You may quickly access the area you want to visit with these links:
System Requirments
Start Window
Entering and deleting data
Adding workout types
Adding Shoes
Statistics and graphing
About the software, check for updates, email support
1) Enter Workouts: Click this button to add, delete or edit workout data.
2) Statistics / Graphs: Click this button to view statistics and graphs of your previously entered workouts. You may also print your workouts from here. Also keep this software free by clicking on an ad once in a while at the bottom of the window.
3) Help: Click this button to view this help page. This help page is also accessible by clicking F1 anywhere while PCRunLog is running and through the Start Menu/Programs/AKCOMPLISH PCRunLog/Help icon. It is referenced online at http://www.akcomplish.com/pcrunlog/help.htm
4) About: Click this button to check for updates and find out how to reach support.
5) Quit: Quits the software.
Adding a new workout:
1) Date: Click on a date in the calendar for the workout. You can use the arrow buttons to go to a different month and year.
2) Type: Choose a type of workout by selecting an item from the list. This list of workout types is created by you by clicking the Add / Edit types button. (Details below). This list contains a mixture of all your chosen types of the three supported workout types: Running, Aerobic non-Running and Anaerobic types.
3) Laps (Optional)
If you wish to enter laps/sets/reps for your workout click the check box. A new
window Laps/Sets/Reps will pop up.
3
a) (Running/Aerobic) For each lap you can select distance, duration and
repetitions, and rest between laps. For example if you did 8 x 400m in 70s with
full rest between laps, you will choose Distance 400m, hh:mm:ss.ms 00:00:70 or
00:01:10, how many times 8, and Complete stop-unlimited time and click Add.
Another example is if you did a ladder type of workout eg. 400m in 70s, then 800m in 150s and 1600m in 7 mins then you will add each lap separately with howmany times= 1 and choose the rest inbetween laps (this is optional). Also you should know that you can enter either or both distance and duration for each lap.
After you have entered a lap select Add, and continue
until all laps are entered. Finally select Done. You can remove laps by
selecting it in the list and clicking the delete key.
About resting between laps. (Note: this field is optional.)
i) Complete stop-unlimited time means you came to rest but you did not keep track of how long you rested before you started your next lap.
ii) Complete stop-limited time means you rested for a duration which is fixed then started your next lap. You can enter this duration in the area which says "Type in the value then select the appropriate unit"
iii) Complete stop- heart rate. You stopped and kept checking your pulse, either with a heart rate monitor or your fingers and a stopwatch. When your heart rate reached this value you resumed you next lap. You can enter this value in the location "Type in the value then select the appropriate unit".
iv) Slow down entries- Similar to stop entries except you kept moving but with less intensity, eg. you "jogged" or "walked" between laps. Time means you maintained the reduced intensity for a certain period, distance denotes how far you went before resuming you hard lap, and heart rate is your goal heart rate. You can enter any of these in the location "Type in the value then select the appropriate unit".
v) Note: If you did hard-easy type of laps eg. 400m fast then 200m slow, you can enter them as separate laps, or as a 400m lap with slow down-distance with 200m.
3b) Very similar to running laps, Anaerobic only differ in the units (kg, lbs) denoting weight. Reps is how many times you lifted the particular weight, and sets is how many times you did these reps. The rest between reps is similar to running described above, and is optional.
Returning to the enter screen after entering laps.The software displays the laps in the listbox and sums up the distance and duration values and sets them in the appropriate locations. You can change the values in the Distance and Duration values to something else if you wish, it won't affect the Laps entries.
For weight entries, instead of distance the box denotes the weight which is the total weight from the sets. This value can be changed without affecting the sets values.
If you want to change or delete a lap, you can click the check box again and the screen for laps is displayed.
4) Distance/Weight (Optional) Enter
a distance/weight. You type in the numerical value representing the distance
(or weight) and select the units from the list. For example, enter 5 and select
miles or kilometers, or enter 10000 and select meters. You may enter decimal
numbers, eg. 6.2 or 5.55 etc. If you enter other non-numerical charters such as
"abc,!@" etc. and try to add to the database it will report an error. After
entering a distance value select the appropriate unit from the list.
