It seems I can not stress enough the importance of keeping subjective details in the post workout comment section in training peaks.

Despite me outlining the important details to include, rate of perceived effort, sleep amount and quality, to name a few, an athlete either forgets or does not understand the value of the comments I am looking for

When an athlete notes subjective details such as amount of sleep, quality of sleep, work or family stress or any aches and pains, these “measures” allow me to understand their mental and physical state while managing the training session. Athlete feedback provides more constructive details when analyzing the data. Noting in the post activity comment section in training peaks after your run, that you got your dog a new leash is useless unless you further comment how the run went with your dog on a new leash.

Many athletes without experience don’t know what they don’t know, so allow to educate them and communicating via a training log is important. 

When I coach an athlete, I am coaching a person, not a Garmin or other GPS/HR monitor device. I always look at athletes comments first before the data download that training peaks use to calculate training stress score, TSS, which measures training load, volume plus intensityAlong with the downloaded data, it is important to log subjective details such as your RPE (Rate of Perceived Effort), how you felt, training location, how much sleep or how rested or not rested you felt.

An athlete who keeps detailed, consistent notes gives me the ability to provide them a higher level of service and customization.

Here’s why logging is important:

“If you deviate significantly from the plan your coach gives you, the second something goes wrong, you’re in trouble. There’s no roadmap to look back on, no way to find where the wrong turn occurred. If you stuck to the plan and logged it and it failed, course correcting is much easier.” For your own accountably, if you track your progress, you can look back to see how far you have come, instead of looking ahead to how far you have to go. It is also a way to pinpoint something that may have influenced an illness or injury.

1. It gives you a record of how you feel and perform during each workout. These two things can be difficult to remember on an ongoing basis. Who can remember exactly about your energy levels during their run one week ago? The weather, your sleep hygiene and nutrition before during and after, how you felt, good or bad, RPE? Being aware of  these things and being able to adjust your routine accordingly is extremely important in progressing towards your fitness goals.
2.  You can see the progress you’re making (or the lack thereof). Having a diary of your past performances, how you felt in a certain workout, how you coped with a certain nutrition program, dehydration—is valuable.
3. Training RPE, heart rate, power and pace data are all used to measure fitness and all the things mentioned already impact these varible. It’s gratifying to to see a lower RPE at a heart rate when at that heart your your RPE used to be high.  Or comparing RPE from one race to another when the data is exactly the same. 
4. It gives you an extra degree of accountability, especially for those that are self coached with the training plan as their guide.  If your are having to write down your workout, your probably less likely to miss it or put in a sub-par effort.