I know plenty of endurance athletes that stay fit. They do regular workouts and are settled into some type of routine.They log workout data and race data.

This practice is not self-coaching, this is data logging.

The data-logging athlete will sometimes have a good season of racing. It is also not unusual for this athlete to be ill or injured from doing too much volume and/or intensity – mostly because this person enjoys training and perhaps racing. Once he or she is on the road to recovery from an illness or injury, most probably this person will not take the time to rebuild fitness properly. They jump right back to the long swims, rides or runs and the high intensities that their egos enjoy so much.

In contrast, the self-coached athlete takes the time to plan workouts that are intended to address fitness limiters. Planning workouts that build on one another, and current fitness, help this athlete achieve higher and higher levels of fitness. Improving fitness limiters helps self-coached athletes achieve racing goals. 

If the self-coached athlete has a setback, he or she takes the time to rebuild lost fitness before ramping the volume or intensity back up to levels that were common prior the setback. They are very rarely in a repeating cycle that includes illness or injury.

Do you know any data loggers that think they are self-coached?

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