The Official Guide to Rating Your Workouts and Races

Some of you who read my blog may be perplexed when I say things like, "I suck," or "my workout was pathetic."  Late last week I was thinking about how I rate myself, and what the full scale would look like so that I could just show it to others.  At first, I came up with this:

I posted it to Facebook, and got some comments, mostly from a guy named Sean, and we came up with some more refinements, and this is what we ended up with:

 

I really like this scale, because 0 corresponds to PATHETIC, and 10 corresponds to MASSIVE PR.  So now you know that when I say my performance was pathetic, that I can't really imagine doing any worse.  If I just sucked, well, it wasn't even OK, but it could have been even worse!

In my day to day training, my intent when executing a workout is to hit at least WELL.  WELL means I feel rested, not too much accumulated fatigue, and I can execute to specs for my current fitness level.  WELL is a 6 on the scale, and even though it's in the middle of the scale, it doesn't mean it's "average."  It's just that I have high standards, and do not adhere to scales where the middle is average.  To me, middle/average would be just OK.  Like I was able to do the workout, maybe I was tired going in, maybe I knew I was underfueled--typically an OK workout/race for me is one where I go in knowing it won't be a spectacular performance, I will get it done, I won't experience a setback by doing it, and I will be all right with my performance.

By comparison, I COULD DO BETTER, would mean that I felt better than on a day where I might just be able to do OK, was expecting to do NOT BAD or even WELL, but I just couldn't cut it.  Maybe I just didn't have my mental mojo dialed in.

Funny thing is that since I came up with this scale, I've been incorporating it into my workout notes.  I think this could serve as a subjective rating scale for Training Peaks!

This scale is pretty much how I think when I'm asked to do a self evaluation at work, and it always perplexes my manager, because to me, doing what I'm capable of doing and doing it well qualifies as WELL, and so on the scale of 1-5, I call that "3."  But I have learned that I should consider where I think I stand compared to others, and I am typically told I'm a 4 or a 5.  That's nice for work, but if every day in training I think I'm at the top of my scale, then what would motivate me to improve?  Nothing.  So I will stick with my 0-10 scale, where 6 is "meeting expectations," more than 6 is fucking fantastic, and less than 6 is not my best work!