A training log is a private rulebook. It only works if the numbers you drop into it keep the labels the public rulebook used. This guide is about those labels. It is not a session library, not a heart-rate table, and not medical or coaching advice. If you want a plan, hire a coach. If you want to know whether yesterday’s number is the number you think it is, stay here.
The only number that travels
When you copy a time from a meeting into a spreadsheet, copy the published official result and the session name. Not the live board. Not your watch. Not a friend’s broadcast delay.
Why: Motorsport Australia keeps timing results unpublished until the Secretary of the Event releases them. Athletics still wants a torso order even when a transponder fired first. Cycling commissaires can relegate a rider who “won” a graphic. A logbook that ignores those steps will congratulate you for a world that the officials later withdrew.
If the official result is not up yet, write “provisional” in the same cell as the number. The word is the training.
Label every clock
Create columns. The names below are boring on purpose.
- Gun / race clock — zero as the regulations defined it.
- Chip / personal start — when your transponder crossed the first mat or loop, if that is even recorded.
- Finish instrument — photo finish, beam, loop, hand.
- Place rule — torso, car, bike.
- Session type — practice, qualifying, heat, final, seeding run, time trial.
- Layout / course — named as the organiser named it.
- Status — live, provisional, official.
If a column is empty, the row is a sketch. Sketches are allowed. They are not PBs.
Running: do not launder a split
Road runners get three tempting fakes.
Start-mat chip time in a packed field is a measure of how long you stood in a pen. Useful for knowing your personal work. Illegal as a substitute for a championship gun performance unless the event’s own instructions say that column ranks you.
Mid-race splits are training gold when the course is certified and the mat is where the organiser said. They are not automatically a world-athletics-legal 5 kilometre. Rule 19 still cares about the start synch and the meeting licence.
Watch pace is a coaching tool. It is not a photo finish. If you train exclusively on watch pace, you will be surprised by a legal FAT time, because FAT is stricter at the start and more honest at the line.
Stadium runners have a cleaner job. If the meeting used fully automatic timing, log the FAT time and the wind reading the officials published. If it was hand timed, log it as hand timed. Mixing the two in one “best 200” column is how club records become folklore.
World Athletics’ ungenerous rounding — next tenth, next second — should survive in your log. A 2:01.01 hand time that becomes 2:01.1 is not you getting slower. It is you obeying the same rule the referee used.
Motorsport: session type is the workout
A practice lap on a warm track with no qualifying pressure is not a qualifying lap. A qualifying lap is not a race lap. A race lap under a safety car is not a race lap. If you plot them on one sparkline you will invent a decline or a breakthrough that the sport did not record.
Use the control-line definition from the motorsport hub. Your data logger’s “start/finish” GPS point is almost never the licensed control line. Aligning them is a professional motorsport job. For club drivers, the official sheet is the only number that should enter a season review.
If you test at a track day, label the row “unofficial / no permit racing.” Fast is still fast. It is not a result.
Cycling: seeding, TT, and the head unit
Downhill seeding times and time-trial results are official when the technical guide’s system and the commissaires say so. Your head unit will disagree by a second on a forty-minute TT because it zeroed on a satellite, not the gate. Log both if you must. Put the official one in the “performance” column.
Criterium placements are often decided in a bunch where the chip order is a hint. If you were relegated, log the relegation. Training on the graphic that made you feel better is how the same sprint mistake repeats.
AusCycling’s identical-device rule is also a training reminder: the issued transponder is part of the race kit. Practising with a different housing on a different part of the bike is practising a different detection moment.
Weather and the honest asterisk
A time taken in a tailwind, on a cooling track, or in a shortened race is still a time. It is not comparable to a time taken in the opposite weather. The Bureau of Meteorology archive and the meeting bulletin are how you annotate the row. You do not need a number from us. You need a habit: conditions go in the same cell.
The old racetime.com.au sidebar that pointed at BOM state pages was, in this one respect, already doing training literacy. We kept the habit and dropped the scrape.
What never enters the log from this website
We will not give you:
- target paces
- heart-rate zones
- “average” club times
- a ranking of talent
- a plan for juniors
- medical recovery advice
Those would be invented statistics or professional advice. The footer disclaimer is not decoration. Content here is general information.
A weekly review that stays honest
- Import only official published files or your own clearly labelled sketches.
- Split the week by session type, not by a single vanity best.
- Write one sentence about the instrument: “FAT with wind +1.2, official” beats “felt quick.”
- If a result later changes, edit the cell. Do not keep the flattering ghost.
- If you cannot name the regulation book, you are not ready to call the number a performance.
Worked log rows (invented people, not invented events)
These rows are templates. They do not claim a real meeting happened.
2026-xx-xx | road 10 km | gun official 34:01 | chip personal 33:48 | status official | note: WA whole-second column; chip labelled personal only2026-xx-xx | circuit qualifying | best 1:12.xxx | layout as named in header | status provisional until Secretary file2026-xx-xx | MTB DH seed | official plate-chip time from guide | head unit +0.8 unofficial | plate returned
The xxx is deliberate. This site will not invent a tenth and call it pedagogy. The shape of the row is the lesson.
If you cannot fill the status column, you are not looking at a performance yet. Go do something else with the afternoon. The number will still be there when the officials publish, or it will have changed, which is information you needed anyway.
Junior and novice notes without a program
Younger competitors get the same clocks and more pressure to confuse a graphic with a trophy. The only extra sentence this guide will offer is: the label still comes first. A junior practice lap is still practice. A first fun-run chip column is still only official if the event’s instructions say so. No session library follows. No “age-grade” table follows — that would be an invented statistic.
If a parent wants a plan, they want a coach. If they want to know whether the app is the referee, they already have the answer: it is not.
Where this sits on the map
Read race timing explained if the instrument is still fuzzy. Read the calendar guide if you are about to enter something and have not downloaded the supp regs. Read the sport hubs if you need the code-specific official. Then come back and label the row.
The point of a strict log is kindness. You cannot beat a time you never actually ran, drove or rode. You can beat the next one that the officials are willing to sign.
After a bad number
A signed time you dislike is still the time. The useful training move is to keep the label and write one sentence about the instrument and the conditions, then stop negotiating with the cell. If the number later changes because a protest succeeded, edit it. If it does not change, the official world has spoken and your log should not keep a private appeal.
This is general information, not sport psychology. It is also how you avoid teaching yourself that only flattering clocks are real.
Equipment in the log, without a shopping list
Note the instrument, not a preferred shop. “FAT, official” is a log entry. “Bought brand X because a forum said it was two tenths better” is an invented ranking plus a receipt. If a supplementary regulation named a transponder model, you may record that you complied. You may not turn compliance into a review.
The same rule applies to watches, head units and data loggers. They are sketches unless the meeting’s officials used them. Label them sketches. Sleep better.