So ever since TrainerRoad AI launched I have quite a bit of a struggle to finish VO2 Max, Over-Unders etc. usually I will fail the last interval, I shortly lose my cadence or something and cannot recover back, or my legs just give up at that intensity. Mostly the front of my tighs feel cooked then.
I am a bit lost here what to do, I have given TR some time to adjust to me, and me to adjust but it really frustrates me now.
Sweet Spot and Endurance intervals just feel right most of the time though.
@TrainerRoadStaff, feel free to look at my account to give me some pointers.
How is your pre-workout fueling and hydration? I ask because I have always struggled with vo2 intervals, but as of January when I got my hydration and nutrition dialed, I’ve been far more successful.
The key for me for every ride has been properly:
Hydrating all day. For me this means three liters of water through the day each with 1/8th tsp salt added.
Eating well all day. I’m a super-smoothie guy. Lots of carbs. Lots of protein. Easy consistent fuel to carry with me everywhere.
Crushing my pre-ride meal! 2-2.5 hours before my ride, I eat 1.5 cups of oatmeal with two tablespoons of honey and a banana.
Hitting my warmup and carb priming. I do a 30 minute pre-ride warmup - very easy - and sip 30g carbs in water to prime everything.
Consistency with the above - day in/day out - has completely changed my riding RPE and overall progress.
I have a similar issue. I finally quit trying to do things myself (I’ve tried picking easier workouts, manually entering FTP, etc.) because it just wasn’t adapting as drastically as my body needed. A few weeks ago I decided to accept my AIFTP and do every ride as prescribed. It has resulted in several rides that I fail or mark very hard, but it has started to wake up and make things easier. After I failed my workout today, it is finally predicting an FTP detection that seems within the realm of possibility for me in 2 weeks.
I have no idea if this will work for everyone, and it has been frustrating going hard and failing, but it does seem to be finally working for me.
There are worse problems you can have than falling apart on the last interval of a vo2max or O/U workout. In some ways, that can be better than easily completing the workout. And while there is healthy debate about how close to the limit you want to be for any intense workout, vo2max workouts (in particular) are often going to take you pretty close to that point when done properly. For me, it’s usually a fine line between making it through or not. So, if I’m scheduled for 6 intervals, I might make if 5, I might make it 6, or I might add a 7th if feeling really good. So much depends on fatigue, fueling, etc. on a given day, but all of those possible outcomes can be greaat workouts. If you typically make it to the last interval and didn’t make it through, that is still likely a successful vo2max workout that is going to drive adaptations.
But yeah, it can be mentally and physically draining if you aren’t making it through all your intervals every time, so I totally get the desire to adjust the workouts going forward. It’s pretty easy to just bump down the intensity within the workout manually. If you aren’t comfortable making the manual adjustments, it’s probably worth a call to TR support to see if they can suggest another approach.
If you make it to the last interval that’s great. There are things you can do to complete the workout.
I found that if my legs are cooked in the last interval I can increase my cadence for 10 seconds then back off cadence for 10 seconds. Doing this a few times allows for my legs to recover just enough to finish. It might be psychological but it works for me.
Not ideal but ; back pedal for a bit before the last interval. Or don’t pedal at all for 30 seconds. Might give your thighs just enough encouragement to finish.
how are you rating the workouts? Sounds they should be all out or you should be getting a failure survey. That should impact future workouts pretty quickly.
Kind of hard for any of us in the forum to say anything informative if we can’t see your calendar.
As aydraper is suggesting though, this does have the faint scent of RPE survey discrepencies. Are you rating RPE hard enough? Any failed workout should be Max Effort.
Agree with @Pbase here. You should be rating these Max effort or All Out if you can’t do the last interval. That will allow this system to adjust pretty quickly.
All good feedback here already, but the main one would be rating your workout honestly. If you are not being able to finish them then Maximum Effort would be more appropriate than Very Hard.
That said, I noticed that since you started your plan on Jan you had a few months off the bike before then. Since the start of the plan you’ve had trouble with VO2 Max and Threshold efforts, whereas you did well with Sweet Spot. This could well be a thing of getting used to these type of efforts as well, but I think the combination of rating the post workout surveys more accurately, finding more consistency in following the plan (all of March you did not follow the plan) and resting properly + getting better sleep and eating well should make a big difference. I also see that while it’s great to do longer rides, throwing in 3-6 hour long rides, can generate more fatigue that you may be ready for and compromising your interval workouts.
In short, I would try to more consistently follow whats being prescribed, and add in your long solo rides progressively. Add volume over time, not the other way around Quality over quantity.
This is so frustrating. I have the same issue. I had not failed works for a long time, was always going based on 2x8 or ramp tests. And now when I post about anomalies, or about a few failed workouts, it’s always something “I do wrong” I feel like this Is why @fulcrum and I get so frustrated. When does the situation ever yield a “hey guys, we are going to look at fixing this”
I even decided to do a ramp test just to check the ai ftp and it yielded 10 watts less than ai thought. And I’m not new to this, being 8-10 years I think memeber
For example. If he doesn’t rate it as “all out”, that’s fine, but he failed, so ai should know that it’s too hard regardless of his rating. You can survey the reason for the fail, but if the fail is only a fail if you said it felt “all out,” then that to me seems like a logical error in the system.
People lose it when the system dings them for breaks. If it treated workouts that were borderline between very hard and all out as a fail they would lose it.
But there could be a thousand other reasons to stop a workout. Mechanical, cramp, phone call, house on fire. The AI needs to know that it was physical failure that ended the workout. Hence MAX EFFORT.
IMO saying “I felt fine until the last interval so I only rated it hard” is a little like saying that most of the Titanic was fine except for the hole.
Ok so you “only” failed the last interval. Are you imagining a scenario where you fail ALL the intervals?
I think that is exactly what happens when you fail. It pops up a secondary menu after it asks about the hard, very hard, race pace, all out… and then is asks why did you stop the workout. One of the options, because I have used it is “intensity”. So again, in this survey, if you don’t put “all out”, and you put intensity vs “phone call”, AI should figure it out.
Thanks @Caro.Gomez-Villafane for taking a look.
That outside perspective was certainly helpful, and the end of last year kind a sucked in terms of bike riding and yeah, I still feel that I lost quite a bit of Power there.
As for the ratings, I have follow-up question, as it also came up quite a bit in the other posts:
I remember, that in one of the FAQ style podcasts episodes it was mentioned that the AI will pick up on a riders bias in the rating?
Anyway I will rate the workout Max Effort now if I fail any part of the workout.
Yeah, I get your point.
So what I did is I had a VO2 Max session, lets says to intervals with 4 VO2max efforts each.
I managed to do all but the 4th one in the last interval as prescribed and tuned down the intensity and finished the planned time for the workout.
Overall it felt kind a Very Hard, that I did not end the Workout early also meant that it did not trigger the additional survey.
I will jut rate Max Effort in that case from now on.
