Please contact support@trainerroad.com for issues like this. We have so little info compared to the mass of data they have. Not to mention that we can only guess as to the “secret sauce” that hides within the AIFTPD feature.
Thanks Chad - thought I’d start here in case it was more common or I had done something stupid, but I guess one of the clever techies needs a quick look at my data and see what’s what.
Yup, as you’ve seen, even with what you provided, we are guessing at best compared to the background TR can access in seconds. Far better to get their feedback compared to our perspective which is barely us peaking through the keyhole of the door to your fitness.
My guess is that AT FTP prediction is based on much more than just a recent PD curve. I have been seeing what seem to me to be reasonable results from the other direction - even having not done any maximal efforts for quite some time, it still has a reasonable estimate, whereas intervals.icu was way low due to a PD curve that doesn’t match my actual fitness. Some recent maximal efforts were in-line with TR’s estimate.
I would expect/hope that the TR estimate would ‘catch up’ if you continue doing work at a 265ish FTP. I guess they don’t have any simple checks on the estimates to make sure they are not way below what a PD and/or 20ish minute effort gives. I’d bring this up with TR support, as this does sound like a case they would be interested in looking at, as the estimate seems way off.
How does your indoor environment compare to outdoors? If you are overheating indoors its maybe limiting your potential. If so with that potentially and +/- error, motivation, an anaerobic contribution (FTP should be with that exhausted), etc 9.8% isn’t really that far off.
Sure thing. Let us know what they say. Keep in mind this is still a “new and unreleased” feature that is like a beta test. So reporting anything odd or out of the expected range directly to support is worthwhile so they can look to improve this tool for you and anyone in a similar use case to yours.
Yip see how you get on. The majority of folk go better out than in but I don’t either; I think mainly because I can psychologically push right to edge (well less so now I’m older) inside when I’m not worrying about other people, bends etc. I’ve had similar one offs (if it was one) and it may have been too high with a lot of the other possibilities for discrepancy (+/- differences, motivation, anaerobic pollution etc) and whilst in the past that could have been potentially damaging to my training I think it is less so to you with Adaptive Training. Good luck
Via numerous forum posts and podcast comments, TR officially takes the “Keep It Simple” approach in general and says “Rate it how it feels”. Here is their official support article that adds context and possibly nuance.
I’d have to search to find it, but do NOT recommend taking into account general issues like bike fit, saddle comfort or other factors not actually related to the real power and effort applied to the workout.
Let’s say you do a lengthy Endurance (Z2) workout that is Achievable/Productive Difficulty, and you find that it’s functionally “Easy” from an effort perspective, but you have notable saddle pain from a bad setup and you mark the workout “Hard”.
TR AT will look at that and likely stall or downgrade your pending workouts in that training zone. It’s a negative adjustment from the wrong input and could lead to problems in your actual training progression.
IMO, you need to keep the rating purely about the “workout”. If you have issues like saddle pain and the like, those should not be included in the survey. They are legitimate points of interest that should be addressed with a separate review process to be fixed if at all possible.
That depends…
If you rate an Achievable workout as Hard, it may downgrade future workouts. This is because it should not have been Hard from TR/AT’s current info about you and the workout.
If you rate a Stretch workout as Hard, it may well keep the existing progression that was already in place. This is because a Stretch is expected to be on the higher end of the survey ratings
It is all relative to the Workout Level in question, related to your Progression Level at the start of the workout, that drives the Difficulty Level. The end result is that you can’t make a blanket statement and need to look at each workout with respect to the rider and how they rate it at the end.
Maybe, maybe not. Above all else, TR says “Be Consistent” with your ratings. They apparently have some “learning” component in play that should take into account your trends over time to make your own ratings work best for you with AT.
My recommendation and what I try to do, is pick the more difficult rating if I am ever “on the bubble” and waffling between ratings. My guide above generally gets me to a proper selection, but I still hit a split on occasion. If I know the difficulty was a fluke or result of something I can “fix” in the next workout, I will likely pick the easier one.
If I am unsure why I had a harder workout than I might have expected, I pick the harder one. That can drop the pending workouts and maybe keep me from a downward spiral. I’d rather crush the next one than have a 2nd one go off plan.
It’s certainly mental and something that I have struggled with in the old days with the old plans and lack of AT. So I take the “easy” road by picking the “harder” rating whenever I am in doubt. I feel that ripping a slightly easier workout has more benefit (mental and physical) than having another tough one on a harder workout. All gut feel with no backing, but that is my take.
Its probably not as simple as I thinking but if a workout is supposed to be hard, such as a reasonable PL Threshold session, I don’t think rating it as hard will soften future workouts (I’ve not saw it anyway). Although I’ve never saw it either but I think if you started ranking easy Endurance rides as hard or all out, fail surveys may be generated and future workouts may be softened.
Nah, hard is just where it should be. Marking it as moderate wouldn’t really have made a difference here.
I’d just keep training with that higher FTP. I suspect you had a big bounce up because of your sickness. AT + AI FTP Detection will learn your new fitness over the next block and things should be inline again.
, I am just happy that the chart is useful and people share it when it might be helpful for others.