Where spreadsheets work well
- Cost: free with tools most schools already have.
- Flexibility: you can track anything, in any layout, with your own formulas.
- Familiarity: no learning curve, and easy to share a link with staff.
- Small groups: for one coach and a handful of athletes, a sheet may be all you need.
Where they start to slow coaches down
- Individual targets: pace formulas break when someone sorts a column, and every new PR means updating the sheet by hand.
- Practice timing: spreadsheets don't time anything. Times go on a clipboard or a phone first, then get typed in later, if they get typed in at all.
- Athlete access: sharing a sheet shows athletes everyone's data, or means maintaining a separate copy for each person.
- Multiple coaches: assistants edit the same file, overwrite each other, or work from an old version.
- History: each season ends up in a new file, and comparing this fall with last fall means digging.
Side-by-side
Scroll across to compare.
| Task | Spreadsheet | PaceCommand |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free | From $19/month after a 14-day free trial |
| Setup | Build your own layout and formulas | Create a team and import your roster from a CSV |
| Individual pace targets | Your own formulas, updated by hand | Calculated from each athlete's PR when you assign a workout |
| Practice timing | Separate stopwatch, typed in later | Multi-athlete timer with splits that saves to each athlete |
| Athlete view | Shared sheet or separate copies | Each athlete sees only their own workouts and results |
| Parents | Not built in | Optional view-only guardian access |
| Assistant coaches | Shared editing of one file | Group-level access and practice handoff |
| PRs and records | Tracked by hand | Kept with results, plus a program record book |
| Custom tracking | Anything you can build | Built-in fields, with CSV export for anything else |
Questions to decide which fits
- How long do you spend each week updating targets and entering practice times?
- Do your times actually make it from the clipboard into the sheet?
- Do athletes know their target before every rep?
- Do assistant coaches have what they need without asking you?
- Could you compare an athlete's workout this season with the same workout last season in under a minute?
If the honest answers are "not long," "yes," and "yes," your spreadsheet is doing its job. If they're not, that's the time PaceCommand is designed to give back.
Moving from a spreadsheet
You don't need to move everything at once. Export your roster as a CSV and import it, then build one workout you were going to run anyway. You can keep your spreadsheet for anything PaceCommand doesn't cover, and export your team's data as CSV whenever you need it.
Want to see the math before deciding? The free interval pace calculator uses the same method PaceCommand uses for targets.