I have had quite the journey in my personal assignment where I tried to answer the question “How can you display running data in Excel”. Through this journey there has been lots of ups and downs, progress and most importantly learning. I am going to recap my four progress posts, my thought process on why I chose to go with certain ideas while scrapping others and of course how my learning grew as I progressed through the assignment!
For my first post… I started using what I already knew from my Statistics and Macro Economics labs, experimented with excel and used the built in help system to make a chart for my marathon prep. With this, I learned a variety of skills specifically around basic movement around excel. Expanding columns and rows, dragging patterns, copying and moving material, which were all simple uses of excel but necessary for building a base that allowed me to improve on my abilities with navigating excel. My table includes Days Out From Marathon, Type of Training Day, Kilometers Expected, Actual Kilometers Ran, Time (min, sec), Average Pace (min/km), Average Heart rate (BPM), Observed Difficulty (1-10), Positive Takeaway and Something to Improve On. This table is useful as it compares all my runs throughout my training which made it easy to track improvements in pace, mileage, mentality and more as I progress towards my goals.
While this table was useful in conveying data and I still update it to this day, it was just a starting point for me to build off. This table was effective in building my basic skills for navigating skills on excel but involves a lot of manual input which kind of defeats the purpose of Excel which is supposed to be quick and simple in displaying data. However this raised the question for me on how I can find a way to compare running statistics in Excel in a way that doesn’t involve a lot of manual input. At this point I learned Garmin data uses CSV files which can be exported into Excel and I was inspired to eventually work towards using that to create a display which later became my projects focus point.
For my second post… I took an Excel workshop from the UVic Library to build up my Excel skills to a point in which I could create my own original charts. This course was where I had the most structured learning throughout the assignment as I was following material and going through modules but even then I was doing my own hands on learning to match what the workshop was asking me to do. The course was actually really easy to follow and included videos, instructions and went over both beginner and advanced techniques, charts and functions for excel which I found very useful. Honestly the only challenge that came to me from this course was thinking of ways to apply this to my running as its not something you typically track in Excel but that also excited me as it gave me an opportunity to really brainstorm on how to create something myself which in a world with so many things already done by other people is a fun unique experience.
To recap what I learned from the course, I made a quick chart on excel that recapped my mileage over the past 3 weeks which showed my progress in mileage. While this was simple and didn’t hold much use as most running tracking platforms such as Strava already do this for you, it was a step in the right direction for me as it was my first time creating a graph with running data in Excel. I also made a weekly recap chart which honestly didn’t turn out great but it made me realise that a pivot into a different direction might be the best idea if I want to create something useful and easy to follow.
For Post 3… I finally took my idea of exporting Garmin data into Excel and put it to practice using a 7 Kilometere recovery run. The data exported into Excel fairly easy with headers already included with data points falling beneath them. At this point my goal was to find a way to make a way to compare all points of data as at this point the data was spread out and hard to follow. There were also some points of data that were not very useful. While I showed which pieces of data were useful in the post, I didn’t show the work I was putting in behind the scene which was a ton of trial and error learning where I kept trying different chart ideas which kept not working. Originally, I wanted a chart that would display all info but quickly realised that was unrealistic as there was too much data with different units of measurement making it impossible to compare them all at once. So next I moved to trying to find a way in which you could pick any pieces of data and compare to see how they relate as well as change between runs. I wanted a way that would be useful for not just a couple data pieces but all stats as that way it is worth transporting your Garmin data into Excel.
While I worked towards that goal I was also learning how to use Garmin which might not be my main project but was very useful for me. Before this project I was honestly really bad with using Garmin. I had my Garmin set to the American system for units of measurement which meant I was changing units in Excel as I only know how to read the Imperial system effectively. I also had my settings as a 5″5, 135 lbs female while I am a 6’1″ 165lbs male which was messing up a lot of my statistics. Also, on that run my heart rate data didn’t seem valid to me which I said I would address in my next post. For my next post I ended up wanting it independent to the rest of my work so I wanted to address it here. The data is accurate as far as I can tell I was just very fatigued as I upped my mileage from 60km to 80km that week and I later realised the toll it had taken on me.
In Post 4... all my work came together. I scrapped all my ideas of wanting to document my training in a vlog style format (which my friend Eden actually ended up doing for me which you can watch at Eden’s Blog) and went all in on making a chart that accomplished my goals of being easy to read and effective as well as versatile in displaying data. For the longest time I was so sure that I would have to make some kind of combo chart where you can use multiple units due to there being 2 axis’s but I realised that this is limited as it would work for some data but not others so after enough failure I decided to pivot and look for a new better option. Not long after this I discovered bubble charts which can compare three different units of data. These charts worked for nearly every combination of data I tried and effectively summarize a run using whichever data you want to focus on. On top of this I realized that you could compare more then one run at a time in these charts so I tried that and it worked as well. At this point I was confident that I would move forward with these chart’s. While in the process of making these charts a step was to transpose data and flip which axis certain data was on. I noticed that when flipped, the Garmin data was a lot more visually pleasing and sort of accomplished my earlier discarded goal of having an easy read chart that displays all the Garmin data. With all the success I had found in these charts I knew I wanted to make a tutorial so others could follow in my foot steps.
Making the post itself, I decided to do it in a style in which it was independent to my other progress posts, that way if someone ever googles for a way to use Garmin data in excel, they can find my post and follow it without having to be caught up on my blog. So I did just that, I made 2 tutorials that explained how to make bubble charts one for summary of a single run and the other for comparing more than one run. I did my best to make this tutorial easy to follow and effective in explaining how to handle the setbacks that I encountered when designing the charts. I found the final product to be by far my biggest success as it took the skills I had learned covered throughout each post and brought them together to make a final product in which my work won’t be forgotten and actually serves meeting. I even learned from teaching others as it made me think of the process in a different perspective which allowed for me to pick up on details I may have otherwise missed.
My biggest takeaways was… that there are so many ways to learn. Throughout the assingment I underwent structured learning through the workshop and the knowledge I had from other courses, active learning from building my own work and learning from failure which was taking my mistakes, failed attempts and using it as feedback. You learn so much more from failure then successs! While I did meet my goal in the end, I didn’t actually learn anything from acomplishing it. I learned in working towards, failing and coming closer to my goal. I took so many pivots which I now realise are part of the learning process. Honestly there is no single right or best way to learn, it depends on the person and for most including myself it is probably a combination. I think that is why for me I honestly retained way more knowledge in this course then any other course this semester and when I say that I am not just talking about excel. I learned about Garmin, using WordPress, design and so many other fields that were not Excel. For example my blog posts still could be better looking but compared to my first they have came such a long way in design. While I definitely learned the most about Excel, I retained knowledge in so many fields which shows how learning one thing is more impactful than it seems. I also know that moving forward with my Commerce degree I will be ahead of my peers with Excel use despite targeting my project on my passion for running rather then something Business related. That is because I also realised knowledge is versatile and is not specific to any field.
I honestly am so thrilled with how much I learned even about learning itself and hope you enjoyed reading these blogs as much as I did making them. Check out any of my blog posts to see the examples of my posts I am referring to in this post. This could very well be my last post but if I end up having some spare time over the summer or later through my life I would like to return whether its to talk about running or something else I am passionate about.
Thanks for making it all the way to the end it means so much to me!!!!
Leave a Reply