I know @Jonathan has mentioned numerous times that what you score your workouts is totally up to you as long as you are consistent.
For the most part I am marking them moderate, with a few “hard” on occasion.
For the most part, I feel just fine afterwards, aside from my under carriage which can get quite uncomfortable. Is this something are using to quantify a workout as harder or easier? In my mind, it’s not really a training issue so much as a chamois issue.
I added what I think may be missing above in brackets.
If I understand the question, “Does saddle comfort factor into our selection of the completed ride survey?”, then my answer is ‘NO’. I see the survey as asking most about the training effort and the actual workout strain we experienced.
That said, if you are experiencing notable saddle pain, discomfort, numbness and such on the trainer, I think that is an issue to address separately.
Same here. I mark 90% of them ‘moderate’, except for the reeeeeealy easy ones and the eyeball-bleeding ones.
If I get off the trainer ‘tired but invigorated’, it’s moderate.
If I get off the trainer and I’m embarrassed to let my friends see the Garmin data, it’s easy.
if I get off the trainer and the bottles are empty, my vision is blurry, and my chamois is soaked, it’s hard.
Too many choices (for me) obscures my ability to consistently rate stuff. That’s just me, however.
I usually put stuff where i dont feel super challenged on Easy…
Challenging but never in danger of failing on Moderate,
On the brink of failing wishing the wo to end I mark as Hard
Wishing instant death so I dont have to finish the wo (at this point pausing or pack pedaling) i mark as very hard.
For the sake of covering the other base, here is what I refined from discussion with TR about the ride survey and how to consider them. Worth restating this is all about “feel”, not “expectations”.
Inclined to agree, it’s like those surveys which ask if you strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree. Or in A Few Good Men when Demi Moore “strenuously objects”.
Easy, productive or breakthrough would seem to be a sufficient range of choices.
As for the saddle, I would say absolutely don’t use that for your scoring. AT is never going to learn that we need a bike fit regardless of how we score it.
I agree with other that i wouldn’t rate my saddle discomfort as part of the survey.
My problem with last workout, Chicoma+3, was that holding the Sweet spot was ok but I just couldn’t get anywhere near the values in the short sprint sections. So mostly Moderate with bits of Very Hard!
Very interesting post, I almost created something before about this very issue.
I struggle quite a bit with comfort and fidgeting around (despite numerous fits) and for me it’s hard to classify how difficult a workout is sometimes because I’m not sure if the comfort issues are adding to the RPE of the workout.
Apart from a stretch 90 minute continuous tempo type workout which I classified as hard (last 10 minutes my cadence was dropping quite a bit) I have mostly been classifying things as moderate. I go with this because at no stage do I feel I would not complete, but often they feel harder than they should because of the fidgeting around.
@mcneese.chad what does “every trick the book” mean? Does it mean my special “push-myself-to-the-limit song”? Or does it mean back pedals and/or reduced intensity?
I feel like I’m going to die during some vo2 workouts, I consider those very hard. Should I?
Also; what does “all out” tell the AI? I “failed” a workout, had to reduce intensity, and marked it as all out. The AI proceeded by reducing my PL, which I, laughably enough, almost found insulting :).
I don’t consider motivation via music or other means a “cheat” like those physical changes mentioned.
Overly general, but VO2 is meant to be difficult, and often leads to a level of breathlessness that can be scary. At least that is my experience. Some intervals I finish and hit a few moments of panic where I worry if I will ever catch my breath again. So, from my uneducated guess, it sounds like you are hitting those right.
As to scoring those, I think a 3 Hard or above is very appropriate when VO2 is done right.
I don’t have inside knowledge for a solid answer. But my personal take away from various discussions is that a 5 All Out rating tells TR that the assigned workout was significantly over your current ability.
As such, getting a reduction in that PL may be appropriate, as well as potential changes to pending workouts on your calendar in the same PL.
I think that TR expects that 5 All Out should be rare and is usually a signal of a problem in normal cases. However, if for some reason you have a “Breakthrough” or even “Not Recommended” on the calendar, those MAY be handled differently, since they are well above your PL. Again, guessing on my part and I could be totally wrong.
I spent a lot of time adjusting that list, and the use of bold and underlined parts are VERY intentional. I think the first two lines are the most useful (hence the emphasis and placement). The other lines are supplemental and just add a bit of clarity, for my needs at least.
Funny, as I am seldom happy, just thinking about your comment and my goals for that list, I may pull the 4th line up to the 3rd…
I just see the underlined parts as super clear. In my head it’s just:
Easy - I could do that again easily
Mod - Sure, I could do another set
Hard - That really was hard, but I could do another interval no problem
Very Hard - No way I could even do 1 more. I’m dead.
OMG - I can’t believe I finished that. Wow!
Easy - I could do that again, all day if I had to.
Mod - Sure, I could do another set, possibly even the whole workout
Hard - That really was hard, but I could probably do another set with a bit of focus
Very Hard - Another set would be really, really hard.
OMG - I can’t believe I finished that. Wow! Had to give myself a real talking to
So perhaps shifted down half a grade compared to @Pbase & @mcneese.chad’s categorisations.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter that much so long as you are consistent in how you apply things. Workouts like Pettit or West Vidette are always going to be Easy to Moderate whereas Leconte and similar will pretty much always be hard to very hard. The preceding is assuming that your FTP is reasonably accurate
Personally I wish TR had gone with the 10pt RPE scale - there’s been quite a few workouts that were a bit more than Moderate but didn’t feel “hard”, just uncomfortable.
