Are you referring to the definition of Easy that you should be able to complete another interval. And because the interval is ~90 minutes long, you’d have to complete another one (doubling the work) in order for you to grade it as Easy?
If so, I think you misunderstand the definition. It is written in the context of interval workouts for sweet spot and above, but does not work well if your workout consists of only a few, very long intervals.
Problem for me is, that the guidelines don’t match the prediction of your AI at all when it comes to Easy and Moderate. Outside of my hard workout days the AI gives me endurance rides that are supposed to be easy. I usually do 90min on the indoor trainer, and the workouts it gives me (and rates as easy) have extended periods at the very upper end of Z2 and lower Z3.
I can complete these without issues and could do another hour for sure. But if moderate means anything than it’s those workouts. There has to be a difference between an actual easy recovery ride (or ride at the middle/bottom of Z2) and something like the workout I just described. And in the assessment above that’s not the case. If I rate the workout that I completed without issues now as moderate (simply to distinguish it from an actually easy lower Z2 workout), I get immediately “punished” by the AI dropping my next FTP estimation by several watts.
So in my opinion the description for the difference between Easy and Moderate is just wrong or the AI needs to understand what a moderate ride is.
I’m annoyed by the same issue. My indoor Endurance rides are also around 90 minutes and are mostly at the upper end of Z2 and lower part of Z3. If “moderate” means anything, then it’s those workouts.
Hmm, ok. I looked over the TR page on post-workout surveys and I couldn’t find anything about them only applying to sweet spot or above. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this suggested.
I think you misunderstood what I meant. With intervals, you can typically ask yourself “Can I tack on another interval and still be ok?” E. g. if you are asked to do 4 x 10 minutes at threshold, can you add another 10-minute interval (to make it 5 x 10)? Or can you do another set of 20 30-30s going from, say, 3 sets to 4 sets? If you only have one “set” (1 x 90), then this becomes a different story, it’d be akin to requiring that you do another 3 sets of 20 30-30s, which is another kettle of fish.
@mcneese.chad’s explainer of how to rate RPE is useful here, too.
You’d have to opt into longer endurance rides so you can trade intensity for time-in-the-saddle. Otherwise you hit the ceiling at a certain point.
The guidelines of how to rate RPE are what you should use when analyzing your efforts. The predicted difficulty shouldn’t have any effect on your decision, but I understand why it’s easy for them to get into your head.
Some of those endurance rides aren’t going to feel easy, and you shouldn’t be “punished” for thinking that.
If you run into a case where you see meaningful changes to your hard workouts when answering a survey this way, let me know, and I’ll bring it to the team to look at. 
I don’t think yo understood my point. I read your recent comments about the stages and how RPE should be used. They are bit different from how the sticky post on Reddit defines them and for sure more useful when applying it to a workout. Especially the part about “sets of intervals” compared to a single interval.
My point is simply that given that recovery and easy Z2 rides exist, a 90min ride at the top end of Z2 / low end of Z3 should never be flagged in the same category. And given the comments I read on this issue on Reddit and in here, I think it’s safe to say that I’m not the only one that thinks like this 
Another issue that’s in my eyes related is the “Target Intensity” I can set for rides that I schedule myself. Why are there 10 different Target Intensities instead of just matching them to the 5 RPE zones you are using or vice versa? For me that’s a pretty annoying inconsistency and one of the two metrics should in my opinion be adjusted. Which would btw also elimination the Easy vs Moderate issue. But I guess you guys don’t want to have 10 zones for that because you feel it’s too complicated to use
I do longer endurance rides. But not on the indoor trainer. After 90 minutes I’m bored out of my mind just staring at screens. My point is still the same: Recovery and low Z2 rides should not end up in the same RPE category as a 90min upper Z2/Z3 ride. By definition that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
PS: the explainer from Eddie is much better and also clarifies the “one more interval” vs “one more set of intervals” scenario - Half volume, add 20W to FTP? - #11 by eddie
I don’t think I fully understand what you mean when you say that easy Z2 and top of Z2/Z3 rides are “flagged in the same category.”
They are both endurance rides, yes, but you just need to rate them based on how they felt. If they feel easy, mark them that way. If they felt moderate, mark them as moderate.
Are you suggesting that we should further differentiate Active Recovery workouts from Endurance ones? I agree that workouts with an IF <.55 are different than those at or around .75.
I think the argument would be that, setting TR aside, we probably wouldn’t call anything z2 -and definitely not upper z2- “easy”, so it’s not intuitive.
Pretty much, by definition these two kind of rides should never be in the same RPE category. If you put these things in the same RPE category then IF scores and Zone definitions are completely meaningless.
You can make Z2 rides hard, just get closer to 75 % and ride for long enough. Even things like boredom on the trainer can significantly increase RPE.
RPE is definitely subjective, so I can see where you’re coming from here.
We try not to label entire training zones by RPE, but we could probably be better with Z2 work.