The possible choices are miles, kilometers, meters, yards and feet.
5) Duration (Optional) Enter the duration of the workout. The
format must be in hh : mm : ss. If you ran for 45 minutes and 30 seconds you
would enter 00 : 45 : 30 . An easy way to enter a value is by selecting the 00
with the mouse and then type in the value which will overwrite it eg: 
becomes 
If you ran 60 mins or more, eg. 77 mins, you may enter 00 : 77 : 00. It will display in the workout list as 00 : 77 : 00. Later on, (if you click return, and then come back to this screen) it will show 01 : 17 : 00 for 77 mins and 1 : 00 : 00 for 60 mins etc. This will save you from doing some math in your head (and maybe entering incorrect values) if you are used to recording your workouts this way. Note: The same rule applies to seconds: if you enter 3600 seconds, it will show up later as 01 : 00 : 00
The reason 4 and 5 are optional is that some people like to record
their workouts in distance and others in duration, while some do both. If
you enter neither, the software will prompt you with 
this
messagebox.
If you click No it will take you back to the enter screen where you can enter the values, but if you click Yes it will record the workout without distance and duration values. Some people don't record either values so the software must handle this scenario, and it does.
6) Custom fields: (Optional) You may enter values of your own custom fields related to the workout, eg. calories burned, steps taken, max or average heart rate, your bodyweight etc. Click on your custom field, type the value in the text box and click "Assign". It will "set" the field with the value for eg. Calories=1000. To reset the assignment click "Reset".
To add a new or edit a custom field click "New/Edit". The Custom Fields screen is displayed. Enter a field (left are examples) and click Add, or Remove to take it out. Then click Done.
7) Shoe tracking: Generally speaking, running shoes lose their support after 500miles. It could be more or less depending on if you are heavy or light, if you run on asphalt or a trail or other factors. In any case, many runners like to keep track of the mileage on their shoes. Just click on the shoe you wore for this workout, or leave it alone if you dont want to assign this workout to amy shoe. Clicking the Add/Remove Shoes button allows you to enter and remove shoes (details below). To see the mileage you must check in the Statistics page (details below).
8) Comments field: This is where you enter your thoughts, notes details etc. of the workout. You may enter multiple lines of information and go to the next line by clicking the enter\return key. If you keep typing on a line and reach the end, it will wrap and move to the next line. There is no limit to the amount of information you can add.
AutoFill: If this is checked then as you type your comments if the first few
characters were already associated with a previously entered workout a window
will pop up containing all matching strings already used before. You can click
the correct one and it will copy all the text for you. This will save you from
typing the same string over and over. If you want to disable this feature click
AutoFill checkbox so that it is not checked.
9) Add Button:
When you are done entering the values for the workout, click on the Add button,
it will add the workout to the database and reset the screen values so you can
enter another workout. The workout will appear in the "previously entered
workouts list" below.
Previously entered workouts list
This list displays workouts entered previously. If you scroll to the right you can also see all the fields entered, as shown below:
Sorting of the data in the list: The default is to display the entries in ascending order of date (except the newly added entries which show up at the top). You may sort by the various entry types in ascending or descending order by clicking the appropriate column header once or twice respectively.
Editing or Deleting a workout from your list:
Click on an item to edit or delete. It will be selected
as
shown. Note that the Edit and Delete buttons on the right are enabled now.
Edit: Select
one of the workout entries and you will see the Edit button is enabled.
Clicking it will copy the values from the entry into the appropriate
locations on the screen. You can change any or all of the values. Click
Add/Update when finished, the old entry is replaced with the new one.
Clicking on the Add / Edit type button or being prompted to add types if your workout type list is empty will bring up the Add New Workout types screen.
There are two lists, the "Suggested" types and the "Preferred" types. There is also an Add Custom Type section where you can add your personalized workout type.
The suggested list contains entries that may or may not be useful to you. If there is an entry you find useful, double click on it and it will be added to the preferred list.
The preferred list contains types you wish to use. If you don't want an entry in there anymore, you can select the entry and click the "Delete" key on your keyboard to remove it. You can also double click the entry with your mouse to delete it.
The Add Custom Type section is where you can enter a custom name and type.
