A guest blog post by Lucia Thalman. Lucia is a long distance triathlete and product manager at  www.dacadoo.com

As an ambitious and passionate long distance triathlete, I train systematically. For the past two years, I have used a personally tailored training plan. This training plan is the result of a performance test I took for cycling and running. I complete 2 or 3 times a year with my trainer and coach, Olivier Bernhard. I communicate with my coach on a Web-based training platform, where I daily enter my personal feedback after each training session and my coach can have a look it at any time. My feedback includes: my thoughts and experiences on the exercise, duration, different intensities as well as my personal feelings. To improve in the triathlon category, it is essential to not always work out in the same intensity range and to incorporate different intervals into the training. This is why my training intensity and amount throughout the year is varied.

Self-tracking Monitors and Platforms

During my workouts I always wear a heart rate monitor as well as a watch. It is important for me to see how my heart rate changes in relation to the intensity and temperature over the course of the workout. In March 2012, when I started to work for Dacadoo, I began to track my workout data not only in my private training diary but also on the Dacadoo Health Platform.

I have downloaded the Dacadoo Tracker app for my iPhone and started using it to track my bike workouts. After a long bike ride, and right after I finished training with the tracker app, I can immediately check on the platform the detailed route I traveled, as well as the altitude and speed. Since I always ride the same training routes, I can make good comparisons between workouts and see if I have improved or perhaps even worsened.

In addition to my smartphone, I also use a Watt measuring device mounted on my bike. This provides me with speed and Watt Power information while I cycle. This is a secondary tracking I use and upload to the Dacadoo platform so I can have the best possible insight about my workout.

When I run I don’t like using my smartphone to track my running because I want to feel free when running, so I use my Suunto or Garmin running GPS watch to record my workouts. After the workout I can upload the data to the Dacadoo platform and then compare it with my recent workouts.

The Dacadoo Health platform provides an enormous number of different sports that can be tracked, this could motivate many people to try out different sporting activities and encourage them to stay motivated doing something for themselves and their health. This platform offers a simple way to track your sport and review all your recent trackings and analyses and compare with friends, which again, is interesting and appealing for many athletes.