@grwoolf How do you manage your intensity on the 3 to 4 days you are riding? Do you do it as part of the longer rides or two intense days and 2 super long days?
Tuesday/Thursday are almost always my interval days. Saturday is always a long ride day (often with a group ride in the middle). I’ll usually make Tuesday and/or Thursday a long ride and work the intervals in after about an hour or so of endurance as warmup. Sometimes I’ll do intervals on the trainer and then go out to add endurance or hit a steady zwift session in the evening. This week, it was intervals inside both days so I ended up doing 6 hours outside yesterday. Made for a little more fatigue than I like for today’s intervals (intervals on a yellow day), but I struggled through and it was my last day of a build block (so carrying a ton of fatigue in general). Racing on Saturday, should be a good test of where the fitness is. And then rest hard next week.
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Ahh useful, thanks for the reply! If you work the intervals in, do you run the entire ride as an extended workout, do the workout without it on the head unit, or do you not worry about associating the planned intervals with the ride? Just interested how others do this, hope you dont mind me asking!
I’ll look at the recommended workout in TR, sometimes pick an alternate that is more outdoor friendly (less complex and/or suitable to terrain) and then mark it as “outdoor”. But I don’t load it on my Garmin, I just do the intervals during the ride. It will auto-associate to my outdoor ride as soon as I upload the ride. For progression levels, TR is just looking at the assigned workout and doesn’t consider what actually happened during the ride. So, you could assign a V02max workout and go out and do some sweet spot intervals and TR would still look at that as a vo2max workout if they are associated.
One other dynamic I like with this approach is the ability to pick a workout in real time when on the road. For example, I might be debating between a couple vo2max workouts and questioning my ability to complete the scheduled level (or maybe it looks too easy and I’m debating a harder version). In that case, I might try the first 1-2 intervals at the higher wattage (or longer duration) to see how it feels and then make a call between which workout I want to do. And then assign the workout I did in the TR calendar after I complete it.
My understanding is that TR generally discourages the practice of trying to match up their workouts with less structured rides and I agree that you need to be disciplined and have some experience to do it effectively. It’s not reasonable to go out for an unstructured group ride and then assign a TR vo2max workout just because you had similar time in vo2max. But it also doesn’t have to match exactly. Understanding why workouts are structured how they are is important. For example, it’s fine to change the recovery time and wattage on some types of intervals, but for other types the recovery time and wattage is a big part of driving proper adaptations.
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Hey @grwoolf I really appreciate your input here. I had no idea that the software doesn’t really consider exactly what happens in the outdoor rides. I have been trying to be super strict with keeping to the prescribed workout outside, but it does impact a lot on the enjoyment, especially trying to make the terrain fit with the workout. I appreciate the comment re: the need to understand why the workouts are structured, especially with the recovery interval length etc.
However, having a little extra flexibility I think will work well for me. Today I had a planned social ride with a friend and my initial plan was to do a short VO2 interval workout before riding together, however, I was a bit late, she was a bit early, and I hate having to rush into a VO2 workout without a decent warm up. So I picked a more adaptable workout and managed to get the 4 solid intervals in around an unstructured longer 3 hr ride. It was good actually, the first block of 2 were quite early in the ride, the second toward the end, but all were strong intervals. I’ve managed to work out how to select an interval on the TR ride analzye page and could easily pull out the prescribed intervals to check I hit the power numbers. So I got to ride with my friend, get the structure done, and rack up some TSS having a great time outdoors in the most stunning countryside. 
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I just want to step in here and say that, as @grwoolf mentioned, we highly discourage the practice of matching rides that don’t follow the workout’s structure to a TrainerRoad workout. 
Claiming that they “don’t have to match exactly” does create a bit of a slippery slope here. Either you followed and completed the structure of the workout, or you didn’t. Workout/Progression Levels are complex features, and when you throw in plan specificity, the stakes only get higher as you start to stretch the truth in your communications to the software. At the end of the day, it’s just software after all. 
There are almost certainly going to be downsides in your training and, ultimately, fitness progression if you start to make a habit of doing work that doesn’t follow the plan and telling the software that you are actually doing it and that it feels great. That strays far from how things are designed to work.
