In this case, I rated it easy, because I increased the power well above targets, as it just felt way too easy and I wouldn’t have gotten much of a productive workout without doing so. Also, it was right after a rest week, so I didn’t have any residual fatigue from a prior workout.
The durations were getting shorter because that’s how the workout prescribed it:
Warm Up:
Ride for 15 minutes gradually raising your power from 134 to 256.
4 minutes 50 seconds easy.
Main Set:
7 minutes at 282, followed by 5 minutes rest.
5 minutes at 291, followed by 5 minutes rest.
3 minutes at 309, followed by 5 minutes rest.
2 minutes at 325, then skip straight to cool down.
I mostly focused on the prescribed workout. Is that not how we’re supposed to do it? I generally put easy if I have to do way more extra work to feel anything.
This is my first post, so I hope I found the correct thread.
I seem to have a similar issue as OP.
This season, I have had only a few rides with the bike, which has a power meter on it this season (I usually do structured cycling training during the first 3 months of the year, followed by 3 months of mixed group rides and then 6 months of cycing-hybernation) - I commute exclusively on my CX bike though and do a few hours of climbing and intense dancing per week.
Anyhow,… I assumed my FTP would be around 230W, which it basically was estimated to be by TR the last 3 seasons. I completed Sill-4 (Over/Under; Threshold lv.3.1) with a set FTP of 235W and rated it moderate.
As a big fan of what TR is doing, ofc, I activated the AI FTP it told me 207W - seems a bit low, but whatever works, I trust the process.
Now what’s weird: AI prediction is +22%…. and 4 workouts later I am supposed to do cold pike (Sweetspot 9.6) again next week, and I rated it “moderate” today, and it was a bit boring to be honest. Okay, maybe some Tempo is also ok, but for the VO2max… it recommends me “Powel,” and I would prefer to taste some puke and be done with it than to spend 1:30h of my precious time doing short Hyper-threshold.
TL;DR: Should I just increase my FTP manual for the time being? Or should I accept that even in lvl 10.6, there is not so much time in the actually VO2max range and be happy with Hyperthreshold?
OFC! Is there a way to share the TR calendar without doxing myself completely i.e. covering up the little thumb-nail map of my outdoor rides?
My non (Powermeter)-tracked activities [distances× on average]
10km daily commute, mostly Tempo
4 to 6h weekly fast past swing dance
2 to 3h weekly slower dances
1h yoga/core exercises
Rock climbing is paused at the moment
To me it seems that the AI was wrong about the initial FTP that it assigned, and instead of admitting that new data should result to an imidiate adjustment/correction, it recommends max lvl workouts ^^ I mean +22%/m increase in FTP sounds amazing but if you deflate the original FTP…just saying. In the end I only care about being fitter and maybe not to force myself to ride 84min tempo
I think the better way to think of it is a training power number not a physiological power number. So what it is saying is that you haven’t demonstrated the higher power, so it doesn’t have high confidence in that higher number. So instead it will ramp you up testing you and increasing its confidence on the best number to train at.
I got out of my recovery week and completed my first workout, which was a 10.0 VO2 Max Interval session. This session would probably meet what I’d say would be the sweet spot for a hard day, I’m able to complete all the intervals, and would just be barely holding on to the green zone towards the end of the session, but could probably still do another. I completed the ride, and after doing so and rating it ‘hard’, the rest of my week went down in intensity substantially, despite the fact that this is the intensity that I want. My planned Wednesday ride (4x5’ at 269W) is probably going to just put me in a tempo heart rate and be ridiculously easy. How do I adjust this calibration upwards? I’m already in an ‘aggressive’ training approach. Also, I’m all out of range for the VO2 max workouts, how do I select something harder, if I improve in the coming weeks?
I added a few surveys retrospectively after I got confused by the low AiFTP, so see if that would fix it; but they are back to how I think I am supposed to answer them.
I assume you did something(*) because I just got this pop-up:
I will certainly NOT do a lvl 10.4 VO2max workout today xD
Also, there were some other changes in the calendar during lunch time (in Europe^^):
red&yellow days from this weekend were gone, and a Threshold-Workout appeared for it, which I missed, since it only appeared afterwards
now after the new triggered AiFTP detection, the red&yellow re-appeared
I am happy to share any information if that helps you with debugging/improving.
For now, I am happy since there are many more workouts that I can choose from (which are not above lvl. 9-11 and are shorter 1:30h
Another funny find. Not consequential for me but maybe interesting for you:
Ai scheduled a lvl 8.9 workout, and when I ask for a similar or even harder workout, the difficulty drops 3-4 whole levels in the suggested workout, AND they are not recommended because they were too hard (see screenshot).
I assume that’s because the AiFTP got adjusted but not the athlets-levels, i.e., my AiFTP was raised by 22.2%, but my levels were not adjusted downwards but stayed at 9.6 for sweetspot. Obviously, I did NOT do sweetspot workouts at that level
I have, at least to the best of my knowledge, a month back, it’s all a blur. The only major difference is that now I have even lower workout levels than before.
Also, my rides do consist of several rides that fall well below a workout in intensity, such as commutes, casual rides, bike parties, etc. I keep them on the calendar as they still contribute to TSS and thus fatigue. How do I handle those rides in the survey? They are clearly easy, but are a much lower “easy” than a 2 hr base ride.
To be clear, I’m having the opposite issue. AI FTP detection wants me to be almost 20 watts lower, yet I’m at a point where level 10 workouts are hitting the right intensity and can’t scale up.
