutes are logged within an hour of training.
- Decide which discipline-specific extra each athlete logs: fast metres, contacts, throws or kilometres.
- Block fifteen minutes on Sunday to look at weekly load and soreness trends.
Related reading: the 30-second readiness check for coaches, how to spot injury risk early and why a training journal is the coach's edge in track and field.
This guide shares coaching knowledge, not medical advice: for persistent pain, illness or unexplained fatigue, consult a healthcare professional.