Hi
I’m using the new Ai version and have a VO2max 6.0 session planned for tomorrow but with nothing today. I’ve got an hour or so spare today so decided to see what Train Now would recommend for me and was a little surprised tbh to have a Threshold 3.6 recommended.
Is this correct?
Anyway I’ve decided to do an easy Endurance ride instead
Trainnow doesn’t care about tomorrow.
Yeah, @mrtopher1980 is right. TrainNow will look at your recent training history to make recommendations, but it doesn’t consult your training plan, so whatever it’s recommending could throw a wrench in your upcoming workouts.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, though. If you want to respect your training plan, follow the plan. If you need a workout in a pinch, though, TrainNow is your guy. Just be prudent and prepared to alter the rest of your week if necessary.
If you want to train today and don’t have any scheduled workouts, you could always drag one of your upcoming workouts from the week to today to knock out. Then you know you’re respecting your plan and doing the work that needs to be done.
The final option here is to only ever add easy rides to your existing plan to ensure that you’re staying on track with your plan and keeping your training sustainable. 
Eddie, thought after I replied above.
Would there be a situation where it makes sense to drop an ai workout in vs trainnow? Would that then look ahead in anyway? or would it only end up changing what is up coming? Which trainnow could trigger too.
Basically is one option better than the other there if wanting to add something and not just move a workout from another day of the week?
You could add an AI workout as well, but that’s probably closer to TrainNow than anything since it still gives you the option to select the type of workout you want to do.
I don’t know of a way to have TR insert a workout that would fit perfectly into your plan as if it were designed to be there.
I think a good way forward in this situation would be to pick from your upcoming workouts first, and then if you run out of workouts toward the end of the week and still want to ride, use TrainNow/select an AI workout. You’d pick a harder workout if you’re still feeling good and have time to recover before next week starts, or just select an endurance workout to be safe.
Thanks. I was under the impression from something @Nate_Pearson said on one of the recent podcasts that Train Now was integrated into the new system. I took that to mean it would suggest something that took the future workouts into account not it would be accounted for after the event. Now I know, its not a problem.
Good advice thanks
Is it correct to think that with the new AI I can do anything and the plan will adapt appropriately? Like if I have a yellow day with no planned workout and I load up and do a really intense workout, or if I go out a do a long hard unstructured ride, the plan will adapt appropriately going forward?
I’m not sure I’m 100% sure what you mean, but yes, if you do a lot of work on a yellow day, we’ll update your upcoming workouts to account for the extra fatigue.
OK. That sounds good. I guess what I’m trying to say is that once I have a plan, I can do any workouts or unstructured rides anytime and the plan will continuously adapt to that. Or I can simply do nothing for a week and the plan will adapt to that, right? I know that won’t produce the best results over the duration of the plan, but AI will make the best of it, right?
Yeah. We’re constantly monitoring your recent training history (or lack thereof) and making adjustments to what’s best for you in the future.
If you miss a workout, your next workout in that zone should probably be different than what it would have had you crushed that first workout.
If you do a three-hour ride the day after a hard workout, we might have to dial things down the next day.
Etc., etc.
Does that make sense?
@eddie Whilst I’ve got you , so to speak, could you help me with a related question. A 1.5hr 5x5 under/over session was prescribed today but I did a 4+ hour ride with friends but actually worked 6x5 very similar intervals into it. ( All my threshold intervals on the road are over & unders).
Do I, ignore the workout and just rate the ride as it was or associate the ride with workout. If I associate the ride do I then rate the whole ride (moderate) or just what I felt in the intervals (hard). Thanks
Only associate an outdoor ride with a structured TR workout if you matched the structure of the workout precisely. You can add volume to the beginning or the end, but the workout itself needs to match. The interval length, power targets, recovery durations, etc.
Doing a similar workout really isn’t good enough in this case.
That doesn’t mean that your ride was trash. It’s still solid, it’s just not a good idea to compare that to the prescribed TR workout. Only tell the software that you did the work if you precisely did the work.
Does that make sense?
Oh, and if you did follow the structure of the workout and add volume to the beginning or end of the ride, base your RPE survey solely on the TR workout section of the ride.
No I didn’t match it precisely so I’ll just ignore the workout then. Thanks
OK. I’m going to do an unstructured ride outside tomorrow instead of plan’s scheduled workout. It will upload to TR with power, HR, etc. I don’t need to do anything in TR (delete, associate, identify or anything) and AI will adapt my plan according to the training effect of that outdoor ride and the fact that I did not do the scheduled workout. That’s easy.
That’s how I read it
Yeah. But I just read eddie’s post a few hours ago in anther thread where they said, “If those rides are actually hard, then I’d swap your schedule to put a hard workout in place of that Group Ride rather than an easy one.” This suggests it does matter what the scheduled workout is even though you don’t do it and do an outdoor unstructured ride instead.
What I was communicating there is related to associating outside rides with Group or Solo rides.
If you have a Group Ride that you scheduled on an easy day, but it’s always going to be a hard ride, I’d recommend swapping a hard workout for that Group RIde to replace. This is done in the schedule step of Plan Builder.
My point there was that you can schedule Hard group/solo rides, and easy group/solo rides, as shown below, so make sure that the effort you’re scheduling matches the effort of the ride. That way, we’ll have the right expectations for your training, and your week will balance out.
Does that make sense?
Yes, and that’s what I used to do before this update, even though I wasn’t sure if it was the correct thing to do. It made sense. I’d change the scheduled workout to one with an IF and TSS close to what I thought the Solo/Group ride would be, and then turn it into a Solo/Group ride associated with that ride. With the new update, I thought it may different in the way the system utilizes and applies data from unstructured rides making changing the scheduled workout and identifying it a Solo or Group ride unnecessary. I’m gonna do an unstructured outdoor ride today instead of my scheduled workout and it will have a higher IF and TSS than the scheduled workout. Should I change the scheduled workout and change it to a Solo Ride, or just do the ride? Either way is fine. I just want to do the correct thing.
There’s no need to change the scheduled workout in your calendar if you aren’t going to follow it.
Unstructured rides and structured workouts aren’t comparable, so there’s no need to try to do so.
If you decide to skip your workout and go ride for fun instead, that’s okay. You don’t need to change what was prescribed on that day for any reason. We’ll see that you skipped your workout and rode outside for fun, and take that info into consideration when adjusting your upcoming training.
Again, what was discussed above was regarding Group/Solo rides and how they can be prescribed as either easy or hard, based on how you build your schedule.
I think I’m finally catching on, maybe. So, identifying Solo/Groups rides is done to build them into the plan calendar. If randomly skipping a planned workout and doing an unstructured ride (outdoors, zwift ride/race, Rouvy…) then I don’t need to do anything in the calendar (I don’t change the workout, delete the workout, associate it with the ride). I just do the ride and the plan will adapt appropriately. That’s perfect. I really appreciate your help and patience.
