Why the week matters more than the gala
I spent years treating galas like the whole story. Heat sheet, whistle, time on the board, then a week of “I think training is going grand.” It was not going grand. I just had no record of what I had actually done.
A log does not make you faster overnight. Olivier Poirier-Leroy at YourSwimLog puts it cleanly: tracking will not magic a PB. For the swimmer who is frustrated, it shows what improvement actually took.
That is the job. Not a diary of every 25. A short, honest account of the work — so the next time you stand behind the blocks you are not relying on a feeling from the car park. Parents: you do not need to become the statistician. The win is four lines after they dry off. The habit belongs to them.
What a log actually does
Poirier-Leroy’s argument, which matches every season I swam, is that past work blurs. You remember the heroic Thursday. You forget the Monday you sat out the main set. You tell yourself you “basically never miss.” Then you count the ticks and it is 11 from 16.
He calls attendance the metric swimmers always inflate. I did it. Everyone in my lane did it. A log is rude in a useful way: it shows the week you swam, not the week you meant to swim.
The second job is honesty about effort. A 10×100 @ 1:30 held on 1:18 is not the same set as 10×100 @ 1:30 where you hung on the last three. Both can be 1,000 metres in the book. Only the note tells you which one you did.
Start with two things: did I show up, and did I give the main set a real go. Everything else is extra.
The two-line log that lasts a seasonSwimSwam’s guide describes the loop I needed at 16: you see where you are consistent, you see the gaps, and the average day quietly gets better. Motivation is not a mood. It is a month of work you can point at.
Trackaswim treats a journal as context, not just the clock: sleep, stress, soreness, confidence, and what the session was for. That is the stuff you forget by Friday — and the stuff that explains why Thursday’s 8×50s felt like treacle.
Same metres, different weeks
Here is the trap I lived in for whole winters. I hit the kilometre total. I left tired. I assumed that meant I was training. A lot of those weeks were the same medium-hard pace, over and over.
Coaches have a name for it: the mushy middle. FORM’s team calls it living in the “middle zone” — not easy enough to build a real aerobic base, not hard enough to force race-day speed. You pay for the effort. You do not buy much fitness.
A log is how you see it. Two weeks can both say 24,000 metres. One is easy swimming, a proper threshold set, and a few fast 25s. The other is 24,000 metres of “that felt decent.” Same total. Completely different week.
Same weekly metres. Different stimulus. FORM (2025) describes the “middle zone”; the stacked split is an illustration, not a measured squad average. A kilometre-only log makes these weeks look identical.
You do not need heart-rate zones. After a main set, write one word: easy, solid, or proper hard. Do that for a fortnight and you will see whether every evening is “solid.” That is the mushy middle in a club T-shirt — and often the start of a stuck clock.
What to write in 60 seconds
The full template is what to write after practice. This page is why it is worth sixty seconds. SwimOutlet’s training-log guide is still the practical one: log while it is fresh, and the main set is the set that matters. Copy it off the whiteboard if you have to. I used to do it on a steamed-up phone, still dripping.
You are not writing a novel. You are leaving a trail.
| Field | 60-second version | Skip (for now) |
|---|---|---|
| Showed up? | Yes / late / left after warm-up | A speech about why |
| Main set | 10×100 free @ 1:30, held 1:16–1:18 | Every warm-up 50 |
| Pace / interval | Made the send-off; last three were a fight | Stroke rate on every repeat |
| Feel | Heavy legs, good catch. 7/10 effort | A full mood essay |
| Dryland | 20 min core + bands — or “skipped” | Every rep scheme |
| Sleep (last night) | ~6.5 hrs / wrecked | Hour-by-hour hypnogram |
YourSwimLog’s advice matches mine: start with attendance and effort. Add detail when the habit is boring. Boring is the point. The log that survives February is the short one.
Tue 12 Aug · evening · 25m · ~5,200m
Main set: 10×100 free @ 1:30. Held 1:16–1:18, then 1:19–1:21 on 6–10. Made every send-off.
Feel: 7/10. Catch grand; legs went on 7. Cue for Thursday: do not breathe into the flags on the last 25s.
Dryland: 15 min bands. Sleep: 7 hrs, two early alarms. Goal: still chasing 1:02.5 100 free SC — this set is the work.
If you only have time for one line, write the main set and a number out of ten. A messy log you keep beats a beautiful one you abandon after week two.
