Workout Levels aren’t manually created. They are calculated using a formula derived from machine learning, incorporating subjective factors like repetition, interval length, and recovery time.
The inconsistencies mentioned in this thread are cases that require a TR admin to refresh the Workout Level to fix it. This will no longer happen once Workout Levels V2 is released.
Hey Sprusky! I took a deeper look into your account and those workouts and want to highlight some important differences.
First, the Workout Levels for different zones aren’t exactly comparable to each other. Workout Levels are meant to represent the relative difficulty of workouts within each zone. While fitness from one zone translates into fitness in other zones, a level 5 VO2 Max workout may not be the same difficulty for you as a level 5 Threshold workout. This is where AT and Progression Levels work to lock you in at the right Workout Levels based on your capabilities.
To illustrate this with the workouts you mentioned:
Mansfield is a hard “suprathreshold” workout, but its intervals are relatively short in terms of Zone 4 work. Threshold Workouts at higher Workout Levels may have athletes holding 105% FTP for 10+ minutes per interval as they progress in their Threshold training.
Lamont, meanwhile, is a touch more difficult in terms of %FTP, pushing it into what we would define as VO2 Max. 5 to 6-minute efforts are quite long for a VO2 Max workout, so you may notice that VO2 Max workouts at higher Workout Levels don’t increase in duration, but rather in intensity.
Lamont’s 5-minute efforts are also split into two 2m30s intervals by a 45-second recovery period in the middle of each one. Additionally, the recovery period between sets is much longer.
Those key differences translate to different Workout Levels, which are meant to progress athletes differently within each zone they target.
Finally, I noticed you were coming off the heels of a run and a dog walk prior to your workout. It also looks like this was your first TR workout after your race and some unstructured riding. I know my first interval session back after some unstructured training raises the RPE quite a bit. The good news is AT should have you locked in at your Threshold and VO2 levels now and keep your fitness moving in the right direction.
Keep us in the loop on how everything’s going with your next plan phase starting next week!
Hey man thanks for your response. I suspected that that was the case given the short duration of the intervals on Mansfield. I felt a lot better doing Lamont yesterday evening, a bit fresher too. I’m doing sustained power build next week and that will really get me used to the threshold end of things. I don’t have anything else coming up for a few months now so looking to focus on lifting my ceiling a bit before the spring /summer takes hold. The app and forum are great and looking forward to getting stuck in a bit more.
Many thanks
Ian
I did “James” the other night and it struck me as being poorly rated and a good bit harder than other endurance workouts that have harder or similar workout levels assigned.
James is a flat 85min at 74% with no variation and is rated 5.1. Compare Andrews at 5.4, which does go marginally harder to 75% for some of its length but has substantially longer stretches at around 70%. Brasstown is rated 5.2 but is also easier to complete. Having recently done James, I’d rather do Andrews or Brasstown any day of the week and feel that James is rated too low and my gut would say that it’s more like 5.6. Certainly I would have thought it’d be the hardest 90min endurance workout you could do while still calling it “endurance” and not tempo or sweet spot
Unfortunately, I keep finding inconsistent workouts. Look at how similarly the outdoor version of these two are defined:
Still, one is level 7.9, while the other is 9.6!
There are also some inconsistencies between the indoor and outdoor versions of the same workout. Neblina, for example, is level 8.3 indoors and 9.5 outdoors.
On a different note, I wish there were higher difficulty endurance workouts. While Threshold and Anaerobic go up to level 18-20, Endurance only goes to 9.6. While I will most likely never be able to do those level 18 workouts, I just maxed out Endurance, and it wasn’t super hard to do either. I think it would be easy to add higher levels, just take some of the existing ones and make longer versions.
I understand most users have no need for 6+ hour workouts, but I’m pretty sure most users aren’t doing those level 18 workouts either.
@DanielRHolt @torhovland Thanks for the heads up! We’ll review those workouts you mentioned.
Regarding Robinson & Robinson +2:
Robinson’s main set is 5% lower and 5min shorter than Robinson +2’s, and Robinson +2 also has less time at cool down intensities. This may not seem like all that much, but +5% at such a long duration makes Robinson +2 notably more difficult.
For Neblina, we’ll get those differing indoor/outdoor ratings sorted!
And as for higher level endurance workouts, we will be continually building out our workout library based on demand.
Feel free to let me know if you run into anything else!
I think others have brought these up - but I think these progressions don’t make sense related to each other
I can almost talk myself in to Phoenix -3 being easier than Brasstown - although I’m not sure I agree - but at a minimum the gap should be smaller. However, James definitely seems incorrectly sorted
| Duration | Name | TSS | IF | kJ | PL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4:00 | Longfellow | 180 | 0.67 | 2525 | 8.1 |
| 4:15 | Putuo | 189 | 0.67 | 2708 | 8.3 |
| 4:30 | Gasherbrum | 201 | 0.67 | 2874 | 8.6 |
| 4:45 | Kailash | 211 | 0.67 | 3028 | 8.8 |
| 5:00 | Mianzimu | 222 | 0.67 | 3184 | 9.1 |
| 5:30 | Neblina | 242 | 0.66 | 3484 | 8.3 |
| 6:00 | Bandeira | 262 | 0.66 | 3792 | 8.7 |
| 6:00 | Cuyama | 278 | 0.68 | 3895 | 9.5 |
Here, Neblina and Bandeira seem misplaced with their PL. And if not (because lower IF 0.66), then at least there is one missing workout for 5:30 with IF 0.67, PL 9.3 or something for smoother PL increments.
Of course, body does not care what PL Neblina has but for planning purposes would be nice not to drop down to Achievable workout 
Pioneer -3 has higher TSS & IF than the other three rides, but has a lower progression level. Seems like it should be at least higher than Beach.
The maximum differences between all 4 rides are 3.8 to 4.3.
Is that really going to make a difference to anything.
Maybe they should all have the same PL but really does it matter enough to post about.
Obviously I thought it did. I was scheduled to do Black and noticed that Pioneer -3 looked like slightly more effort. Seemed on topic.
Not sure if I’ve just had a bad day @IvyAudrain but I found Renoso (Anaerobic 6.5) impossible with it’s 6x 20s @498W and 10s recoveries.
Striped -4 (Anaerobic 6.8) last week on the other hand only felt moderate to hard. So one of them seems a bit off?
