Hello ladies and gentlemen,
6th April I got a 5 hr MTB marathon and set this goal as my main early season goal. Currently I can handle the workouts pretty good but the workouts are stuck at 1 to 1:30 interval hours. I’m curious why TrainerRoad doesn’t give me 2 hours interval trainings. Or even more! Can you guys help me?
Thanks!
DISCLAIMER: With one month to go, you may not want to ramp up volume and intensity too much.
But how to increase volume: assuming you are on a plan you can adjust your time availability when setting up your plan (when you select the calendar day you wish to train). If using train now or AI workouts to make your own plan there is a drop down menu for duration when scheduling.
Hope this helps!
Thanks! Indeed I have a training plan made bij TR but with my events it suggested to have the 1 to 1:30 workouts. I thought ai would pump it up in the past few months but not…
When I built out my options for length of training sessions in my program I was able to specify maximum ride length. Did you have this option?
I selected (2) 1.5 hr intensity rides, (1) 2 hr endurance ride, and up to 5 hrs for a weekend endurance ride. It has consistently and properly given me my 1.5 & 2 hr rides, but my weekend rides it’s been selecting around 2.5-3 hrs (which I override anyways based on my experience and what I have planned).
My first question would be whether you fed it this information for your availability. Second, if it viewed past rides and history, it may not find you are ready for much longer rides. There’s a pretty frequent head butting of TR riders vs TR’s philosophies of ‘long rides.’ I’m in the camp of building up to long rides before long events, but I do so pretty systematically and over time. Some people have reported success sticking to TR’s programs that may only have a max ride of 1.5-2 hrs, while training for a 6 hr event. I think it largely depends on their experience and goals in the long events.
If you’re familiar and comfortable with much longer rides, I’d simply start incorporating them. If not, be cautious. Also, as someone else mentioned, only being a month out, you likely aren’t going to build a large amount of big big ride endurance/familiarity and it could hurt more than it helps.
Hi, you should be fine, but I don’t think anyone else mentioned altering your endurance rides to “dynamic” and setting an upper limit that suits your life.
As others have said, with a month to go most of your training is already in the bag I’d avoid any risky changes, but maybe put in a long ride this weekend or next.
Thanks for the help everyone! I think it went wrong with setting my availability in the beginning of creating a plan. I stick to the suggested duration because when I set it higher TR did advice to set it back.
Beside of doing my 1-1:5 hr interval workout outs I kept doing my longer sessions of MTB/Gravel so my body knows how to deal with rides of 4 to 5 hours, that’s not a problem. But with the new AI TR system it is sensitive for doing more hours than planned and it will decrease the next workout in training load.
I trusted TR that they would increase the duration faster but nevertheless.
That’s more likely to be fatigue management than AI. I have turned off automatic adjustments and make a decision on the day whether I need the harder ride.
I’m training for the Mallorca 312 at the end of April and i’m hoping to do in under 11 hours and it’s only giving ~2 hour endurance long rides at the moment. Whilst I don’t need to do 11 hours I do need to do some longer rides than that. I have been regularly doing rides longer than that for months now (2.5-4 hour). Quite suprised the AI hasn’t learnt that I am ok with that volume and can still do my three interval sessions per week.
My plan is to build up to about 5-6 hours over the next few weeks before the taper. Maybe this is the wrong approach and I should just stick to what dynamic endurance says but I can’t help but think some longer rides are needed to build up endurance.
My calendar is: TrainerRoad
Personally… I’d do the long rides. Those are probably more valuable as a stimulus for an 11 hour event than VO2. Just make sure you recover from them, even if it means only one high intensity workout a week.
I agree the long rides should at some point (assuming you don’t push higher and higher watts) the same 3hr ride week over week… should have less toll on your body. Also most people, especially people not doing them much, will get good gains from a long aerobic ride every week or two!
Hypothetically (or sure seems like it from podcast talk…) they have data showing that someone doing 2x 1hr Hard interval workouts a week and then a 1.5hr Endurance ride is going to be fitter after 5months than someone doing 2x 1hr ‘hard’ interval workouts (‘hard’ due to fatigue from LR) and doing a 3-5hr endurance ride a week?
Fitter in what way? We’re talking about people doing 5-11 hour events here. I’d be absolutely stunned if they have (good) data that shows a weekly 1.5hr endurance ride gives better avg or NP over 5+ hours than doing 3-5hr endurance rides. It just doesn’t make sense. Does the “AI” know how to train for a 5hr XCM race?
I mean - I don’t disagree with you! - Results? FTP? Maybe just ability to complete the training and finish a 6month block of training? I don’t know, I get it to some extent - it isn’t marathon running where pounding and muscle failure come into play, or where hard training often in running can really kill you off. So if you can really push your vo2max up and lactate threshold up… it makes riding sub-threshold to high zone2 for a long time… much easier.
But they have always had the message that doing a ton of strong interval workouts (albeit typical plans I think call for 3x ? I’m in a masters/reduced 2xWO plan mainly because of my Saturday 2-3hr Runs). Also often the training Nate/Johnathan in the past have mentioned on the podcast are often 90min… plus they were adding endurance rides between them also. So there is more aerobic volume in the mix.
For me - most people have a lot of aerobic base and muscle endurance to be gained from time in saddle each week. maybe a base of 2months of sweetspot + some harder stuff will reduce gain potential on the lower end… but I know if i do 5x 4-5hr rides at 73% of FTP, along with my mid-week intervals. I will be in MUCH better shape (compared to 2hr long rides) on my 6th 4.5hr ride over a 2mo period, even if my mid-week intervals on Tuesday are maybe at 97%…or AI has me do 4x8 instead of 4x9’ workout!
Me too!
JoeX, Where can i set this off? In the previous version there was a option for it but i can’t find it anymore. Thanks!
How does TR AI handle this situation because you ignore the whole trainingplan. Yesterday I did a pre planned 3:3- hr easy ride but somehow I didn’t ride it like TR wanted I did. It lowered the workout of today and lowered my FTP.
You calendar is private… could you post screen shots of the last few weeks and weeks coming up?
How long are the scheduled rides you have been doing? Is this a massive jump? Do you have your long ride to dynamic endurance or fixed? How long of a time do you set your schedule for your long rides? Is it set as an indoor ride or as an outdoor solo/group ride? Lot of things to consider… But most importantly how do you feel after doing it?
Thanks for the help. Above I posted the screenshots you asked for. And the asnwer to the last question. De interval blocks of 3 to 4 weeks are fine. But I like to see some 1:30 hr rides on the tuesday and thursday. In the passed weeks I did some easy ride after de interval training but since the new AI it will impact the next training so i’m not doing it more.
My question is why would you need a workout longer than 90 minutes for a 5 hour marathon?
Weekly outdoor rides would benefit you especially when it comes to understanding your body if you dont have a ton of experience. Visualization, pacing and overall fueling strategy for what your body needs outside… But there is no reason you need an interval session lasting longer than 90 minutes unless your Sweetspot gets tapped out due to TRs AI FTP prediction not accurately depicting FTP at that phase of your plan.