@JoPage, you can always load a TR workout up on your headunit and wait to start it until you’re ready. You are better off trying to stick to the structure of the workout as best as you can. It does take some practice to find routes that best serve specific types of work, but once you’ve gotten that figured out, things should all fall into place.
Here’s a TR blog post that might help you out with that.
Your method of using Workout Alternates and adjusting things on the fly depending on your intentions with your ride is good. It’s always better to move things around when you need to and find the workout that you’re going to be able to knock out with quality rather than trying to force a different workout to fit into your ride.
It’s also important to sometimes prioritize whether or not you really want to follow a workout each day to get that specific stimulus in, or if you have other priorities. Trying to force a workout into a ride where you have other priorities will likely just cause the quality of your work to decrease (like not warming up before VO2 intervals 
). It’s okay to bail on a workout sometimes and just ride your bike. Just know that if your #1 goal is to get faster, that time likely could’ve been spent better a different way.
If you aren’t going to be able to follow the structure of the workout, you can always right-click the workout in your calendar and switch it to a group/solo ride. At that point, get out and have fun on your bike! 
What’s important here is high-quality work and high-quality communication. I’d suggest prioritizing:
- Prioritizing the plan.
- Adapting your plan to something as close as possible to the prescription that will also work for your ride when needed.
- Knocking out the workout you selected with quality.
- Properly communicating what you’ve actually done and how it felt to the software (don’t tell it you did something you didn’t do, just like with a coach).
Let me know if this helps! 
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Thanks Eddie
To be honest, I am pretty happy with my execution of the outdoor workouts. I always do my best to stick to the structure, or at least power, of the intervals (with the exception of VO2 stuff as the recommended power is always a tad low for me on those). I don’t worry about recovery valleys being exact between VO2 workouts (unless its 30-30s and I’d be doing them on the erg trainer anyway) but I do for all the other stuff as best I can.
However, ultimately, I am not a pro rider, I don’t have hours to ride each week, and I have been rarely getting out on technical mountainbiking because I have been focusing so much on structure. I need to spend time doing technical riding and with friends so I have people there to pick me up off the floor if needed.
So, for me personally, right now, I don’t want to ‘prioritize the plan’ anymore. I am sure that will make me faster etc, but I’d rather be slower and have my technical confidence and social rides. I am happy to be doing the best I can with the outdoor stuff and I’m ok with that.
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Totally agree that it’s a slippery slope, but don’t agree with completing a structured workout being a binary thing. Pretty much everything in endurance training is about shades of grey, not black and white. If you are over/under wattage targets by a few watts or have to change a rest interval because of traffic or whatever, that doesn’t necessarily invalidate a workout or negate the adaptations.
I know the easy/safe advice is to either execute the workout as is or don’t associate it, but you can absolutely associate a workout that doesn’t match as long as the critical parts align. Will some people get that totally wrong and misrepresent the work? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean it’s an invalid approach for folks who are properly aligning the work (in my opinion). The alternative is forcing every outdoor ride that includes intervals to match exactly to a pre-defined structured ride (or rides). Which just isn’t reasonable in my opinion.
Until the system is able to look at actual work performed rather than what was planned, users will need to bend the system as best they can to make it work for how they incorporate their structured work into their unstructured rides.
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I think you’re both agreeing this point.
But I suspect you think “properly aligned” are wildly different things.
Check out Jonathon’s outdoor graphs
If I’ve got 5x12 threshold with 5minutes rest and that’s what I set out to do, and you can clearly see that structure in the graph that’s good. How good depends.
If I’ve done a 3hr endurance ride, I’ve gone out to enjoy the sunshine and only 1hr is in the Endurance zone then yes I’ve done a long ride but no I haven’t got close to the intended workout at all.
