Confessions of a Data-aholic

Shortly after I started training for my first long distance bike ride I read somewhere that it’s a good thing to keep a training journal. Not that I do everything that I read but on this occasion I built a spreadsheet to track how many miles I rode each day. Over the years this spreadsheet has morphed into quite the prodigious work of bike nerd art. This spreadsheet has got sections for weekly goals, notes on how each ride went, drop down menus for each type of workout and it even turns different colors when I achieve a goal all on its own. In some strange way it gives me a sense of satisfaction to fill out my training spreadsheet the morning after I ride. It’s like a nice pat on the back if I’m doing well or a kick in the rear if I’m slacking off.

Occasionally I’ve also tracked my weight on this spreadsheet when I’ve gone on one too many donut benders to give myself a little accountability. You would think that this would be simple since all you have to do is weigh yourself once a week and enter a number but it’s not so easy at our house. You see, until a couple of weeks ago we had an ultra low tech scale that we got on sale at a grocery store. You know, the kind that you had as a kid with the spinning dial. This scale was great. If you weighed yourself first thing in the morning and you didn’t like your weight all you had to do was get back on again. Chances are your weight would be different every time you weighed yourself. If you have weight integrity (which I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like this) you would average your weight over 5 or 6 weighings before claming your weight for the week. On the other hand if you didn’t like your weight, all you had to do is keep weighing yourself until you get to the number that you like. Of course there was only about 3 pounds of variation but hey, 3 pounds is 3 pounds.

The other day Jenny came home from the store and she had a new weight scale in her possession. I’m pretty sure this is the same scale that Bill Gates uses because the amount of data that it spits back to you is out of control. Not only does it give you a consistent weight reading (every time) but it also tells you how many pounds of fat your carting around, your body fat %, your BMI (I think this stands for Bike Muscle Index), and your hydration %. Aside from not being able to get the scale to lie anymore this scale is super cool.

This has left me wondering what the heck I’m going to do with all of this data. Do I really need to keep track of all of this data? I’m really trying hard to not add all of it to my training spreadsheet but this is like putting a beer in front of an alcoholic. As of right now it’s not on my spreadsheet but I don’t know how long that will last. Someone talk me off of the ledge.