Has anyone changed their post-workout survey response after the workout because the fatigue only showed up the next day?
I’m relatively new to TrainerRoad and generally enjoying the structure. What I’ve noticed, though, is that I can often complete a workout successfully and rate it as “Moderate” or “Hard” immediately afterward, only to wake up the next morning feeling that the workout may have been too much for me.
I’m not talking about sore legs or normal training fatigue. More like unusually deep fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, or needing substantially more recovery than expected. During the workout itself, I usually hit all the targets and don’t feel like I’m overreaching.
A few times I’ve gone back and changed my survey response (for example, from Moderate to Hard) and selected “Training Fatigue” because, in hindsight, the cost of the workout was higher than I initially realized.
I’m curious:
Has anyone else experienced this kind of delayed fatigue response?
Do you ever modify your survey responses after the fact?
For Masters athletes in particular, do you feel that the immediate post-workout survey captures the true impact of the training session?
Has anyone from TrainerRoad commented on whether updating survey responses later is an appropriate use of the system?
I’m not trying to manipulate Adaptive Training to get easier workouts. Quite the opposite — I’m trying to find the most sustainable way to train consistently over the long term.
That’s a fair point. In some cases, I actually can complete the subsequent workouts as prescribed. The challenge is that the overall fatigue cost may still be too high for me.
For example, I might successfully complete all the workouts for the week, but then spend the rest of the day unusually tired, mentally foggy, or lacking energy for work and family responsibilities. From a training perspective, the plan is “working” because I’m hitting the targets. From a life perspective, it may not be sustainable.
That’s why I’m trying to understand what the survey is really intended to measure. Is it purely, “Could you complete the workout?” Or is it also, “Was this an appropriate amount of stress for you as an athlete and a person?”
For me, that next day fatigue seems normal. Up till a year ago, I didn’t experience it except after long fondos or exceptionally hard rides. Almost never after TR workouts. I got Covid a year ago, and since that, the post ride/next day fatigue has been worse.
The survey is about the stimulus - how did the workout feel? Not the response. If you are too tired from the workout, you address that with your plan structure.
Thanks everyone for the comments. A couple of clarifications:
I can currently complete all the workouts in the plan as prescribed.
The issue isn’t that I’m failing sessions or unable to keep up with TrainerRoad.
I’ve also had a comprehensive medical evaluation, and nothing significant was identified that would explain the fatigue.
What I’m noticing is that, as the training block progresses, I seem to accumulate fatigue outside of the workouts. The sessions themselves feel manageable, but I progressively feel more tired during the rest of the day, even though I’m still hitting my training targets.
That’s what led me to wonder whether the post-workout survey should reflect only the workout experience itself, or whether the recovery cost of that workout should also factor into the response.
It sounds like the consensus is that the survey is intended to capture the stimulus, not the response. If that’s the case, then my real question becomes: for athletes who can execute the plan but find the accumulated fatigue impacts their day-to-day life, what adjustments have worked best? Lower volume? More recovery weeks? Different workout types?
I’d be interested to hear from others, especially masters athletes, who have found ways to make structured training both effective and sustainable.
I am 66 years young and finding that I am out of gas on the third week of a four week block. TR does not give us the option of a three week block ( 2 on 1 rest). So I am currently going back to the Joe Friel fast after 50 model. I tried not to do this as I will lose a lot of TR functionality. I am just getting started with this plan so I cannot report how well it works out. I am going to go with 2 weeks on and a de-load week as per Friel and see how that works out.
I get best results when energy management is good.
That looks like:
Treating key hard workouts pretty much as if they were races - getting a lot of good nutrition in (especially carbs) in the preceding couple of days.
In-ride fuelling at 60gph for endurance rides and 100+gph for hard rides
Getting good nutrition in post ride - something pretty much immediately (fruit juice or smoothie or cereal) and then something like two hearty plateloads of tomato pasta with some protein within a couple of hours at most.
If I don’t do this, the chances of me feeling wiped out (which sounds like what you’re describing) are much higher, especially if work shifts have caused sleep to be a challenge.
For me, #1 is sleep and it’s #1 by a long shot. Eyemask, earplugs, cold room, regular schedule. #2 is nutrition. Lots of carbs during the day and during the ride. #3 is making easy rides easy and not trying to push them toward or into Z3. Z1 is better than Z3 for me when doing an easy ride. #4 - and get your levels checked before you do this, but I found my iron was very low. Taking an iron supplement helped reduce fatigue.
I appreciate all the suggestions around sleep, nutrition, and getting blood work done.
In my case, I feel like I’ve covered most of those bases. I generally sleep well, I pay attention to nutrition and hydration, and I’ve had a comprehensive health check with blood work that didn’t identify any obvious issues.
I can also complete the workouts as prescribed. The challenge is that, as the training block progresses, I seem to accumulate fatigue outside of the workouts. I don’t necessarily fail sessions, but I increasingly feel more tired during the rest of the day.
So I’m starting to wonder whether this is less about “fixing” something and more about finding the right training dose for me. Maybe it’s a question of plan structure, recovery frequency, or accepting that my ability to absorb training has changed over time.
Has anyone found that moving from a traditional 3-weeks-on/1-week-off approach to something like 2-weeks-on/1-week-off made a significant difference?
Thanks, @eddie. That’s helpful and answers my original question.
It sounds like the survey is intended to capture the workout stimulus as experienced during the session, rather than the downstream recovery response.
In that case, my takeaway is that if I can consistently complete the workouts and rate them appropriately, but I’m finding that the cumulative fatigue outside of training becomes problematic, then the answer isn’t to modify the survey responses after the fact. It’s to look at the overall structure of the plan and find a more sustainable training dose.
Appreciate everyone sharing their experiences. This discussion has given me a few ideas to experiment with.
That sounds like a good plan. If you’re struggling to recover enough between key sessions, you’ll need to separate them further, find a way to recover better, or remove one of your weekly hard sessions.
This may or may not be what you’re looking for, but I thought it might be worth sharing.
With a more hands-on approach you could definitely build a custom 2:1 training plan. Youd just have to:
Schedule AI workouts in a week (using the ad-hoc plans as a guide for what zones/workout profiles to pick each day)
Copy that week to following week
Add recovery week in third week
Repeat for whatever Base/Build/Specialty phases you want to replicate.
You could run through PB at the start just to get an idea of what volume would be sensible to schedule too. But not actually add that plan to the Calendar.
This isn’t quite as easy as simply having 2:1 plans available as an option, but for now it could work and you’d still get the benefits of AI workouts, FTP prediction/detection, fatigue detection etc.
Regardless, I’ve forwarded your feedback to the team.
That is great - adding functionality to be able to choose your training mesostructure on top of the ability that is already provided in choosing microstructure would be a highly valued tool to me, and one that I haven’t seen before.
Thanks Eddie, That’s pretty much how I am starting to do it. I have the TR plan laid out and I just deleting weeks and moving weeks. I think it might just work out.
I do as @eddie suggested and generally rate the work out based upon how i felt during the workout
i do often get next day fatigue and if it continues i rate the subsequent workout where i was sore/fatigued accordingly and hope the AI model adjusts appropriately
Hey there, just to add a bit on the continuum here.
Hard Workout Monday - you rate it Hard
Tuesday feel fatigue, think maybe it was Very Hard
Workout Wednesday - you aren’t quite recovered struggle and rate it Very Hard, where AI though it would be Moderate
TR then asks why, you say Training Fatigue
So if the impact is very real the app will pick it up , but if you’re coping it will not change things
