I have been thinking on this for some time and I just recently decided that I wanted to post it and see what everyone else thought. 

As anyone who has ever looked at the training summary thread knows, the thread is a pretty good time for everyone. It seems like everyone enjoys cheering for one another, and also everyone enjoys the encouragement they receive from others. All in all, its a great thread.

There is a downside to this popularity though. The downside is that there are a massive amount of posts to dig through, so a lot of people either are intimidated and don't want to join in or they just skip out on the encouragement part and just post their own thing. I am guilty of this myself. 

Part of the reasoning for this is that I get confused at who is doing what etc etc.  So here is my proposal.

Add a new forum called "Daily Training" (or whatever) under the main forums. (in other words add it to the forums on http://www.mapmyrun.com/community/)

Every day, the first person to post their training needs to make a new thread with the date in the title. Then everyone should post the day's training in that thread. Here are few benefits that comes from this:

1.) people can look back and more easily see what they did on a given day which is especially useful if you do not write a training log.

2.) people will be able to have extended discussions about older topics in past days threads without cluttering things up for everyone else

3.) things will just look more orderly

There are some cons to this as well, but most of those just involve people just not wanting to look through more than one thread. I think that argument is a weak one because the utility to the group seems to be greater than the inconvenience to any individuals who even see that issue as a problem.

Lastly, for what its worth, that the is the way the discussion was intended to be conducted.  Originally the thread was titled Official Training Summary Thread 12/31/07 (or something like that).

This might be something to kick around a little bit and if it is a terrible idea, then we could let it die. I've just noticed several people mentioning how many posts they miss when they do not come online for a few days and I think if things are organized in this manner then that complaint will be alievated. 

If you hate it and see a ton of problems with the idea, post about it. You won't hurt my feelings any. 

The biggest problem I see with your suggestion is that if people had to go into separate threads for each day to try and follow a discussion, it just would not happen.  Sure, people do go into multiple threads for various discussions, but, speaking for myself here, most days the only thread I visit is the Official Training Summary Thread.  It has all the group discussion I need for the most part; that being basically a place to tell people about how my running has been going recently and get some feedback on it, and also sharing other runners experiences.  It's just the sort of stuff I used to get from being a member of a running club in New Zealand before I emigrated to Australia, and don't seem to be able to get here.  Certainly I don't get it from workmates (most of whom think I'm nuts), or family, whose eyes glaze over whenever they hear the words "run" or "training".

I agree it can seem like there is a whole lot of wrong with the thread as it exists, but one of the benefits of the single thread is that if you do happen to drop out for a day or a week, you can catch up with everyone in the one place.

Please, if there is anyone who has ideas on this, drop them in here.

Maybe we could get the best of both worlds if the site programmers could provide some new features. We could keep the Training Summary thread as one thread, but get some of the benefits kdogg describes if:

1. The forum threw a new page on a new day, not when the 50 message limit had been reached. (You'd want that behaviour just for this thread of course).

2. Currently I don't think it works if you go back to a previous page and try and quote someone. If that could be made to work, it would be good. I think the new message should go into the "new" day's page, rather than the old page. But it would be cool if there was a feature to spawn off a sub-thread for interesting discussions.

3. I'd like to be able to click a poster's name in the thread, and get a list of their most recent posts, so you could see what each person had been up to in previous days.

4. It would be great if formatting (line breaks) worked in Chrome and Safari...

I wouldn't feel guilty for only posting your stuff and passing on giving encouragement. It was started as a training summary, not a cheerleading section. But it has transformed a bit. I've been guilty of getting off topic as much as anyone and have tried to cut that back. And recently have summarized the encouragement without naming names. Sometimes I like hearing things that aren't necessarily training summary, other times I just skip over it. Especially when 25 others have already said what I was thinking when I read it. It's hard to not add on advice, ask for advice, tell a story, etc. That makes us closer (like a team) so it gives more incentive to go and do what you need to do even when you don't feel like it.

I like the idea of separate days having separate threads and I don't see the quoting as an issue since you could just do it within that thread rather than bring it forward. Minor issue I see is days start different times and I often post my evening runs after some have posted their next days lunch run or race results. Not serious, but being towards the end of the clock, it seems that my stuff would get lost. Not that I really care, but a perspective to think about.

Major issue, thread name and where to find it. What would be consistent and would it always be followed? What if two started at the same time? Maybe EmBee's #2 solves that issue.

Since the thread has participants literally worldwide, starting daily threads may be confusing and make it hard to find.  I only come on here to map runs, post to my training log and read and post on the summary.  I'm afraid I'd stop using it if it took much hunting.  Maybe a gentle reminder to be training focused and brief in comments to keep it useful would help?  (to me as much as anybody) - and to start separate threads for more detailed issues? 

 If we did do a daily thread, a consistent name is a must and maybe create a set intro that whoever started it would cut and paste into the first post of the day.

KDogg you have been posting on this thread since its creation and you are still working the thread. Even though you are an advance runner, I have learned a lot from your postings even if I did not participate in the discussion....the essence of the thread is to get new posters, retain older posters and to regain the posters who wandered away.  The thread should remain as is.