Transitions

As a self-​​confessed geek, I love being able to quan­tify things. Track­ing data and detail helps me to make sense of what I’m doing. And so it is with my train­ing. As I’ve become more dili­gent the past cou­ple of weeks, I’ve again (I did it years ago) begun track­ing a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of fac­tors related to my diet and train­ing that help me bet­ter under­stand how my body is respond­ing to the things I’m putting it through.

Here is, for those of you that are inter­ested, what I’m track­ing, in sev­eral lists:

Diet (daily):

• vol­ume, serv­ing or weight and type of food
• kJ in those foods
• amount of water drunk

Body com­po­si­tion (2−3 times/​week):

• scale weight (kg, on rising)
• body­fat %

Vital­ity (daily, per­cep­tion based on 1 – 10 scale or as noted):

• Sleep qual­ity
• Sleep hours
• Stress
• Sore­ness
• Well­be­ing
• Fatigue
• Injured (Yes/​No)
• Blood pres­sure
• Rest­ing HR (beats/​minute)

Train­ing (recorded at Dai­lymile):

• type of training
• actual activ­ity
• dura­tion
• GPS track (using Run­k­eeper)
• heart rate
• notes and other factors

I realise that’s all a hell of a lot of data to track, but it really only takes me 15 min­utes a day to do. For the ben­e­fits I’m get­ting, I don’t see that as a big impost.

What about you? Are you a data nerd too?