[bairy]

The training blog is a very successful feature, with 183 users having made 4,950 entries.

For anyone wondering, I coded the blog a couple of years ago after Dan requested it.

A few suggestions for improvement have come to me so I'd now like to welcome suggestions and discussion from all who are interested.

There are already a range of suggestions from Richard and Dan as follows:

• Better weather and surface handling. For example if you're indoors the weather and surface are irrelevant.
• Perhaps options to add the temperature and wind speed, to make it easier to compare e.g. running on wet days
• Other activities, such as badmington, football etc.
• A calendar display to make it easy to see what you did when
• If you own multiple pairs of shoes, allow you to choose which you wore. This helps compare runs against each other, but also how much you've worn each pair out
• A sidebar module to allow quick entry of entries. Such a module would need to be thin, so we'll have to see about this one
• Proper integration with the races section
• A stats page. It'll show all kinds of things. To give a couple of examples you could easily compare how many miles you've done each month. You could see how well you perform on Mondays compared to Wednesdays. You could compare your runs along your custom routes much easier
• Better privacy controls. At the moment you can have it hide from all or show to all. It'd be improved to say "only allow people with over x posts to see", "only allow my friends to see", "ask search engines not to index"
• Nike+ Integration
• More details for rest day - such as how you felt
• Only show total distances for chosen activities in the postbit.

I can't say for sure that all of the above, or any other suggestions will be implemented, but all are welcome.

[hot foot]

I think that introducing a heart rate zone feature could be useful.

i.e. Zone 1 would be a recovery zone, zone 2 would be max aerobic capacity and so on

You could compare your aerobic zone and speed from one session with another to see whether you have made any improvements.

Also, maybe a tool that will allow members to work out what their specific heart rate zones are for specific workouts, similar to the speed/distance calculator on the home page perhaps?

[bairy]

Originally Posted by hot foot

I think that introducing a heart rate zone feature could be useful.

i.e. Zone 1 would be a recovery zone, zone 2 would be max aerobic capacity and so on

I don't know much about heart rate zones if you could elaborate.

[hot foot]

The heart rate that you train in can determine whether your run has been an easy run or a tempo run for example.

by running to your heart rate you are able to establish exactly which type of run you have had, rather than just assuming that you have had a tempo run by judging how hard you pushed yourself or how your breathing appeared to be.

for example:-

for me, aged 36, my maximum heart rate is 184 beats per minute.

There are several calculations you can use to discover your own MHR but the most commonly used is 220 minus your age.

from this, by running at a certain percentage of my maximum, I can establish the type of workout I intend to have/am having/have had.

So;

on a recovery run, my heart rate needs to be 60-70% of my maximum heart rate.
(110-129 beats per minute)

to achieve a run for maximum aerobic fitness/general run, my hr needs to be
70-85% of my MHR

Tempo running is 85-90%, and speed training at race pace is 85-98%(dependent of the race distance).

It's easy for people to think that they are out on a recovery run, when in fact, your heart rate may tell you it was a general run. Although they felt fine, If you continue to do this, over time you'll be in danger of burning yourself out and not know why.


Also, by introducing a calculator that allows members to firstly calculate their max heart rate and subsequently their individual heart rate training zones it will make it more precise than just assuming, as I mentioned earlier, that you have had a tempo run for example.


Then by being able to compare my tempo run from today with one, say a month ago, I can see whether my overall fitness has improved because my pace may be quicker on one although the heart rate is the same. This gives an indication that my fitness level is improving.

I hope this makes sense!

[richardsimkiss]

One thing that *could* be useful... is to have an 'expandable' blog entry system... this would tie in with Dan's suggestion of a sidebar module to 'quick add' training runs,

A bit like the forum posting system you can 'quick post' or 'go advanced'... the basic system will simply be a case of runners adding their date, distance & time... or they can 'go advanced' and enter more in depth details if they choose to. I think it may also encourage users who don't currently use the function because they feel it's a little bit in depth perhaps?

[bairy]

Richard - Good idea. The sidebar block and "quick entry" would depend on if it was feasible bearing in mind necessary fields. But I'll certianly look into it.

