Why You Should Journal Your Running

One of my favorite runners to follow on Instagram is the 5K champion Lauren Fleshman. She’s a runner, mother, entrepreneur, and writer; her column in Runner’s World is one of the first things I read each month, and I wish I could steal her Oiselle-sponsored running wardrobe. What I find most inspiring about her Instagram, however, is when she shares photos of her training journal.

Lauren Fleshman’s Instagrams of her training journal show a highly detailed journal of mileage, paces, weather, and how she felt after a run. Her paces always inspire me to push myself harder and her weekly mileage inspires me to run farther, but what is particularly motivating about her training journal is the very fact that she journals her runs.

Journaling your runs consists of more than simply logging how many miles you ran and what your average pace was. When you journal your runs, you record how you felt, what external factors like weather affected your run, whether you achieved your goal, and your overall assessment of the training week. No detail about your run is too small for a running journal, whether it’s that your splits during a tempo run impressed you or that wearing an extra pair of tights helped you from feeling numb during an hour-long run in the cold.

Journal your Running

This article on Running Times’ website discusses the advantages of journaling for runners. For runners that often deal with self-doubt, writing down their worries, concerns, and bad workouts can prevent negative self-talk from re-entering their heads during a workout or a race. Writing can give runners a sense of control over their anxiety about an upcoming race or a persisting injury.

Journaling can also help runners clarify their goals. In my own personal running journal, I note what the goal of each week is—training, recovery, racing, or maintaining during the off-season. At the start of each new training cycle, I like to write down my goals for training and the race itself. Writing down a big goal can help you commit to the work required to achieve that goal, since once you see it in writing the goal feels more concrete and provides the space for you plan how to achieve it. Reflecting back on your recorded goal and journaling helps you see your progress as you train—are you on track for your goal? Has an injury or unintended rest required you to alter it? Can you aim even higher?

Journaling about your daily runs helps you track your improvement and see what works for you from season to season. You may find that fartleks help improve your speed but stricter track workouts leave you overly fatigued, so then you know to do your speedwork based on time rather than distance. You may find that an interval workout and a tempo workout each week causes an old injury to flare up, or you may find that two hard runs a week makes you significantly faster. Beyond the type of workouts, journaling can help you remember how to dress for cold weather running, what pace you ran your last major race at, and what fueling strategies worked for you.

Journaling after a race is especially beneficial for runners. Whether the race was successful, mediocre, or a crash-and-burn failure, recording what you did and what the external factors were can help you understand what helps and what hinders you. For example, after running three minutes faster than my goal time at the Valpo Half Marathon, I wrote down everything that worked for me: what gels I took and when, that I ran a positive split race only because of a headwind in the final miles, what I wore, what I ate the night before, how I paced myself, and that I needed to work more on fast finishes. Without journaling, I could easily forget this information, but journaling leaves it there easy for me to access when I start preparing for my next race and next PR.

Journal Your Running

What to start journaling your running? All you need is a notebook or planner. There are also awesome journals specifically for athletes out there, such as the Believe Journal by Lauren Fleshman. I use a hardcover purple Moleskin journal that Ryan got me for Christmas last year. Pick what helps you create the habit; if a plain journal keeps you from feeling overwhelmed, stick with that, but if you are more likely to write in a pretty journal, then pick out a journal that inspires you.

Simply begin journaling wherever you are in your training. If you’re like most runners, you’re probably in off-season right now, which is a great time to start since recording your workouts can help keep you accountable during the colder months. I like to organize my journal by weeks, so that way it’s easy to record and review weekly mileage. Write down whatever you find important from your run; I like to record how far, my average pace, tempo and interval paces, if it was on the treadmill and why, what type of terrain, and how I felt. I also record any cross-training workouts. During training, I record the goals for a hard workout so I can see if I missed the mark or achieved what my plan called for.


Taking the time to journal your running can help you customize your training plan, track your progress, and set new goals! For how short of time it takes, it offers significant benefits to your running and racing.

Question of the Day:
Do you journal your running? What do you take note of?

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2 Responses

  1. I used to keep a running journal, but sometime around May or June while training for the SF Marathon it kind of fell off. I think it would be a good idea to start again in January when I begin training for an April 50 mile race; thanks for this great post, it really got me thinking about starting up the practice again.

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