There are two aspects of a workout type, its name and its type. The name can be any string that identifies the workout. The type must be one of three choices: Running/Jogging, Aerobic Non-Running and Anaerobic.
Running and aerobic non-running are kept separate for statistical purposes, although distance running is usually an aerobic workout. For example, you run 10km three times a week and swim in the pool for 1km. If these were all of the same type i.e. "aerobic workout" then if you wanted to see your average, the average would be misleading: (10 + 10 + 10 + 1) / 4 = 7.75 km. You would look at the number 7.75km and wonder "Wow! 7.75km is a pretty long swim but the software says its my average distance." But the fact is that your run average is really 10km, and your swim average is 1km. By separating the running with the non-running, the various distances dont mess each other up.
Similarly you can add anaerobic workouts, but adding distance or duration to them will not clash with the other two types.
Here is a brief explanation of suggested types, if you want to use them:
Normal/Regular: It is the workout that you do most frequently. It is also called the "base" workout. In terms of difficulty it is not a difficult workout, nor is it easy, it is medium intensity. This is what keeps you fit and maintains your strength. Doing it does not make you faster, but it prevents you from getting weaker and slower. Usually you won't proceed to speedwork or hard workouts without a good base, or you risk injury.
Speedwork: All encompassing term for running fast.
Repeats/Intervals: Speedwork in which you run fast for some fixed distance or duration eg. a lap around a 400m track. Generally these two are the same thing, but some people differentiate between them by the amount of rest between the speedwork sessions. In repeats you come to full rest (stop, stand, bend over, lie down, walk around) after a lap. You then lower your heart rate and catch your breath before doing it again. In intervals you jog between workouts, or you rest for a fixed time like 30s or whatever. The idea is you don't let your heart rate decrease too much, so that you are sort of tired before you do the next lap.
Fartlek: A Swedish term which roughly translates to speedwork. It's usually unstructured. For example you are running along and suddenly run fast for some unspecified distance or time, until you reach the corner of the street, or until you are breathing hard, or until you manage to catch the guy who jogged by you a mile back, (and when you catch him he then promptly speeds up). Another way of looking at it is unplanned surging during a normal run.
Recovery / Easy: Recovery is done a day or two after a tough workout which has left you sore. It's slower or shorter than a normal workout, and you may take walking and stretching breaks. Doing one of these usually helps you recover faster.
An easy workout is slower or shorter than what you usually do, and may not have any relationship to a previously hard workout. Perhaps you were running with a partner who is slower than you, or you want to go easy before a race or some other reason, easy workouts are also good for logging miles but not taxing you.
Tempo / Lactate threshold: These two terms are the same. Faster than a normal workout, but not fast like speedwork, its generally the pace you would run a 10k race in. Aerobic running uses mostly blood oxygen for fuel, anaerobic mostly blood sugar (which the body breaks down for the oxygen). If you start jogging and keep quickening your pace, at some speed the body will determine that it needs to switch from oxygen from the blood to oxygen from sugar. The pace just before this happens is your lactacte threshold pace, (so you are not anaerobic but a close to it). Sugar conversion produces lactic acid, which is where the term lactate comes from. You can run aerobically (very comfortable) or anaerobically (very uncomfortable), but lactate threshold is medium to quite difficult. Its fast enough that you need to concentrate to stay at this speed, usually a 5k or a 10k speed, i.e. the speed you would go at in one of these races.
Long: A long run is longer than a normal run, and long enough that it leaves you sore. If you can comfortably run for 45 minutes, than a long run could be an hour or more. For marathoners, a long run may be 90 minutes or more. If you are a new runner and can only run a mile, a long run may be 1.5 miles. It's all relative to your fitness and what you usually do.
Hills: Maybe where you already workout is on hilly terrain, so you don't need a specific hill workout. For those people who normally run flat workouts, a hill workout is a great strengthening run and is usually pretty tough. You can either pick a hill and keep running up and down it (with or without rest in between) or run over hilly terrain.
Race: This could be any distance, 100m up to a marathon and beyond. Whatever the distance, usually you run so hard that you are sore the next day.
Non running workouts: Examples include biking, swimming, stair machine, weight lifting. You can use the Add Custom to get specific.
