Anyone of my close friends and family can confirm I'm a bit of a computer geek. I'm not an uber-geek who sits around trying to figure out how to reprogram Windows or hack into the federal government. But I do have a networked house complete with a couple of servers and numerous computers. I'm also the first person called when my church, dad, or any of several friends have computer problems. I can't solve every issue, but know who to call when that happens.
When it comes to triathlon, I sit on the fence when it comes to technology. While I have decent equipment, the latest and greatest toys are a good bit beyond what I can afford. Still, I have a decent stopwatch, a heart rate monitor, and a reasonable cycling computer. The true "geek" part shows itself when looking at my training logs. And yes, "logs" truly is plural.
I have one log for my employer's wellness initiative. I log workouts online at Buckeye Outdoors. When I have official training plans, I will use Training Peaks to log sessions. I also have my personal training file in Excel, complete with graphs of current and past years, target and actual distances, and notes about whatever seems important.
To ensure accurate data is entered, I closely track distances and times, along with various other information. Both my stopwatch and my heart rate monitor were selected based on their lap capacity (150 and 100 respectively). In addition to allowing me to track very long workouts, this allows me to complete several workouts without having to worry about whether I've logged the last session.
This has been a very successful process. Until today.
This morning's swim was little different from any other day. Going into the swim, I had 112 laps available on my watch. The rest contained my swim and run workouts from the weekend. I completed a swim including a moderately complicated pyramid from 50 to 200 yards and back. After a few other intervals, I hit the final wall and clicked "Stop." As I hopped out of the pool, I glanced at the watch to verify it was actually stopped (sometimes I miss or forget to hit the button).
What I saw was a fairly odd grouping of numbers across the top of the watch, followed by a time of 12:00 AM, Monday 1/01. Knowing what was coming, I switched to Chrono. Sure enough, it showed 150 available laps.
I sat there dumfounded, knowing I was going to have to try to reconstruct 4700 yards of swimming and a 10.5 mile run. Luckily, I can be a bit obsessed with times and distances DURING workouts, and I was able to make a good guess at the numbers.
So, there were two lessons learned. First, technology is great so long as it is working properly. It can be a real bummer when it dies. Second, paying close attention to your workout during the workout can be a good thing.
I think I'll back up my jump drive to the server, this evening...
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