I don’t know that they are that different, mostly just a question of risk/reward from my perspective. The safe advice is to tell people that they need to match the workouts exactly or don’t associate them. Not everyone has the experience/knowledge to know when it’s “close enough” and it’s really hard to quantify/explain that when giving general advice on a squishy/grey topic. So, I’m not faulting TR for having that as a default position. That said, I’m personally a fan of giving people a little rope and letting them try (not just for this example, but for training in general). A healthy part of that is getting it wrong and learning over time. And a lot depends on the individual. Some folks just want precise simple instructions to follow with no explanation, but that drives other people crazy when they don’t understand the “why” behind everything they are doing. If you spend the time to understand the “why”, it’s not that hard to know whether the work you’re doing is going to elicit adaptation similar to the planned TR workout.
Also, I think part of the challenge here is that the TR training system (and zwift, and others) have basically gamified training. You have a power target and a number of minutes/seconds and it comes across as black/white, right/wrong, completed/uncompleted, etc. ERG mode further compounds this. The gamification is awesome in many ways, but it’s created the impression that hitting all these numbers exactly is super important. It’s just not. And I think even TR is pretty clear on that point whenever it’s discussed in podcasts, etc.
I did one of my interval sessions last week outside and the other as part of a zwift group ride. I associated both rides with TR “outside” workouts after the fact even though I didn’t load them on my garmin for the rides and didn’t use the workout integration in Zwift. They are simple workouts, I don’t need a garmin telling me when to put out x watts for y minutes and I don’t want to be constrained by second by second instructions.
The first one was vo2max and 6x5’ with 5-8 minutes rest between. All intervals were hit within a few watts. Based on terrain, a few of the rest intervals were shorter than 5’ and one added a minute or so because I stopped to talk to a guy who was doing intervals on the same hill. And I also had a bunch of random “riding around” time before and after the intervals. Was it different than the TR workout? Sure, but the core work was done and the adaptations are going to be very similar to the canned workout (at least from a vo2max perspective).
The other workout was 3x21’ threshold work, 5 minutes rest intervals. 295, 301, 307 target watts. I ended up doing the 301, 312, 301, so I changed the order based on how the ride was going and I just rode at a comfortable threshold pace (also suspecting my threshold was set a little low). Since it was a group ride, there were a few surges, but it was still fundamentally steady state threshold work. Again, close enough to drive the needed adaptations.
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That sounds like a good plan!
None of us follow structured plans year-round 100% of the time. I’m all for riding your bike for fun. That’s likely what’s gotten each of us here in the first place. 
Enjoy yourself! There will always be time to focus on fitness. Fun, social time, and mental fitness do need their own time, though!
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This can be true in some scenarios, but when you’re working with software that might not understand the nuance of “grey,” it starts to become an issue. I can take a look at your workout and see what went on, especially if you’re there to explain it to me, but most of the time, that’s not the case with our users.
I’m by no means saying that we expect Outside Workout files to look exactly like ERG mode files. We’ve explained how to best execute workouts outside, and what does need to match, though, are the intervals. If the workout prescribes 5x10 at FTP, then your workout file should show that you’ve done that. Over or under on wattage here and there isn’t an issue, but if you didn’t actually do 5x10 right around Threshold, then don’t tell the software that you have.
This is my issue with telling any and all athletes that this is totally okay to do. I’m not saying that nobody has fudged an Outside Workout at some point and gotten away with it, but is it a good thing to do consistently? No. The software is much more complex than you might think, and many people are going to run into issues when associating “similar” outside rides with workouts. I see it all the time.
In terms of “risk/reward,” most of our athletes are better off avoiding taking on risks of messing things up. If what you’re doing works for you, by all means, carry on.
I think we’re in agreement that the structure of each workout to 1-watt accuracy is not what makes us faster. It’s the general training stimulus over time in each zone and the specificity of your plan. The issue with this philosophy, when using something like TrainerRoad, though, is that we use software and ML to analyze your work and make training recommendations based on the workouts you’ve completed. If you want TR to make accurate recommendations, then you need to give it accurate data.
When the software asks, “Did you do 5x5 at ~115%?” we kind of need a yes or no answer. Kind of, doesn’t really work here as, depending on the work done and how it felt, your next prescribed workout could be anything from 4x5 at 110% to 5x5 at 120%, for example. Disregarding the specific structure of the workout (number of sets, relative power targets, etc.) will make a difference here as to what type of workout comes next. The rest between sets isn’t as important here, as we know that finding the right time/place for hill repeats or whatever you’re working on isn’t always clean, and that’s totally fine!
