Hello, I am hoping there may be an easier way to swap workouts in the calendar and if not hopefully there are some features that can be added to assist with this.
My situation is that I loaded up the half iron training plan into my calendar as I do all 3 sports and I like the distances, although, I am not training for a specific 70.3 at the moment.
I am also heavily customizing my weekly schedule due to time commitments (and again, it is not as imperative as I am not training for a specific race).
So when I get prescribed some rides I am choosing to modify them in terms of time usually (as I have less time).
For example, I am supposed to do Haku which is 1 hour. However, I only have 45 min to ride so I want to swap Haku out for a similar ride but shorter.
In my calendar where the ride is it doesn’t say what type of a ride it is (sweet spot, VO2, …).
I searched to see if there is a Haku -1 but there isn’t, there is only the 1 version of Haku.
As I don’t know what type of ride Haku is it is hard to know what to swap it out for. I am just comparing ride profiles of the power output graphs of the ride.
It would be nice if each ride were labeled or tagged somewhere in the description (visible in the calendar vs having to go somewhere else on the site to see in case it is noted somewhere else) that it is endurance, sweet spot, tempo, VO2 max, … workout.
This would help you then do a search for rides that are less than 1 hour, VO2 max, and I could select a new workout this way.
However, what would be even better is if from the calendar, where the ride is prescribed, if you could see “similar” rides but of more or less duration so you could just swap it out there, saving the step of needing to do a separate search.
I am not sure if my situation is compounded by the fact that I almost solely rely on using TrainerRoad from my phone. As such I have to use the browser in the phone to see my calendar, edit, add … workouts.
I only use the app when I am actually doing the workout.
I hope the above makes sense.
If anyone has any better tips or if I am missing functionality that is currently available please let me know as I would be very appreciative.
If these are features that are coming even better.
Thank you very much,
Hey there!
On your phone, for most workouts you should be able to see “Workout Variants.” These are alternative options to your scheduled workout that are shorter and easier or harder and longer than what is prescribed in the plan.
You can select one of these workout variants, and then “assign” it to a scheduled workout, or just remove the scheduled workout from your calendar and let the finished ride take its place.
Additionally, you can click on a day in the Calendar, and select “Add TrainerRoad Workout.” From there, you can search for the name of the prescribed workout to see if there are any +1, -1, etc versions. You can also choose to add filters to your search and search for similar VO2 Max workouts, for example. This is all done a bit more easily on a computer, but it should be possible from your phone’s browser.
Here’s an example:
I’d also recommend checking out this Help Center article:
I hope this helps!
Hi Larry.
Just wondering, has the idea of adding a “Similar Workouts” tab to the workout page ever been considered? This could be populated by workouts that target the same zone, have the same duration, and are within +/- 1-2% (or whatever range is reasonable) in terms of TSS?
My use-case for this is that I do most of my weekday workouts in hotel gyms where it is fairly difficult to change the resistance and accurately hit the power targets. My main work-around is that I change up my calendar so that I am mostly doing sweet spot and endurance rides during the week that don’t have many changes in power. However, yesterday I was scheduled to do Carillon +2, which had more power changes than I wanted to attempt to hit on a spin bike. Ultimately, I searched through the workout library and swapped it out for Tray Mountain. This process would have been a little easier if a “Similar Workouts” feature existed.
Anyway, I realize my situation probably does not apply to the majority of people that use TR, and that functionality already exists to search for similar workouts, so I don’t imagine this would be a high priority item, but maybe something to consider as icing on the cake?
Thanks,
Tom
Hi @larry , Thank you for your quick reply.
I don’t think I can do this from the app, it has to be done from inside a browser on my phone, correct?
I think the adding and moving workouts is not available in the app yet?
I can “add filter” and select workouts “less than 1 hour”, however, I don’t know what “zone” to select as it doesn’t say anywhere what zone the Haku workout is.
Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Hi Van.
I just looked at this myself. I think many (if not most) workouts do say what zone they are in the App, but Haku appears to be an outlier. It looks like a combination of Sprint and Endurance, making it hard to classify as either.
It seems your limiting factor is time, so I would start out by looking for Sprint workouts that are less than 1 hour, then finding something with comparable TSS and IF (keeping in mind that TSS will likely be lower as you are shaving off time). How about Crane? Maybe not a perfect match, but perhaps an acceptable substitute.
One of the nice features currently available is the ability to scrub to a certain area of every workout. If you have time constraints and can’t complete Haku as it is indicated - do 40 minutes of Haku and then scrub to the cooldown for 3-5 minutes. It is another option I use instead of spending time trying to find a variant if it doesn’t match my available time or energy level.
Thank you @tomr1022. OK, I see in the App after I look up a workout, if it has variants they are listed, unfortunately Haku has none.
I do also see ONLY in the app it does say what “zones” the workout is in. It would be nice to see this in the calendar too.
I see on my phone, from the browser, if I just type in a workout name any “variants” also come up so I don’t need to switch back to the App to do this.
Variants are just the same workout name but a “+” or “-” correct?
Variants are not similar workouts with different names?
I think I found a work around now so thank you.
Hopefully I don’t come across too many more un-categorized workouts like Haku 
Thank you @mkleive, what do you mean by “scrub to” the cool down?
@tomr1022 would this scrubbing impact how my workouts are “analyzed” by TR? I thought I heard Nate say something on a podcast that TR can analyze completed workouts and see how you did compared to what was prescribed (e.g. ended the workout early, couldn’t hit power targets, “scrubbed” the workout"?)
Is it better to scrub a workout or replace it with something you can complete as prescribed in every way?
Here is the info on Scrubbing:
- Yes, scrubbing will effectively impact the final results. If you scrub forward in time, it will shorten the workout time and any intervals/rests that you skip over. If you go backwards, it overwrites the previous efforts and “loses” that data.
- If you have time and know before, it is possibly best to pick a more desirable workout. But, if you are mid workout and decide you need to scrub. It is likely best to just do that. Each situation will vary as to the best move to make.