Hi all–
I accepted the invitation to Adaptive Training about 3-4 weeks ago and thought that I’d share my thoughts. All in all, I’m really impressed but there are a couple of things that I want/need before I use it more. I’ve been a TR subscriber for about 4 years, not totally consistently year round, but definitely more on than off.
How I use TrainerRoad: I’ve never used the full Trainer Road plans, although I refer to them as a baseline for training. I don’t use the plans because I like to do things other than just bike ride (e.g., skiing, climbing) and so sticking to a plan, for me, is unrealistic while accomodating for other activities. Instead, what I’ll do is pick a particular workout and then use that workout as a baseline to create a slightly harder workout. So, if it’s Antelope +5, I’ll do that workout to see how it feels, and if it feels okay I’ll repeat a custom version of that workout with (a) slightly increased interval length or (b) slightly decreased recovery intervals or (c) slightly elevated interval intensity or (d) slightly increased recovery interval intensity. And then I work through a progression of that workout, making it slightly harder every time. Most often I’ll design these workouts on Zwift because I’ve gotten faster at designing the workouts there, as opposed to the TR workout creator, although that’s changed in recent months as I get quicker at using the TR workout creator. I do most of my training indoors, although my riding objectives (races, strava PRs, adventure riding) are outside.
Why I use TrainerRoad this way: I like to tinker, and to me, it makes sense because I can work on a specific energy system and have complete control over my progression. Before Workout Levels, it was hard for me to see the difference between two similar workouts and definitively say “Oh, yeah, I see how X workout is a progression from the Y workout that I did last week”. I think this speaks to the value of Workout Levels–I can now look at two workouts and consider how a 6.1 sweetspot workout is different than a 5.9 sweetspot workout. I really appreciate the Workout Levels feature so much.
How AT may change the way I use TrainerRoad: I look forward to trying out a Training Plan once I return from summer travels, and (a) probably once there is support for custom workouts that have a reliable Workout Level attached to them and (b) once there is support for outside unstructured workouts. I appreciate that folks do their TR workouts outside, but this isn’t something that appeals to me after trying it out a couple of times. When I’m riding outside it’s usually a treat or a group ride, and I don’t want to be a slave to my Garmin. I am hopeful that using a TR AT training plan will be more effective than my own custom workout progressions…I mean, the TR team is definitely more experienced at what it takes to get people fast than I am, so there has to be some benefit to following a training plan. And with Workout Levels, I can more clearly see my progression over time, which has huge appeal than just leaving it to faith that each week’s workouts are slightly harder than the previous week.
Thoughts on TrainNow: Seems pretty awesome. I’m psyched to see what it recommends and often go with their suggestion/recommendation. Because I do my endurance/tempo riding outside, usually, and because TR doesn’t yet recognize outside unstructured workouts, the “recommendation” to do an endurance ride is off.
Thoughts on Progression Levels: So awesome. The nerd in me can’t wait to just work through the different levels, checking off each slightly harder workout. Again, I look forward to support for unstructured outside rides so my endurance, tempo, sweet spot, and threshold metrics are more accurately reflected in Progression Levels. I’m looking forward to see how these levels decay over time.
Thoughts on Workout Levels: I heart workout levels. This has been the biggest game-changer for me. I can only imagine that “filling the gaps” by creating all the new workouts was such a big job, but being able to see the progression from one workout to the next is awesome. One of the things I’m thinking about is how workouts of different durations (say, one hour compared to two hours) at the same level are distinctly different than each other. I’ve failed some workouts of the shorter duration and passed ones of the longer duration because the shorter one is more intense. This gives me good insight into the importance of mastering the shorter workouts before moving on to a higher Workout Level.
Wrap up: Thanks TR for all your hard work. I’m really impressed with all of the new features and am looking forward to where this is headed. I haven’t experienced any meaningful bugs and appreciate all the hard work that the team has been doing.
Thank you,
Nate