Clicking the Add Shoe button will bring up the Add/Remove shoes screen.
In the Add/Remove shoes type in the name of the shoe click Active and then Add. To change the name, or to retire the shoe, click it in the list so it shows up in the appropriates fields, then change as appropriate and click Update. You can also click a shoe and "delete" it by clicking the delete key. Only do this if you messed up when adding this shoe (if you typed the name wrong you can type the correct name and click Update). If you have workouts associated with this shoe, do not delete it instead "Retire" it. Then it remains in your database associated with the workouts, otherwise deleted shoes cannot be seen in the Statistics screen in order to see the mileage on them. Retired shoes do not show up in the Enter screen, but they are in the database so you can still see the mileage associated with retired shoes in the Statistics screen.
The statistics / Graph page has 3 clickable lists: "Type" "Year" and "Month". Initially when the page loads, "All-Running" is selected by default for Types, Year and Months repectively. All-Running for All Years and All Months means all the running workouts in the database are generating the statistics shown. The number of distance entries, duration entries, largest, smallest and average are displayed. These statistics will change as different entries are selected in the Types, Year and Months list. Clicking a list will change the values on the fly (immediately). For example:
To view all the running entries click All in each of the lists
To view all the running entries and stats in 2005, click All-Running, 2005, and All (Months)
To view all the running entries and stats in 2005 May, click All-Running, 2005, and May
To view all the races you ran in June in all the years click Race, All (Years) and June.
To view all the Speedwork entries is August for all years, click Speedwork, All (Years) and August.
The stats on the right will be recomputed automatically and displayed and the details of the workouts will be redrawn in the detailed list below.
Print
button : Prints
the detailed list from your default printer.
Shoe Tracker: Computes distance and duration for all the shoes that are active or retired in the database. It will calculate it based on the selections in the lists. (So if you selected June 2005 and hills, it will show the miles you ran in this combination)
Search button . Type in a string and click the Search button. Of the entries displayed the string will be searched from all the comments in the entries and displayed, and new stats will be calculated. Blank out the search string and click on the lists (Type/Year/Month) to regenerate the original lists. An example of searching for "senses" is shown below.
Custom value dropdown:
When you click the drop down list, all custom values found within the
entries are shown. Select one of them and its stats are calculated and displayed.
Bodyweight is shown as an example here.
Graph
button. You can
visualize your distance and duration workouts in bar graph format by clicking
the Graph button. The data graphed will be the data associated with whatever is
selected in the three lists.
The graph contains a dropdown list containing duration, distance, and all custom values. Selecting any will redraw the graph with the appropriate data. Reference lines are drawn in blue and the average value is drawn in red. (No reference line is drawn which is larger than your max value).
For distance values reference lines are drawn at 26.2, 13.1, 10, 5, 2, 1 miles alse 10km and 5km.
For duration values reference lines are drawn at 3hrs, 2hrs, 90, 60, 50, 45, 40, 30, 20 & 10 mins.
Note: A reference line will be drawn only if your longest workout is greater than that reference value, for example if your longest run is 5 miles, 10k and higher will not get drawn. Similar logic applies for duration.For custom values reference lines are drawn at 75% and 50% of the maximum values.
If the number of entries exceeds the width of the page, a scroll bar will appear below.
Ad Supported: At the botton of the screen PCRunLog will display ads. Please click on an ad once in a while in order to keep PCRunLog free. Whether you actually buy or not is up to you, but clicking on the ad helps. PCRunLog does not do pop up windows for ads, and it would be great if we could keep it that way, so please click on an ad now and then.
The about screen lets you get patches (with bug fixes, features etc) and tells you the current version.
The Check for Updates button will go onto the internet and check the website for patches. If there is a patch, you will be presented with a message asking you if you want to download it or not. It is a good idea to download the patch and update your software, it will contain bug fixes and new features. Please update the software if a patch is available, it will contain bug fixes and enhancements.
To email support, send a message to support@akcomplish.com. The
version is displayed in the Version Text Box (shown here as 1.3.0). If you install a patch, this value will change. So
if you do email support, please mention the version. PCRunLog software, the logos and
help are copyrighted 2005-2010 by 