Can Outside Workout files look slightly different than indoor files? Yes. Should you complete all of the intervals as closely as possible to the prescription for best results? Yes. Can you take shorter/longer rest between sets to ensure that you’re in a safe place that will allow you to knock out each interval with quality? Yes. Should you associate an outside ride with a TrainerRoad workout when you haven’t completed all of the work that’s in that workout’s description at some point in the ride? No, I wouldn’t recommend that.
Again, if what you’re doing works for you, please, carry on by all means, but as you’ve mentioned a few times, this isn’t a straightforward process and can go sideways pretty easily, which is why we don’t recommend athletes going this route.
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Appreciate the thoughtful reply and agree with pretty much all of it. But I do struggle with the following comment -
But TR obviously knows it’s athletes better than I do, so you’re probably dead on with the comment. And “most” is probably fair, even if there are those who might benefit from riskier training.
I still hate the idea of always taking the safe path. It’s a good path when starting out when everything comes easy. But at some point, you better start breaking some eggs if you want to get the most out of yourself. Not just in training, but in life/career as well. It’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine after a long career working with different companies all over the world. Do you want to be Blockbuster (so risk averse that it eventually sunk the company) or do you want to be SpaceX (where failing fast is part of their core culture)?
Once you have a couple years of training under your belt and you’ve grabbed all the easy stuff, I’m personally an advocate of getting curious and trying to break some things. I have certainly been guilty of doing the same type training year after year, just trying to add a few more watts to the same program. Particularly when life had me busy. But I have also mixed it up at times. And every time I try something new, there are almost always aspects of success and aspects of failure. This year, it’s going into some Thursday intervals with significant intentional fatigue (while normally I’d want to be as fresh as possible). It might be really dumb and I know it goes against multiple basic training principles, but it’s been done in some coaching circles with success for long events. If I take a step backwards, I still enjoyed trying something new, and it will help inform future training regardless of outcome.
Again, not questioning TR’s default stance on this particular discussion around associated workouts. Just highlighting the potential benefits of stepping outside the safe/suggested path and trying new things.
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Again, I just want to clarify that I’m not against shaking things up with your training. I’m just trying to clarify how to best communicate with the TrainerRoad software.
Breaking things with Adaptive Training is different than making one wrong turn with a coach.
It’s less about safe vs. adventurous and more about getting the right training vs. getting the wrong training when it comes to TR.
Do what works well for you! I’m just here to help guide as many athletes as I can to our best practices based on how our software works. 
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Has there been any recent info shared on progress with WLV2? Still being worked? Shelved? Asking in reference to the “outdoor ride without doing a workout” discussion.
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Eddie, I do have a question if you have time to answer
The one thing I find myself questioning with the VO2 max work is how to progress when my power curve seems to be one of those that suggests I have a bit more input of anaerobic stuff above threshold. I would have always said I was best a low power-long duration stuff but, although my threshold is probably pretty much what the system has me at, the VO2 percentages for the intervals seem a bit low. So I have been going out hard on each of those and seemingly hitting over the power targets by 20 watts or so - not a huge difference but big enough.
The difficulty I have is gauging when I have successfully nailed a workout doing this. So as a theoretical example, if I do say 4 x 2 min intervals and I’m 30 watts over (because they are so short), and then I do 4 x 4 intervals and I am 20 watts over, does that mean my progression is less than it should be/I’m not trying hard enough because actually I should continue to be 30 watts over? Or doesn’t it matter?
I have a 4 x 5 min VO2 session next and I could just go out and do what the system prescribes and say I have completed the workout (and after last week’s crazy stress it may be all I can do haha) and technically I have done what the system has asked. However, for it to be progress, I would need to be doing 4 x 5 at a higher wattage - maybe 20 or 30 watts more than it asks for, wouldn’t I? Or is it less because it’s 5 minute intervals so my anaerobic advantage is lost and thus maybe 10 watts over is enough?
