I came to the forum looking for answers to this question of hardness, and absolutely this info should be in the post-ride survey, including the in parentheses stuff. Because then I wouldn’t have to come to the forum, or remember it. Bummed it hasn’t been implemented 6 months later. Make it an expanding box if you want it hidden to start. @IvyAudrain
I’ll bump to the team, thank you!
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Apologies if this has already been addressed - I searched a bit and didn’t find the answer.
If I find that a programmed workout is too easy and I start turning up the intensity and/or reducing the rest between intervals to make it challenging, do I rate the workout as it was presented (too easy) or rate it based on the work I did (moderate or hard?)
As an example, today was Pierce (Amber, is that you?) and I found the intervals too easy and the 6 minutes between sets too long (heart rate droppng down to 110 or or maybe even lower) so I started turning it up and arived at 107% and was cutting 2 to 3 minutes out of the rest, which made it pretty tough. So, was that easy or hard?
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Essentially, you are supposed to rate on “How it felt”, meaning the work you actually did.
- The literal question posed and what they want to know is “How did this effort feel?”.
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You want to ignore anything related to “supposed”.
How should I answer surveys?
Don’t overthink it. Consider the overall difficulty of the workout and not how you expected it to feel.
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So just to be clear…it takes intensity increases into account now and can discern the survey answer related to the intensity changes rather than the original workout?
So if you turn a workout up to 120% and complete it; originally the survey rating would be “easy” but now its hard due to the intensity increase…AT can understand and adjust accordingly?
Here is the current support article.
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Ah brilliant! Thanks Chad 
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I agree. If you did most of your rides on the hard range, you would be heading towards overtraining/injury/lack of improvement etc.
Even if you are a pro, you dont train hard every ride.
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Hi Barry, the way I interpret it is by the ride type. If it was a threshold ride I rate the ride solely based off of how the threshold efforts felt, not the entire ride. I’m not sure if that is how TR meant for it to be, but it makes sense to me to only think about the main purpose of the ride.
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That is NOT what TR intends.
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See their support doc that specifically says the rating applies to the entire workout.
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.
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Thanks for the info!
Today challenged my ratings for the first time. Completed Reinstein but had to backpedal for 20-30 seconds during last two 95% FTP valleys. Decided to call it “Very Hard” since I finished and I didn’t think this whole session was really an “All Out.” I think it was made harder by my strength work yesterday afternoon. My struggle was whether to rate a workout where I had to backpedal during the last interval “Very Hard” or “All Out”. I know ultimately AT should refine my training as I move forward if I mis-rated it.
I guess I should’ve stuck with the originally scheduled “Achievable” workout today.
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Question on “we rate the entire workout”. I’ve had some rides where I need to drop the intensity 2-5% for some of the late intervals. That obviously makes things easier and changes my perspective of the “entire workout”. So, do I rate it based on the trajectory of where it was going prior to dropping the intensity, or how it felt in the way it was actually completed? Thanks for the clarity!
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This is what I think matters, based on my reading of the TR support doc and all the discussion above that lead to it.
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What you did matters. Changes to intensity, back pedals, pauses and such are all “seen” by TR, and taken into account. Our survey response needs to have the actual perception & feeling of that performance no matter how it went (ignoring expectations, trajectory, hopes, etc.). To try and state it as simple as possible:
- How we feel after what we did.
As ever, the above is my take on the TR direction, so an email to support@trainerroad.com is best if you have any doubt. Not to mention that I could be wrong in small or large parts 
Perfect explanation. Honestly, if you are close, I sort of feel like the Adaptive Training piece will refine any changes on subsequent workouts.
For example, I spent some time overthinking my effort today. Ultimately if I rated it too low, I’m sure I’ll either fail a workout down the road or rate one higher than the programming expects and will see a correction (Adaptation). I feel like the gem of it all is the constant micro-adjustments that are applied in conjunction with, added and modified workouts and subjective feedback.
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Right on as far as I see. Not to mention that we can make changes with Alternates if we come to a better understanding of a performance and rating after the fact. As long as we understand that before the next workout in that related training zone, we can make a personal change to that workout (easier or harder) as appropriate to shortcut waiting for the “wrong” workout completion and the relate survey.
It’s great, because the system is pretty flexible. We can try to get ahead of our own mistakes, or let the system have the wheel.
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Yup, you nailed it. I reached out to TR support and they said that AT will look at the work done relative to the planned workout and then re-jig things accordingly. Thanks again!
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I started up a Triathlon plan in January. I’ve had to unexpectantly cut a few work outs short. I always select time as the factor. I’ll sometimes just cut the cool down, or others cut out an interval in the middle. If I select medium difficulty, it seems to always move me 0 points on the AT.
How does the algo work? Can I cut anything off?
The workout I just finished was 1:30, hard, and I cut 3 mins off the cool down and it moved 0.0.
Thanks!
I suggest an email directly to support@trainerroad.com to get the best answer, based upon full review of your data. We can only guess with our limited info.
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What should be considered as an interval?
Example Trainerroad workouts Taylor.
Should I consider this as a workout with 3 intervals, or as a workout of 60 intervals?
This makes a big differences in the selection of hard vs very hard.