The Iron Almanack

The Iron Almanack — a faithful record of the strength of one body.

A workout log in the spirit of an antique farmer's almanac: heavy serifs, brass rules, italic Roman numerals, and a single open page for every day you lift. Every set you set down becomes a line in your folio; every personal record becomes an entry in the table of figures.

WHAT IT IS

The Iron Almanack is a quiet, offline strength journal. There are no streak monsters, no badges, no social feed. You open the book, you write your figures, you close it. Over the weeks the pages stack up, and the almanack starts to tell you things — what you lifted on the last full moon, which page broke last year's record, how many folios you have kept without a missed week.

THE FRONTISPIECE

The home page opens like a frontispiece. The masthead sits high — "The Iron Almanack, anno domini 2026" — with a dashed rule above and below in the old style. Top-left, a stamped square button reads "ENTER A FIGURE" — that is your one quick way in, no menus to wade through. Top-right shows the quarter and your folio number, like an issue stamp.

Below the masthead, "On Saturday, the 12 day of May" — the date in long form, the way an almanack would print it. Then the day's panel: a single big serif number ("12,450 kg, gross") flanked by L-shaped corner ornaments and three little figure cells — the day's run in Roman numerals, the lunar phase, the count of lifts.

THE WEEK, IN FIGURES

Below the panel, a 7-column strip reading "mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun" — each cell carries the day's volume, the day-of-month in Roman numerals, and a phase label in the almanack tradition (WAX / GIBB. / FULL / NEW). The current day is ringed in brass.

TABLE OF FIGURES

Each exercise you logged today becomes an entry card — italic Roman numeral upper-left, category caps upper-right, a heavy serif name, a brass underline, and beneath it "of the chest" or "of the back" in italic. A four-column table follows: set number, weight, reps, estimated one-rep maximum. Records are quietly marked "+PR" in brass. No fireworks. The almanack does not shout.

AT THE BACK

Two dock buttons at the foot of every page — "II. Tables of Records" and "III. Catalogue of Lifts" — take you to the keyring (your records, ranked) and the workbench (your catalogue, your settings, the option to burn the almanack and begin a new edition).

WHAT IT DOES NOT DO

— It does not connect to the internet.
— It does not share your data.
— It does not nag you.
— It does not gamify your progress.

WHAT IT KEEPS

— Every set, weight, rep, and date you set down.
— Your best lifts, calculated by the Epley formula (weight times one plus reps over thirty), so a heavy single and a near-failure five each get their due.
— Your folio count — the number of full weeks you have kept the almanack.
— Your milestones, written in the almanack's own voice: three pages, straight — fourteen pages, kept — a full almanack year.

ENCRYPTION

Your figures stay on your device, behind a key held in the secure keystore. The almanack opens for you alone.

EDITION THE FIRST, OF FOLIOS L.

Printed for the lifters' guild, anno mmxxvi.