I am currently following a Low Volume , Short Power Build plan, 3.5 hours a week.
Overall very happy with the recommended workouts.
Occasionally as happened today I see a workout that feels likely too difficult. I decided to specifically lower my intensity slightly on the 3 x 2 minute segments which would allow me to complete the remainder of the workout successfully. (I overshot some of the last efforts)
Surprisingly I achieved the full TSS ,Trainerroad showed the workout as completed successfully and I logged the RPE as Hard.
Should I have actually recorded RPE as Very Hard as I am pretty sure that would have been the case if I had matched (within trainer error) all the required power targets.
If I have to “cheat” in any way (pause, lowering intensity, etc.) and don’t think I could have completed the workout otherwise, I log it as “max effort.”
It appears you have no trouble producing sprint power, but struggle to maintain the vo2max 2 minute intervals.
I am finding the same thing , but unlike you I am a predominantly slow twitch athlete.
I would have reduced the intensity, but I would have tried first to ride the interval , so I knew it was impossible to complete, before reducing the intensity. But from what you say, I get the impression you looked at it, freaked out, and decided to reduce the intensity anway, for fear of the dreaded spiral of death (erg mode!) or not being able to achieve them at all.
If I left the intensity at 100% I would have logged it as very hard . If you logged it as max power that implies you struggled with the whole session (which you didn’t)
Because you lowered the intensity just for those 2 minute intervals, I think you were right to log it as hard, seeing as you achieved them all at that intensity.
I’m sure other people will have different opinions, so take your pick, and see how it goes
I would call it a fail if it was me, so I would mark it as “All Out”. If it’s too hard to complete as assigned, then I don’t feel I completed the workout. Having said that, I don’t see that as a negative. I see it as a way to tell the AI that I can’t complete the workout as written, so it needs to give me an “easier (but probably still really hard)” workout next time. By marking it lower and saying I “passed”, I assume it’s going to give me an equally difficult or even harder workout next time, which is unproductive.
I guess my confusion is that I am talking about workouts where TR says I have “achieved” the official PL but I have lowered my intensity a pretty small amount to achieve this.
I’ve fallen into this trap in the past. I “cheated” a little bit in some way to finish a workout and didn’t rate it appropriately, so it gave me a harder workout, so I had to cheat a little bit more to pass that one, and so on, until the workouts got too hard. Very unproductive and ultimately demoralizing.
I wouldn’t call that “cheating…” That’s just an athlete doing what they need to finish the workout. As for what you would rate it… don’t over-think it. As you can see in the replies this is an individual subjective ranking. Go with your gut, just keep it consistent.
Can someone from TR confirm whether or not the AI is also taking in the workout level and TR’s pass/fail evaluation as data or just the power, hr, and cadence graphs along with the RPE rating? I would think that the pass/fail, and workout level should not be included, as the AI should be able to come up with its own evaluation of your performance.
Even when I know I am going to fail a workout, I almost never mark something all-out, because I almost never go 100% all out max effort until failure (now that I don’t ramp test anymore). Instead, I’ll stop those somewhat rare workouts and ride endurance a little ways before I actually hit the point of failure. I’ll mark it very hard, which I think is accurate. I hope I’m doing it right. I don’t want it thinking I went all-out, when I could have produced a slightly stronger power graph if I approached the failure differently.
The other data point I would like the AI to consider is time of day the workout is done. It has a pretty big effect on my abilities. Does it do that?
Rate the workout based on the work you actually did, so hard would be ok. That’s because TR system looks at the actual work (the same as if you would rate an outside ride).
Then edit the ride and uncheck the “progression level” flag so that you don’t earn the level of the workout. I’m not sure if this is necessary as TR says they have a new system that prescribes workouts based on your actual capabilities but better safe than sorry.
Yes I think you should rate the workout you actually did.
If there was a point in the workout where you had no choice but to lower the intensity then I’d argue that would be a “max effort”, but if you lowered it pre-emptively, and the workout you did only felt “hard”, then rate it “hard”.
I’m not from TR, and last time I made this query ~ 1 year ago, the answer was TR only uses power, time, and after-workout survey responses, not HR and not cadence.
I’m fairly certain that we’ll note workout failure and the reported reason for struggling, though the specifics of the performance are likely more important.
How we weight that failure can be different, though, if it was due to poor sleep/nutrition vs workout intensity/training fatigue, so it’s really important to answer the surveys honestly and accurately.
Sometimes “why did this feel too hard?” is a tough question to answer. “Intensity” is usually the easy answer, but was there a more specific contributing factor? Sometimes it’s hard to tell, especially if you don’t have a ton of experience.
As for what you would rate it… don’t over-think it. As you can see in the replies this is an individual subjective ranking. Go with your gut, just keep it consistent.
Press on!