Paper, watch, or app
There is no prize for a leather notebook. There is a prize for a record you still have in March. Poirier-Leroy is fair: paper is unbeatable for feel and the comments a watch never asks. A watch is unbeatable for metres and splits.
I used both badly. The notebook lived in a damp bag. The watch told me I swam 4,800 metres and nothing about skipped fly kick. An app is the compromise I wanted when I built Finzy: the log on the phone already in your bag, with workouts, PBs, goals, dryland, and a weekly view you can scan. Watch apps, results boards, and a training log are different jobs — that comparison is best swimming apps 2026.
| Paper log | Swim watch | App | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best at | Feel, cues, “what I learned” | Distance, pace, automatic splits | A session you will actually complete on the bus home |
| Weak at | Totals, search, wet pages | Attendance, skipped dryland, why it felt awful | Whatever you refuse to type — keep the fields few |
| When it dies | You forget the notebook twice | You treat metres as the whole story | You turn it into a second job |
| Use it if | Writing helps you think | You already wear one for sets | You want the week in one place, including dryland |
If you already have a watch, keep it. Copy the main-set pace into a log that also holds attendance and feel. The combination is the point. The device is not.
Sleep, dryland, and the patterns you miss
Irish club life is early alarms, homework, and a 5:45am kick set nobody’s teachers care about. Sleep is part of the week, not a wellness extra.
In 2025, Lundstrom and colleagues tracked 26 NCAA Division I swimmers in a heavy block. Controlling for sex, sleep duration predicted how fast they swam a 200-yard trial — longer sleep, faster swim. Slow-wave sleep told a similar story, and more sleep went with lower strain for a given load. That is a peer-reviewed swimming sample, not a lifestyle brand.
A much smaller Stanford abstract (Mah and colleagues, SLEEP 2008 — five collegiate swimmers, so a hint, not a law) found that extending sleep toward ten hours came with a faster 15-metre sprint and quicker reactions off the blocks. I would not build a religion on n=5. I would still write last night’s hours next to the main set.
Hours, a 1–5 “how wrecked,” and whether it was a double-alarm week. Trackaswim’s list is the same idea: sleep, soreness, stress, then the session. Two weeks of that and bad Tuesdays stop being mysteries.
Dryland belongs in the same box. A 20-minute band session on Monday can be why Tuesday’s catch felt like sludge. If it is not in the log, you will blame the water. Write minutes and the flavour — core, bands, weights — not a lifting diary.
Parents: the useful question in the car is not “how was training?” It is “did you write the main set down?” and, once a week, “how many hours did you sleep?” You are supporting the habit. You are not coaching the set.
A Sunday 10-minute review
Daily logging is the capture. Sunday is the point. Ten minutes, phone on the table.
This is also how you talk to a coach without turning into one. You are not rewriting the programme. You arrive on Monday with facts: “I made 4 of 6. The 10×100s slipped from 1:16 to 1:21 when I slept six hours. I skipped dryland twice.” That is a conversation. “I feel like I’m in a slump” is a fog.
Swimming World’s piece on building a process is the idea I wish I had at 15: the season is small, checkable steps, and the log is how you see them. Finzy’s weekly view is built for this — metres, sessions, dryland, PBs, and whether you showed up — so the review is a scan, not an archaeology dig.
- 1Count sessions. How many planned? How many made? Late with a full main set still counts. Sitting out the quality set does not.
- 2Find the main-set thread. Same 8×100 or 10×50 appearing? Times holding, sliding, or only good on long-sleep nights?
- 3Colour the week. Too many “solid / mushy” days and not enough easy or proper hard? That is intensity mix, not talent.
- 4Stack sleep and dryland beside the water. Three short nights plus skipped bands is a reason, not a character flaw.
- 5Write one question for Monday. One. “Should I take more rest on the 100s when I’m on five hours?” beats a manifesto.
- 6Glance at the goal. Still the 100 free? If the week did not serve it, say so — then go swimming. Do not redesign the season at the table.
A log is evidence for a conversation, not a licence to rewrite sets. Your coach can see the squad. You can see your week. Bring the week.
If mid-season times look worse while the log looks like real work, that is often the plan, not a crisis. The log’s job is whether the work happened. The Saturday clock is a different exam.
Logging is a 60-second habit with a 10-minute Sunday. That is the whole method. The swimmers I knew who got quietly better were not the ones with fancy gadgets. They could tell you, without drama, what they did last week.
