I just started training with join and must say I like the flexibility a lot.
I use the in app workout player paired with a kickr core. Is there some way to apply power smoothing? My numbers seem to jump around a lot more compared to TR
Yea the app has its default set to 1 second power, you have to change it in the settings every ride.
The choices are 1s, 3s or 10s.
I really like using 10s for longer intervals or endurance and 3s for shorter intervals < 2minutes.
For those that have completed or are most of the way through the Live Slow Ride Fast (LSRF) plan, what is the closest equivalent TR plan? Sweet spot base? Maintenance plan? I’m starting to get some more intensity after the first two weeks and am just curious what to expect.
Overall I really enjoy the flexibility of the plan. I’m in a period of life where my availability to cycle changes every week, and sometimes in the middle the week. I’m also trying to be smarter about listening to my body and taking rest days when I feel too fatigued. I’m not training for any specific event so I do t feel I have to “build” right now, so I know that helps. JOIN handles these changes VERY well.
Not being able to see the whole plan, even if it changes frequently, still is at odds with my personality. Not sure if I could blindly trust a plan I can’t see if I were using it to trading for an A event. For now, though, this is what I needed.
I must have started about the same time too. I see I have some Ronnestad intervals coming up. 
I am hoping somebody can help me get to terms with the JOIN “How did it go” questions. They just have not clicked with my brain (for comparison, I had no issue with the TR post workout survey).
Examples:
- I had a 3 hour workout. 70 minutes @ 60%, then 4 sets of VO2/Threshold over-under intervals, and then another 70 minutes @ 60%. The app suggested 3 out of 10 (Light) in the survey. Sure, the 140 minutes @60% were pretty easy, but the intervals in the middle were not. In fact, I got 61 season PRs (according to TR) for that part.
- I had a 4 hour workout – just 65% for 4 hours. Did it on a trainer. The app suggested 2 out or 10 (Very light). Sure, 65% was not hard but after 4 hours on the trainer I would not call it very light.
- I did a quick little spin yesterday just to check out some basic maintenance I had done. It was a 30 min ride just milling around the area, with a 4 minute hard effort in the middle. But given how short the ride was, it was something I would have rated quite easy. The app suggested 9 our of 10 (Near Maximal Effort).
So it seem to me that in #1 it completely ignored the intervals, but in #3 is only focused on the “interval” in the middle, and in #2 it was just setting unrealistic goal 
Can somebody help me get to terms with these questions? Thanks!
I totally get where you’re coming from, and I admit it’s odd to me that my ratings in Join don’t match my ratings that I also do in Garmin, TP, and TR.
Having said that, I just do my best to rate the ride as I see fit and hope that Join will learn from my behavior and adjust my training as needed. I think of it like TR PL’s. TR might think 30/30s should be really hard for me because I haven’t done any in a while, but if I actually do them, that’s what I’m good at, so I lower the rating, tell TR it was Moderate, and expect them to raise my PL for the next workout. I’m doing the same with Join.
I think that’s how you should do it. Like TR workouts surveys. Don’t overthink it. Just give a number to how the whole workout felt.
Trying not to … but then I read the text and that makes my head spin
“A short, hard interval in a long ride gives a lower RPE than the same effort in a shorter ride.”
All in all, I would think that 4 minutes @ 120% with 15 minutes of Z2 on either end would be easier than the same effort with 90 minutes of Z2 on either end. But that is not what the app is telling me 
Oof, that seems like an unnecessary headache.
Is there any update on the Android app player?
I find Join intriguing, but the not being able to see beyond a week didn’t jive with me.
I thought Enduco would be the thing, it reads and looks a lot like Join but (maybe) with an ability to view the calendar beyond a week. The app was absolutely hopeless with bugs and blank pages so I wasn’t able to even see a calendar generated.
Not being able to see a whole month or two ahead doesn’t bother me too much. I think we’re all just used to seeing six months ahead on a TrainerRoad training plan. So much can change in time between my work life and other things going on, just like anyone else.
If you go and pay for a coach, they’re not gonna give you two months of a training plan right away. That’s because it’s going to change week by week, so that’s kind of my view on it.
It’s my first time using the platform so I’m just curious how they progress me over the season but besides that I’m just nitpicking.
Yeah, the RPE instruction are weird to me too. I think what they mean is that you should do some sort of “average” RPE over the whole ride. A bit similar to average power - a 10 min threshold interval in a three hour ride affects the average less than if you do it in an 30 minute ride.
But honestly, I usually go for something between 5 and 7, unless it felt very easy or very hard. And if Join says its different to what they expected, I’ll change it to something expected, because I usually don’t want my bad RPE sense to affect the plan.
Don’t know, I’m bad with retrospective RPE, once its over, I forget really quickly.
If it was 4 mins @120 over the course of the entire ride, no matter the length of the ride, I would rate it very low. Like maybe a 4.
I just think that their idea of easy and mine are a bit different.
I’ve just done a 4 hour endurance ride with some increasing threshold intervals thrown in for good measure. I didn’t do the last one as i was too tired. They thought it should have been a 3! but I rated it a 4. Tomorrow there is another 4 hour ride planned with some VO2 max intervals in the middle!. After reading some of the above comments I went back and changed it to a 7 hoping it would give me an easier ride tomorrow. Fat chance. Not only did it keep the workout it never even mentioned that I had rated it it higher than they expected.
This bring something else to mind. If you are not particularly touch with your body or don’t use some sort of HRV to guide you to enable you to take decisions about downgrading or reducing the intensity it would be very easy to dig a hole for yourself if you just ploughed on regardless. This goes for all the training apps out there not just Join. The app doesn’t know if you slept badly, had too much to drink the previous night, had a stressful 5 hour drive the day before etc etc.
EDIT: I"ve just noticed that altering it from a 4 to a 7 altered the workout score from a 7.7 to 6.1 for some reason. Any ideas why?
Yeah, it takes your RPE score into account and compares it with the expected RPE.
I’ve never had that happen. If it says it updates the plan, it stays like that until I do another workout/ride/skip a ride.
Unfortunately the prescribed workout stayed the same.I’m fine with the 4 hrs it the VO2max bits I’m not too sure of.I wait and see how I’m feeling after an hour or so
Personnally what I would do (and I’m probably going to do today) is use the plan another ride feature, to tell it I was going to do 4hrs @ x intensity, and then the planned workout I would tell it I did something else, plan for the following days will adjust afterwards
Have a look at the exact vo2max intervals, because sometimes they are quite mellow.
Also, if this is an outdoor ride, I’d just find a hill or safe flat road of about the same length, do the number of repeats at approximately that power, and claim that was the planned workout. Join rarely gives you just endhrance rides, there’s always some intervals in it, but I often just do something in the spirit of the workout that fits the ride better. No need to go overly complicated, imo.
If I really think I want to do the exact intervals, I do them indoors, because I don’t have roads for anything longer than a minute.