See, I kind of see it the opposite. If you point out something that doesn’t work well (like riding for 5 red days in a row and then having the 6th day be green or yellow), you get a bunch of people who jump on you and tell you you’re not allowed to criticize because this is TR’s forum. I remember the days when we could offer criticism and the people who work for TR would respond and either offer correction or discuss the concern with us, and it might even lead to improvements (either in the tool or in teaching us how what we were doing or thinking was incorrect). Now days, it just feels like you either have to say TR is amazing or risk being told you’re a hater who shouldn’t be here.
Respectfully, I don’t see the point in worrying about whether the 6th day shows yellow or red after ignoring or training through 5 previous red days.
A lot being said about these 5 red days… presumably someone logged it support@ and we know the outcome?
They also say in the FAQs:
What if I get a Yellow or Red day during a stage race?
Keep going! Stage races and training camps are situations where you’re likely going to accrue a lot of training stress which will yield yellow and maybe even red days on your Calendar. Just make sure you take the time to recover properly once it’s wrapped up
I’m guessing anybody who is off doing training camps or stage races has already got to the stage where they’re not a beginner who is just looking to be told what to do by TR. If you’re just following the training that TR tells you to do, then you won’t be doing a training camp since TR plans don’t have that feature, so you won’t have to worry about hitting red during a training camp! And if you’ve told TR you’re doing a stage race it’s not scheduling any workouts for you during that race, and would think you’d at least read the FAQ before DNFing what is likely your A race based on a red light on an app.
RLGL is simply one more useful data point to help you make better decisions about your training. It’s also v1.0 of the feature so is likely to be enhanced over time.
Yup. Kinda spoils what could be logical and reasonable debate. I agree with this point completely even though I have a different opinion to you about RLGL.
No. They were my 5 (actually 6) red days and I was completely comfortable with them because I was on a training camp, alternating hard and easy days, with 0 external stress factors.
Prove it. I gotta see this… Lets see your calendar!
Looking back I was functionally overreaching for several months so I would hope to see yellow and red because the net effect was to not send a super compensation signal to my body.
The TR launch video flashes a super compensation graphic and some sound bites.
well I didn’t tell the whole story… just look at weekly TSS with oldest at bottom:
looks like 10 loading weeks (by knowing high IFs all those weeks), so do you see anything resembling a break to allow the body to super compensate? Thats what, something like a 10:1 work to rest week ratio?
What was going on? And how long ago was this period?
After buying a power meter October 2016 I was teaching myself how to use the PMC, and lost the big picture by focusing on driving up ctl every week. Rookie mistake.
When I did take a week break, early January and early March, super compensation kicked in and boosted my ftp and other metrics. You gotta rest to send the signal to the body that it is time to adapt (super compensate). Thats the basis of 3:1 (or other) work/rest cycles.
I turned on RLGL for fun.
I’m on a mid vol masters grand fondo to see how it works for me. Did the sweet spot grand fondo last year at this time.
RLGL looks like a good option for those who are not that accustomed to indoor training.
Observation;
One thing I noticed is that long outside rides cause a lot of red and yellow. I was having knee pain so instead of the VO2 interval workout I subbed an endurance ride. Followed it up with 2 3hr rides the following 2 days. Then back on the scheduled program. RLGL didn’t want me to do the second 3 hour ride or the VO2 max scheduled workout. I did both without issue. I think it has to do with over shooting your TSS by >150,
Fun stuff
Looking across the comments here, and on what I saw on my calendar before I turned it off, this is what I am seeing. It seems to have been over weighted on long lower intensity TSS. Which makes sense as TR at it’s outset was a lower time higher intensity concept, and we have seen that manifest over the years in different ways.
Agree on this point. Seems like there should be a progression of yellow before green again.
RLGL does not show a graph. So, we don’t really know how far into the red we are when we get a red. It does not follow that every red day should be followed by a yellow, regardless of recovery.
It’s surprising and disappointing that neither @Nate_Pearson, who just did a long RL/GL introduction on the Ask a Cycling Coach podcast, nor anyone else from the RL/GL product team has weighed in on the many valid questions and mixed experiences discussed in this thread. We’re trying to figure out whether and how to get the best value out of this new capability, but we have many unanswered questions and unaddressed doubts about RL/GL recommendations. What say you Nate and TR team?
A lot of times when I’ve done long outdoor rides there’s been a lot of unintentional intensity in them. I used the slider in my account to bias towards less aggressive. Personally I’ve found the that one step towards more conservative fits very well for me in my currently somewhat detrained state. In the podcast they have said that yellow days are not necessarily required to be endurance or recovery days, just that if you consistently always train hard on yellow days you are more likely to have adverse effects in the future. They used Hannah as an example stating that in her career she has had multiple yellow days in a row on which she trained but often followed by a recovery period and its worked well for her.
If you have a lot of experience training I feel this feature is just an additional data point, as HR or HRV would be. Its usefulness will obviously vary greatly from person to person.