Should I put all my trust in the AI for my Sweet Spot & Threshold rides, even though it appears to be overestimating my capabilities, or is that part of the process?
For example:
Abbey 2.5/61 followed a week later by Tray Mountain -2 4.0/67, then Truchas -2 5.5/74 is scheduled for this week. I managed the first two, though Tray Mountain was tough, and I am considering an alternate to Truchas.
On the Threshold side:
Starr 2.3/77 followed a week later by Temple -1 4.1/88, and this week is scheduled to be Carpathian Peak 4.3/90.
My doubts are definitely on the Threshold side, as I had to get off the bike and take a breather at least twice on each ride when the low valleys were reached, since the recovery didnât feel enough for me.
Should I double-guess the AI by choosing an alternate closer to a prior ride or go with the planned AI workout, come what may?
How have you been rating the workouts?
Moderate - Abbey/Starr
Hard - Tray Mountain
Very Hard - Temple
Does that contribute much to the AI programming?
https://support.trainerroad.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404884465563-Post-Workout-Surveys
Check this article as well however if you are having to get off the bike and catch your breath I would personally rate that as an all out. Threshold work should be tough but not to the point you need to stop for extra recovery.
The rating matters a lot if you accept suggested adaptations.
A test I do sometimes is to repeat the workout that felt hard the prior week. Itâs a fairly straightforward way to understand if youâre making progress, ratings donât matter, the workout is the workout. That is, provided you have all the other pieces in place (proper nutrition, adequate rest, etc.). If not, time to find whatâs holding you back.
Yeah itâll mess up your progressive overload for the mesocycle slightly, but not enough to make a long term difference.
Sorry for giving the wrong impression âIâm getting off the bike to give my legs a break, not to catch my breath. Here is my workout from Saturday; it didnât help that I was having issues with my heart rate monitor, so that data is worthless. I resorted to getting out of the saddle for the overâs. Then, when I reverted to the underâs, I didnât have the cadence to maintain the power required, which just made the overall workout even harder, and I had to bail on each valley, including the beginning of the final 8 minutes of endurance.
Good idea. I need to backtrack and repeat to move forward.
I would rate them based on this chart and try not to overthink them too much.
Are you seeing any adaptations after rating the workout as hard?
That temple workout looks like it could be âmaximum effortâ to me because it looks like you really struggled to maintain your cadence.
Out of interest - what smart trainer are you using?
The power looks excessively smooth and âon targetâ so it looks like some kind of ERG mode smoothing.
Iâm wondering if this could be making system think you are performing better than you are.
On wahoo trainers you can turn this off but on some you canât.
I just donât understand how the power can be that constant with all those drops in cadence.
The problem with smart-trainer smoothing is it affects the raw data going to TrainerRoad so there is no way of it seeing what the real numbers were
The rating you provide at the end of the workout matters a lot. As does accurately saying why you failed a workout.
That is how adaptive training knows to increase or decrease the intensity of your workouts. Read the descriptions of the ratings from TR themselves.
How to Rate Your Effort
-
Easy
This ride felt easy and non-taxing, requiring little effort or focus. You could repeat the ride and pass it without issue. -
Moderate
This ride was somewhat comfortable but required some focus to complete. You felt a little challenged but had confidence that you could finish. If the ride had an additional set of intervals, you could complete it. -
Hard
This ride required effort and focus and was challenging to complete. This will feel tough and youâll look forward to this ride ending. If there was an additional interval, you could have done it with some focus. -
Very Hard
This ride was very difficult to complete. This ride tested you. If there would have been one more interval, you wouldnât have been able to do it. -
All Out
This ride was extremely difficult. It pushed me well beyond my abilities and took a massive amount of energy and focus to complete. Youâll feel like you barely made it to the end of this ride, and that you had to pull out every mental trick in the book to finish.
In my experience - you get the most effective training at hard/very hard. And thatâs where the AI gets you.
From your descriptions none of your workouts were moderate. They were all very hard or all out.
Theyâll be changing gears at the changes in pace. My graphs look like that even when not struggling if thereâs a change in intensity.
I hope they arenât changing gears in ERG mode?
Power Smoothing is just something that is done to the value shown to the user. The system knows what power you have been achieving at any given time.
Not when its done on the trainer - ERG power smoothing effects the data before it gets to the software - essentially its just showing what target the trainer was set to.
Different to smoothing that happens within the app - which works as you suggest and isnt an issue.
Depending on the trainer, the ERG mode takes a while to get to the right level.
Changing up/down a couple of gears speeds it up.
I have to do it with mine as itâs very slow to ramp up/down.
You nailed it, its a Kickr Core 2 trainer and the option âErg mode power smoothingâ is turned on. Is there any advantage to turning this option off?
Turn it off!!!
The only âadvantageâ (if you can call it that) to having it on is that the graph looks nice and neat.
Iâd much prefer to actually be able to see whatâs going on 
Are you fueling during your workouts? I found that made a big difference in my ability to complete threshold and VO2 max workouts as intended.
It is truly the most useless feature ever that has never done any good to anyone.
I would try going with it , but if you canât hold the watts, drop the intensity.
For me, itâs v02max I struggle with. Today I had Baird-1, which didnât look that hard but I could only hold the watts shown for half of the 1 minute interval. I dropped the intensity 6% and even that was hard, but my legs seem to improve throughout the 9 intervals.
There are 4 factors why it was so hard.
- Fatigue (just got back from a horse training clinic, with no cycling)
- 1st v02 session after a summer of ultra bikepacking.
- Iâve always struggled with v02, and above.
- Iâm in SS Base 1 mid volume.
Depending what type of person you are you may struggle with threshold, but be fine with sprints and v02.
Just stick with it, and have faith in the AI . Some days you might want to climb off, but youâll feel better if you get through it.