I started using TRoad again in October last year (I had already used the app a few years ago). When I returned, my goal was to structure my training for the whole season, focusing on a few marathon mountain bike races as preparation and with the main goal of 3 Ultramarathons in March, May and June. Adaptive training was the main reason for using TRoad again. Structuring the season by including the scheduled events in the plan, with the flexibility to schedule the training sessions by choosing the days and their duration and having recommended adaptations when something went off the rails are undoubtedly an added value.
In the beginning, everything was 5 stars, with each training session that was more or less difficult, small adaptations were suggested. After a few weeks I could check and update the FTP.
In February the plan went off the rails. On the 22nd and 23rd I had a two-stage marathon mountain bike event (race B in the plan) in which I only did one of the stages and the following week the app didn’t react as I’d hoped (I’d expected more adaptations suggesting increasing the load in the plan) because I’d done much less loading the week before. Then, two weeks later, another B event with two stages was canceled and two more weeks later I didn’t take part in the first Ultramarathon scheduled for 150 km (A race) due to very bad weather.
In March, many hours of mountain biking and around 8 hours with an estimated TSS of 500/600 in the Ultramarathon alone remained to be done. In the weeks following these gaps in the calendar, I again felt that the IA didn’t react as it should have in terms of adaptations. The IA didn’t seem to understand that there had been much less effort and that I needed to adapt my next training sessions because I still had two ultra-marathon A-races to do. That’s what I expected. After some interaction here on the forum and with the staff, I ended up deleting the events I hadn’t done. By deleting these events, more suggestions for adaptation appeared, but I still thought they were too few given the background and the usual dynamic of suggestions in the first few weeks of the plan.
I finished my subscription on May 30th and didn’t renew. The main reason was two things:
1- The AI is still a bit unstable and inconsistent (at least in my experience of 7 months of use);
2- This is perhaps the biggest reason. From the outset, I always found the plan short in terms of volume and prescribing longer training sessions at the weekend. Doing ultramarathons of 7 to 10 hours is not the same thing as doing mountain bike marathons of usually 3 to 4 hours maximum. In the planning there isn’t even an option to choose the ultramarathon strand. I thought that even if there were no ultramarathons, by setting the duration of the events at 7 hours or more, the volume of the endurance days at the weekend would be adapted, but no longer.
I think the plan has remained faithful to the volume needed to run marathons and hasn’t adapted to the ultramarathons I’ve scheduled.
Here’s my contribution and see you one day..
