Using OneNote to help me at a triathlon
This weekend a couple of friends and I signed up to compete in a local triathlon as a team. Helen said she would do the swim, Ted would bike and I would complete the 5K-ish run. For any serious racers, the run length was listed as 3.2 miles.
I was in another 5K race last week and while I did well, I knew when I was done I could have run a little faster. And since I now had 2 teammates depending on me, I really wanted to make sure I was at my best. So as I analyzed how I could have improved on my time last week, I first went through the race mentally one more time to see if I had made any mistakes or anything like that. I could not remember any so I went to my log I keep.
I use OneNote for this. It's not rocket science or anything like that and is something I could keep in a paper notebook if I wanted. But I keep it in OneNote so I can make entries anywhere - I can use my phone or a browser at a café if I am on vacation and manage to get in a run. And like I say, my log is nothing special. Just a big table that lists how far I ran and how long I spent doing it, plus a final column for notes on the run like seeing an eagle - Seattle is an interesting area for running - or not drinking enough water. I don’t even list the time for each run and just use this as a little "running total" tool to help motivate me.
As I was looking at my log, I noticed that for races in which I tend to do well, I complete my final run three days before the race and take those last days off. And in this case, my last run is usually a pretty short one at a slow pace. But for the race last week, I had pushed myself hard two days before and figured that may be why I could not do any better.
So for this past weekend, I kept to my three days off and did better. Our team even won 3rd place and we got little medals about the size of a quarter. And I did not let Helen and Ted down. Thanks OneNote for letting me look this data up before the race!
Questions, comments, concerns and criticisms always welcome,
John