It’s useful to have a guide or I will go all out on the first one and limp home by the last as I still don’t really know where I am at this point on the power curve or what my body feels like doing these hard intervals.
I can’t say what works best for the TR system. But I know for myself, TR would never ever prescribe the VO2 workouts that I need to elicit adaptations. My VO2 interval power is such a high percentage of FTP that I don’t think the workout library has workouts to accommodate it. My most recent block had me doing 6x3 at between 140 and 125% of FTP.
So I do think that for some people that fall far enough out of the bell curve they just have to break out of the plan.
I mean it totally depends on what the workout’s power target is. But IMO, outside of just being a general guide, you shouldn’t be looking at power that closely during the VO2 intervals. Each interval should basically be a max effort. (maybe the first interval is 90-95% so you don’t blow up). But you will be doing less power over 4 minutes than you did over 2. But you’re still just comparing your personal power curve to a theoretical average power curve so it’s hard (impossible) to know what your workout outcome will be compared to what the AI model will tell you to do. But it’s probably safe to say if you’re overshooting the 2 min recommendations by that much then you’ll also overshoot the 4 min.
I guess idk what your absolute power is on these intervals but my VO2 intervals will vary up to like 10% between intervals and like 15% from the first minute to the last 2 minutes of a 3 minute interval.
Ahh thanks for the reply. So, go all out, see what happens. I guess that, if my ‘all out’ begins to drop off and get closer to the power curve that it is expected to be on, eventually I won’t hit the target power and I will know at that point that I definitely haven’t nailed the workout and need to mark it as failed and then the system will identify that and ease off ramping up the workouts.
Yeah, I see what you mean there. Thanks.
This is a great question.
As of right now, your VO2 Max Progression Level is at 5.2, which means that there is still a lot of room to grow there. Rather than manually up your power for each workout you’re prescribed, I’d recommend using Workout Alternates to pick a harder workout to start with instead.
This is a better way to communicate your efforts to TR, as you’re now telling the software how the workout really felt in the post-workout survey rather than telling it what it felt like when you went way over the power targets. This makes for a more straightforward analysis of your work and ultimately will help you get the right workouts prescribed in the first place.
An example of this is your workout scheduled for today is 4x5 at 105-108%. There are a number of different alternates that might be better suited to your abilities, such as 6x4 at 110-112%, 4x6 at 110-112%, 5x5 at 113-116%, or 5x6 at 115%. All of those are alternates to the workout that’s scheduled for today, and I have a feeling that some of those might be challenging.
Not all VO2 workouts are meant to elicit the same adaptations, and those 2-minute efforts that you described aren’t intended to necessarily force you into your true VO2 Max. Longer, more traditional efforts such as the x4s or x5s are mainly focused on increasing your stroke volume by getting to that “all-out” feeling and spending time at your VO2 Max, but the workouts with shorter duration intervals have different goals in mind.
The same workaround goes for those shorter interval workouts as well, though. I’m currently on an XCO plan which includes lots of microbursts/on-offs, and I can tell you that there are plenty of hard VO2 workouts in that category. They don’t feel exactly the same as the traditional x4s and x5s, but they are plenty hard in their own way.
I think you just need to start tackling some workouts that are more fitting to your abilities. Taking on the lower-level workouts and then overshooting the power targets isn’t communicating to the software what you’re actually doing well enough. Especially since you’re doing most of these workouts outside. Use Workout Alternates to pick some harder workouts and give them a go. At a level 5.4, you’ve got plenty of workouts left in the library that are much harder than what you’ve been doing recently.
Let me know if this helps and if you have any other questions. I’d like to help ensure that you’re on the right path here, and I know we can get things back on track for you!
Ahh thanks Eddie, that makes total sense. I just did 3 weeks (then the rest week) focusing on VO2 (like a bad TR user and totally ignoring the plan and replaced the threshold stuff with VO2) and wasnt really sure how I would handle it physically so I was cautious with selecting the workout progression.
Tbf I’m knackered after a crazy work day today so will probably leave the planned workout in tonight but if I’m feeling good in future I’ll ramp up the PL.
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