Where Do You Keep Your Race Records?

Every year you do things as part of your athletic pursuits. You probably set goals. You pick races you will participate/compete in. You train day after day with your goals and your races in mind. You come up with a race plan that you may or may not follow come race day. You race.

After the medal is earned, you celebrate your success (hopefully), and you bring the medal home. But what happens to your "results"? Do you record your splits? Do you make notes about your race? Do you review what went right and what went wrong? Or will things be forgotten as time passes? Will you eventually forget the race entirely?

I keep my notes in this blog to keep a record of my races by writing a race report. I record what happened, what my splits and pacing were, how things felt, what my nutrition was, how my mental game played out, how I placed relative to people in my age group and in my gender and overall. It all goes into a race report. Some of my race reports are so detailed they border on the ridiculous. On the other hand, I have a record to refer back to. I have a tool I can use to help me improve when I race that distance again or race that exact race again. I also have something that gives me details that I can look back on just to enjoy and remember.

Where else do I keep a record? Besides this blog I also use a website called Athlinks. When you join Athlinks (free) you have a place where you can collect all your official race results. Once you go through the process of "claiming" your results through Athlinks, your race results become part of your record and profile. Races can come and go, as can their websites. The results tend to go with them and then they are lost. But if you pull those results into Athlinks then you have them regardless of whether or not a race is discontinued or is taken over by someone else or whatever. If you want to see what it's like, here is the link to my profile and results: http://www.athlinks.com/athletes/70171885.

Check it out - you might enjoyed having your races saved for you in this way.