I'm working on a project to allow people to log their runs within the software that runs this site and a couple of my other ones - the ultimate intention being to allow the members of my running club to use it (and other running clubs too).
I've sat down with all my running books (The Lore Of Running, Jeff Galloway's Book On Running, and the Peter Coe book) and looked at how they recommend logging runs and tempered it with the desire not to make it overly complex or have too many fields that people won't bother with. It's the old thing where you really have to ask whether what you are trying to do with a computer could be better done with a notepad and pencil.
But I've some minor experience with coaching runners both online and in real life and seeing their progress and sometimes even just seeing they their friends are out there running too can be a good motivator as well as taking the fear out of challenges.
So I'm sitting here with a textbook and a couple of web pages open about the Borg Scale Of Perceived Effort (which gives a one to ten scale - can people really be that precise?) and trying to make something as simple to use as the Nike+ running website (which has five faces to choose from for run quality - happy, indifferent, unhappy, and injured).
My general feeling on this right now is that I need to get the basics in the top of the run entry form and then hide the 'advanced' options until you click on it.
Current fields I have are which I think are important:
- Title/name of workout (for example "Regular club run", "10km race", "10 miler that turned into 15*"
- Comments
- Date/time
- Exercise type (because it all works as well for swimming and cycling)
- Goal (what you aimed to achieve)
- Distance
- Time
- Rating
* And they've still not stopped complaining about it.
The advanced details ones are:
- Weather
- Terrain
- Route
- Route URL (so links to mapmyrun or Google Maps
- Race position
- Body weight
- Sleep (how well they're sleeping at the moment)
- Diet (How well they're eating at the moment)
Obviously the last three will need to be kept private at all times but they are useful for seeing how they affect performance.