Zone 2 ranges from 55-75% of FTP, and I definitely think there is a big range of efforts there, especially since lots of athletes are doing 60 minute workouts and lots are doing 2-4 hour workouts, all in the same zone. 60 minutes at .65 IF is different than 90+ minutes at .75. 
I wonder if the predicted RPE is causing confusion here, becuase we genuinely want you to rate the work as it felt. If you’re seeing undesirable behavior related to your RPE surveys, please let me know.
Some of what you’re seeing now could be related to the bug we’re currently working on with FTP predictions, but either way it’s worth sharing.
A “very easy” rating might help differentiate active recovery and low zone 2 from other endurance rides with higher IF or longer duration.
I think this line of thinking is off. Of course an active recovery ride is going to be easier than a zone 2 ride, which will be easier than tempo, which will be easier than threshold…
By this line of thinking, active recovery would be easy, endurance would be moderate, tempo would be hard, threshold would be very hard, and Vo2 all out.
And that is when the rating system becomes meaningless. The point is to rate the work compared to how you would expect the workout to feel. Doing threshold workouts is probably always going to require some concentration it is work, not a walk in the park. But if TR served me up a 3 x 5 minute workout at threshold when I am fresh, odds are it is going to be easy. Those 5 minutes should feel like threshold, so not necessarily easy, but it should be easy to complete all 3 efforts. Conversely, if TR assigned me 3 x 20 minutes threshold, even when fresh going it would likely feel hard or maybe even very hard.
I think you’re possibly missing the point, which is that there is a document that tells you how to rate the work, and they’re trying to figure out how to follow that guidance. There seems to be a clear separation of people who religiously rely on that set of rules and people who “just rate it however you feel like rating it”. There are arguments to be made that “easy is easy and it shouldn’t be hard to figure out”, but when your next workout (or workouts) change based on how you respond, or your FTP prediction goes up or down, there are serious implications to getting it “wrong”, so some of us find ourselves constantly struggling with “what is easy vs. moderate?”
I have to admit I was pretty shocked when I read the definition of “moderate” being “this is a normal workout where you feel challenged”. I would have never in a million years thought “feeling challenged” equals moderate before I read that.
I have read the guidelines. I find it very easy to follow. Follow the guidelines, use your intuition, be consistent in how you apply, rate the workout and move on. The implications are not that serious. A change in a prediction is just that, a change in a PREDICTION. It is not going to derail your season if you pick moderate instead of easy. I believe the model has even shown the ability to understand how an individual tends to rate their workouts.
Their is no magic “perfect” training plan that TR or anyone else can create. Impossible to say how a variation in one workout over a 4 week plan is going to impact fitness. (This could get a bit into why I think TR giving a singular number for a prediction is foolish, but we won’t go there right now). We know training principles that work and TR or coaches apply those. People need to get over the notion that there is one singular golden path to improved fitness - and I realize TR’s marketing is probably creating this notion.
I think that one of the big fears here that is causing confusion is that some have felt that they’ve gotten their RPE surveys “wrong,” as you stated, when that’s actually impossible. The answers are entirely subjective.
Sometimes a sweet spot workout might feel very hard, and sometimes an active recovery workout might feel moderate. We are humans, and TR is only trying to get some insights as to how you’re feeling in order to get you the best training possible moving forward.
If you told your coach that you felt awful during today’s workout, adjusting tomorrow or the rest of the week is by no means punishment (which is how many refer to this in TR), it’s just good coaching. Keeping the same work in place as before would be a bad decision.
Now, if you rate the work as it felt and you believe that the changes to your prescribed workouts did not benefit your training in any way, then reach out to us so that we can look a bit closer. There are almost certainly ways that we can continue to improve what we have in place right now, and as we all know, sometimes there are bugs that cause undesirable behavior.
Ultimately, we want people to be able to rate the workouts as they feel and end up with the best possible training. If it’s easier to simply make a split-second decision at the end of the hard work/workout, that’s a fine way to go, but if you’re the type that needs to reference our guidelines, that’s why they’re there.
The feedback we’ve gotten in this thread is really valuable, and our guidelines are something that requires very little work to change, so if we feel that, based on user feedback, they could be more intuitive or accurate to some extent, we can change them.
I think the idea of adding “Very Easy” could be a good way to go here, as there are already “hard” and “very hard,” and that doesn’t move the scale of how each workout zone should feel, because that’s already not how it works. While we do calculate predicted RPE for each workout on your calendar, it’s not as simple as endurance = easy, sweet spot = hard, etc. Each is unique, and every answer from the athlete should be subjective based on how the work felt, regardless of what they might have been expecting going into the workout.
That depends where your LT1 sits. If it sits around 82% then you are likely still comfortable at 75%. If your LT1 sits around 71% you have entered that heavier breathing level.
Aren’t you conflating VT1 and LT1? My VT1 sits closer to 0.67 IF last time I paid attention.
Your larger point still stands, some athletes can push a higher percentage of FTP for longer than others.