Hot foot. I read your explanation a couple of times and I still don't really get it.
It looks like you're suggesting the system tells you what heart rate you should have, and then figure out what type of run it was?

[Ito]

How about adding "treadmill" to the surface option and "indoors" to the weather option in the training blog?

[richardsimkiss]

I think he basically means a drop-down menu titled "Heart Rate Zone", with various options, say perhaps 60-70%, 70-80%, 80-90%, 90-100%... (apologies, I'm not 'au fait' with correct HR training zones). It would be useful for those who train using heart rate zones, though I couldn't comment on how many people would use it.

The maximum heart rate calculation thing I assume would be seperate to the training blog, and would give an estimate of someones maximum heart rate. Though IMHO there would certainly need to be some form of a clear statement to say that it's purely an estimate based on research, and that individuals can deviate from this estimation by quite some margin!

[bairy]

re: Heart Rate

I'm gonna need some practical examples, perhaps if you sample 3 runs you might have done and then what you want from the blog.

Originally Posted by Itokuzu

How about adding "treadmill" to the surface option and "indoors" to the weather option in the training blog?

One of the problems is the name "training blog" doesn't match what it actually is: swimming, cycling, running blog.

As Richard has pointed out, it's sometimes asking for info that isn't relevant, such as weather when you're in the gym.

What I'm thinking is we can have different types of activity, each with their own custom sets of inputs.
So for example if you choose outdoor running it'll ask you questions like weather. With treadmill running it won't.

I might also add a page to let you specify your own types of activities, and what it should ask you.



Basically I want to create the best training blog system I can, so all suggestions really are welcome.

[Hrun]

Originally Posted by bairy

What I'm thinking is we can have different types of activity, each with their own custom sets of inputs.
So for example if you choose outdoor running it'll ask you questions like weather. With treadmill running it won't.

I might also add a page to let you specify your own types of activities, and what it should ask you.



Basically I want to create the best training blog system I can, so all suggestions really are welcome.

Yes to the above but not with new pages. If is is more than a few clicks to enter people wont bother. It need something like the autotrader search, where picking a dropdown option opens the next menu.

Also the ability to import or upload logs from multiple sources (Nike, Garmin etc) and them integrate into one training log.

So, for example:

Monday - 10K outdoor run logged with my Garmin GPS
Wednesday - 5K treadmill run logged with Nike +
Friday - 10 x 25m swim entered manually

[bairy]

Originally Posted by Hrun

Yes to the above but not with new pages. If is is more than a few clicks to enter people wont bother. It need something like the autotrader search, where picking a dropdown option opens the next menu.

For the different activities it would change inputs on the same page without a reload.
The new page would be for suggesting new activities.

Also the ability to import or upload logs from multiple sources (Nike, Garmin etc) and them integrate into one training log.

So, for example:

Monday - 10K outdoor run logged with my Garmin GPS
Wednesday - 5K treadmill run logged with Nike +
Friday - 10 x 25m swim entered manually

Nike+ I can do per-race. i.e. it could take your most recent run or supply you with a list of runs and you could import the ones you wanted.

Any GPS or other logging systems: If a website like nike+ handles them, and it provides data in a way I can access (i.e. through an api) then I can do it. Otherwise I'd need to know how they work.

They are great ideas.

[Hrun]

Originally Posted by bairy

They are great ideas.

No,it is just what I want and yoiu are offering to design it into your website for me. Motionsomething? can upload data from a GPS but I think have been bought by Garmin. They could do it so it must be possible.

The other option would be to export from the Garmin software on the computer and use that. I can send you some sample files, but am on hols at the moment. PM me your email so I can send you some attachments.

Giles

[bairy]

Sure thing, I'll analyse the file and see if I can extract anything from it.

runnersforum @ googlemail.com

[Heinzster]

What about a way to log how you felt on a rest day - recovering from run on previous day?
Blog is great btw. good reward for run and zero calories

[Dan_R]

An iPhone compatible training blog would be great for me, would mean I could log training sessions when on the move.

Would also be good to use the training blog features to set a training plan. Could send out a daily email letting the blog owner know what training plan they have scheduled.