This happened to me this weekend. I did Longfellow which was rated as breakthrough for me. It was actually easy until the last 40 min so I rated it as hard. Then I got the fail survey and no option to click “I didn’t struggle.”
It’s a bit of odd AT logic behavior. Was the workout “Hard” overall? Probably not and AT would assume that no z2 should ever be Hard. Any 3+ hours on the trainer is usually Hard though, because it’s on a trainer not to mention it’s a Breakthrough. I’d just edit your response to Moderate.
Furthermore, it was labeled as a breakthrough workout. AT is warning me that it will be hard and doesn’t like it when i say it’s hard.
Worth an email to support@trainerroad.com to see what they can tell you.
I labeled a stretch workout hard and AT asked me why it was hard. There wasn’t an option to select, “because it was a stretch.” 
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I was going to but then I saw my progression on endurance up from 5.x to 8.1.
I assumed it’s a bug.
OK, but if it is a bug, they need to know about it.
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Do they read the messages for failed workouts? Because I explained it there too
- I highly doubt it, and wouldn’t rely on that in any way.
Hey everyone, I have a question about adaptive training and the questionnaire after the workout.
Yesterday I had a VO2-workout. It was one of the hardest effort I‘ve done on TrainerRoad so far. It was a stretch workout 4.5->6.0 (Moriah). I barely made it to the end and rated it as very hard. Once I‘ve done that, adaptive training was like „hey cool beans, let’s up the effort on your two future Tuesday workouts“. Now I have two even harder workouts coming up (Verdugo, Diamond Valley) which replaced some slightly easier workouts and I have no idea how I will survive these. 
Shouldn’t me marking the workout as „very hard“ give adaptive training a hint that maybe I‘m very close to my limit and maybe turn it down a notch (or at least keep it where it is)? I typically mark my efforts as moderate, sometimes hard as I find my FTP to be appropriate and the efforts feel just hard enough for me to make it to the end without failing (last FTP value was even from the AI FTP).
When in doubt, an email to support@trainerroad.com is very worthwhile. We can only guess here while they have all the data to review and fully answer your question.
Sure, will drop the team a message. Just thought this might be interesting to others in the forum and maybe people have similar experience.
Yeah, fine to share here too, but I think it’s super important to start with TR because your experience may well differ for a range of reasons even though others may have seemingly related experience. Just making sure people cover all the bases, as the email to TR is often missed.
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Oh, I get on their nerves all the time. 
I struggle with the answers of the questionary. I find it hard to answer the question for workouts above threshold. Let’s say it’s a threshold or a VO2-max workout. In my understanding these efforts must feel very hard. But if the effort feels that way and I manage to finish the workout without failing, then the workout was just the right amount of hard. 
Does it mean I should mark the workout as moderate then, so that Adaptive Training doesn’t schedule a lighter version due to my answer. (I would definitely know if such a workout is too easy however). I know, it’s a bit philosophical. I submitted the question for the podcast but I think this is quite confusing and didn’t make it through.
I think there should also be the answer “just right” or “perfect”.
I think the key is “challenge to complete”
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I suggest you check out the support article on the surveys:
How should I answer surveys?
Don’t overthink it. Consider the overall difficulty of the workout and not how you expected it to feel.
Intensity Survey
The most common survey you will see is the one pictured below, which asks you to rate how the effort felt on a scale from one to five. When answering the survey, consider the entire workout, and don’t worry about how you expected it to feel based on workout type.
How to Rate your Effort
- Easy
This workout felt easy and non-taxing, requiring little effort or focus.- Moderate
This workout was somewhat comfortable but required some focus to complete.- Hard
This workout required effort and focus and was challenging to complete.- Very Hard
This workout was very difficult to complete.- All Out
This workout was extremely difficult. It pushed me well beyond my abilities and took a massive amount of energy and focus to complete.
Unofficial, but made with info provided by TR, here is my cheat sheet to help with rating selection:
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That’s exactly what I was searching for! Thank you so much! According to the second image my effort last night was an “All Out” effort after all. I couldn’t have described it better myself.
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You’re over thinking the system. As Chad has addressed above. Mark the workout how it felt, regardless of the intensity/Zone.
I’ve noticed that AT does know the difference. For instance, you mark an endurance workout as easy/moderate and it says “Hey guy! Thats how its supposed to feel!” I’ll not make any adaptions for now" but if you mark a VO2 as easy/moderate, AT says “Hey guy, I’m going to bump the shit out of your PLs, see how you like them apples” and vice versa. Its very clever 
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This week I’m starting SSB HV II. An hour or so ago, I clicked to accept the AI FTP detection, and then immediately saw adaptations across most of the workout. FTP change was small +5 watts, so the adaptations were just to reflect that my PL for sweetspot is already at 6.4. Lots of WL 7’s and 8’s now on the plan. That’s all good and expected.
But then … I went and did my usual thing of replacing the Sunday sweetspot workouts with the Z2 rides recommended in the plan notes. My understanding is that the Z2 rides are the “real” plan, but the sweetspot rides are what one must do to keep some riders on board. At any rate, at 54, dropping the 4th sweetspot workout for the week seems eminently sensible. As soon as I replaced the first Sunday ride with Town Hill, I immediately got “adaptations pending” which lowered the WL of the remaining Sunday rides. This was a bit surprising.
Should I not have deleted the SS rides and just ignored them on the day? I’m afraid that if I adjust more Sundays to Z2, that I’ll start seeing reduced efforts on other days of the week.
(I know, I know, … write to support. I’ll do that next.)