The way it used to be effectively worked like 2 (or more) plans. If my first A event was a crit race, and the 2nd later in the year was a 6+ hour gravel race, the corresponding phases (e.g. build & specialty) were automatically selected according to the race type.
By adding in some long endurance? Hard disagree. And just confirms why I left TR. Completely disagree with this training philosophy.
Focusing on each and implementing workouts to benefit each are not mutually exclusive. This is like saying you can’t train for running and cycling at the same time. At yet, triathlons exist. I’m not saying training for gravel during my crit prep. But building an endurance base that will help me later in the year. Absolutely can and should be done. The TR plans were just severely lacking.
I agree with the idea of building an aerobic base for all endurance sports. While there is variance in the TR plans, they all build aerobic fitness. What your A goal is will affect how you go about it and what you should prioritize, though, for the best results. There aren’t any plans that exclude endurance training, and you can push out long rides with Dynamic Endurance if that’s what you’re looking for and can handle.
The thing about triathletes is that they aren’t the best cyclists or runners. They’re the best triathletes because that’s their specialty and what they focus on. To be the best at one thing, your main focus should be that one thing. That doesn’t mean that you can’t cross-train, but I’m talking about focusing on one event and one discipline, and preparing to be the best you can be in that event.
Your point perfectly highlights missing the forest for the trees. We’re not pros focusing on a single event that we have to be the absolute best. We’re multidisciplinary cyclists. I bet the vast majority of us here race different disciplines throughout the year.
Sure, you can focus and train for one specific event and be highly specific for that one race. The catch is that you might prepare for that one event and be 99% at it. But then you get suboptimal training for the full year and your second event you’re 75%. I’m not a pro cyclist. I race different events. I would much rather have a full calendar year of training that takes all my events into account. Maybe I’m only 95% ideal at each A event. That’s still better than 99% at one A event and 75% at the second A event. Which is what the current 2 separate plans get you. Heck, even 90% optimal at each A event is still better than the current offering
Exactly. They do each well without sacrificing the other. What you’re giving us is a cycling specific plan for a triathlete. You’re saying, we’ll get you to 99% optimal at cycling. The problem is that the highly specific approach makes you a 50% runner and 50% swimmer. Pretty terrible overall. What I want is to be 90% at all three. Sure, I’m giving up my optimal self at cycling, but overall I miles ahead. This is the gist of my point. You want us to be the best cyclist (even if it means we suck at running and swimming). I want to be the best triathlete.
By separating the events, you get ideal training for the first and suboptimal for the second.
Maybe I’m only 95% ideal at each A event. That’s still better than 99% at one A event and 75% at the second A event. Which is what the current 2 separate plans get you. Heck, even 90% optimal at each A event is still better than the current offering
The problem is proving how true this is and how big of a difference it makes for amateur riders. Your figures illustrate your point, but are they accurate?
The simple solution (from my perspective) to your issue with the product is to just assign the discipline that you’d like to train at to each event on your calendar.
If you don’t want to focus specifically on crit racing because of your gravel race later in the year, then pick what you do want to focus on. Rolling Road Race is a good alternative, but either way, we’ll train you based on the inputs you give us.
If anyone is looking for general / all-around fitness, that’s always an option.
Are yours? I would argue it’s way more relevant for amateurs. For pros, sure, being highly specific can eek out those marginal gains. For amateurs, I think being more of an allrounder is not only more doable, but more beneficial. I think your approach is being way too specific and hindering other elements of being a complete cyclist. Most amateurs don’t need to be nor should they be highly specific. To me it’s just a poor training philosophy. You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Kitty got claws. Rawr.
I think there are probably a lot of athletes who focus on one or two similar types of events (crit/rolling road race, gravel/XCM, etc.), and those specific types of plans are great for them.
Again, if you want to be an “all-rounder,” then switching it up between some of the general fitness plans is a good option. 
I think there are options for everyone.
Kitty got claws. Rawr.
Huh?
In my case when I deleted the original plan and created the new one it kept my recovery week, but I’m just annoyed that now my calendar shows my original A Event as a B Event. Is there a way to make both show A Events?
Just making a little joke of your catty response.
I understand you treat A&B races differently. The point was that before AI, you could have multiple A races in a year, as long as they were 8+ weeks apart. The program would give you a rest week after your first A event and start your next build or specialized block the week following.
Now, you can only have one A race in a plan. I had to start a new plan to accommodate my 2nd A race, and that plan wiped out the rest week after my first A race and scheduled threshold and VO2 workouts the week after my first A race.
Given that it isn’t unusual to race multiple disciplines or other reasons to have more than one A race in a season, it’d be great if we could go back to having multiple As, or if the AI would examine the weeks before a plan before launching you into threshold+ workouts.
If manually trying to switch the B race to an A race doesn’t work, then no, probably not.
One is in the past, though, right? So you just want your calendar to reflect the priority of that past event, right?
If you run through your first plan until completion, you should have no problem with that rest week. You could still schedule your next plan as long as the start date is after the end of your first plan.
Did you delete your original plan before finishing it? Adding a second plan to your calendar shouldn’t have any effect on the first plan.
It sounds to me like you may have ended your first plan early and started the second, but the second didn’t look back at your recent A race and start with a recovery week. Is that right?
Let me know if I’m missing something..
My original plan went through next summer. Following my June A race, I tried to change my fall race from B to A but was prompted to delete my old plan and create a new one, which I did, starting on the Monday after my June race. It scheduled a VO2 workout for Tuesday and a threshold workout for Saturday.
Shouldn’t a new plan look at what you did the preceding week to schedule week one?
Shouldn’t a new plan look at what you did the preceding week to schedule week one?
Maybe, but unfortunately, that’s not how it works now. It would probably be easy enough to build in logic that checks for a completed A race within a week of the start of any plan. I’ll pass that along to the team for them to hear.
I think rather than deleting the plan, you probably could have deleted that second event, then shortened the original plan to only include that first event. You’d then be able to create a second plan that started after the first one ended and add your event to that plan.
I know that might seem like a pain, but moving forward, you shouldn’t have this issue if you build your plans with an exclusive focus on your A races. Each A race gets its own plan. You shouldn’t have any issues going that route.
Let me know if this helps at all,
I can work with what we have now, but I would dramatically prefer to have one plan that incorporates all my races. I also think that whichever way you go, AI should review the previous 1-2 weeks before starting a new plan. Even if it wasn’t an A race, I’d like to think AI wouldn’t have me doing Vo2 and threshold workouts after a weekend with several hard or long rides, particularly when it has access to 14 years of my data to see how fast I recover from similar events.
To be clear, I’m a TR fan and plan to stick with it. I just think a few tweaks would make it better.
I’ll add that TR doesn’t schedule a recovery week if a B event is the last event in a plan. I had to manually add a recovery week and create a new plan that starts after that manually scheduled recovery week.
It would be good if TR can automatically add a recovery week if a B event is at the end of a plan.
I also agree with others that a rolling plan with multiple A events would be awesome.
@Barry_Bean @PhilipK Thanks for the feedback! I’ll send it straight to the team. 
Yea, it’s not a big deal, it just bugs me and in a couple years I might look back and wonder why I didn’t treat it as an A Event. I’ll try again tonight to switch it back to an A and see what happens