Maybe I didn’t say that clearly. I wasn’t saying it was some objective thing, just that it was closer to a reality-based response that the machine can use to adjust the plan. If I do a VO2 workout and it is very hard and sucks, because that’s what they usually do, I should mark it “very hard”. That’s how it felt. If a rider goes in knowing that VO2 work kinda sucks and a workout meets expectations, they might put it down as “moderate” because it wasn’t harder than any other similar workout. This adds another layer of subjectivity in there.
Maybe rather than “closer to being objective” I should have written something like “closer to being how hard you felt the ride actually was, incorporating everything that goes into RPE (sleep, nutrition, off-bike stress, etc., etc.), thereby giving AT a better chance at serving you the right workout next time”. It’s what I meant, but that’s a lot more words.
I agree and what you are talking about there is ‘expectation vs reality’ that we all know is NOT how we are supposed to deal with these surveys. I am not advocating for any expectation aspect here.
“Feel” about the whole workout, at the conclusion of the workout, is all that matters. But even refining to that single aspect doesn’t resolve the dilemma here.
This and this alone is how I understand TR wants this handled.
I’d argue the bold I marked above is largely irrelevant & not considered by TR unless you get into a Struggle survey and have to add the answer to the question “Why…” when TR gives you that survey.
From what I see when you get the normal survey, there is absolutely no consideration by TR about the reason why you picked EASY vs HARD, none. It just assumes things are generally pointed in the right direction and will adjust as it sees fit within ‘normal’ parameters (as opposed to dealing with a Struggle survey).
Last year was mostly exactly what you are doing. 2 sessions of TR, VO2 and threshold and I do two endurance rides, preferable outside. Worked great last year. Still doing the same.
I think we’re on the same page here. I put that stuff in there because all that directly feeds into the question “how did that effort feel?” I’ve noticed that hard intervals in the evenings are harder for me than first thing. I’m pretty sure that’s related to off the bike stress, etc. TR doesn’t ask about that unless I struggle or bail (which I do sometimes), but it factors into a workout being hard vs. very hard. Or even making an endurance workout hard, as happened a couple weeks back. I’m not expecting TR to adjust workouts based on time of day (though wouldn’t that be nice?), but all those factors will affect my RPE, struggle or not. And they should!
I have a question for someone from TR (or maybe you know, Chad): does the system consider training load in adjusting future workouts? For example, if I add a bunch of Z2 or some unstructured outdoor rides to a LV plan, is that going to impact ramp rates? Could it trigger adaptations on its own?
But my moderate and your moderate may not be the same. It is subjective from the persons perspective.
I am used to a doctor asking me how I am. I say fine. He says your very sick and you still say fine…I do…I am still walking and not in ER so I am fine. It is all subjective.
Just to add…I find VO2 rides easier then threshold. My threshold tend to be hard and take effort as the PL goes up. The VO2 sessions I handle fine even as the PL goes up. Some of this is me controlling the progression though.
Perfect example where I am the exact opposite. I can rip evening workouts while the morning ones put me on the back foot. Unless TR is also tracking time of day and hasn’t told us, I agree that this is a real factor that goes totally ignored by them.
I can do exactly the same workout and rate it at least 1 step different in the AM vs PM situation, which is potentially important or at least useful in some instances. I could see that TR might leverage setting a pending Workout Level differently in the AM vs PM if it has a basic understanding about which is typically Easier vs Harder for a rider. I know that I take this into account mainly on whether I chose to use Alternates or not, especially for my Sat AM workout where I tend to leave the Tue/Thu PM workouts as assigned by AT.
I am pretty sure that they do NOT consider “load” in any form. It won’t alter adaptations based on the “extra” work we might add onto the calendar (no matter if that’s a TR workout or something like a race/event). This question came up recently, I answered similar to this comment and TR confirmed it. I can try to search for that string if you are interested.
I’m the same. I find Vo2 easier. And hence a 5.4 Vo2 would be high end moderate low end hard (rated hard) and a 5.4 threshold would almost certainly very hard.
No need, but thanks. It’s what I thought, but couldn’t pin down why I thought that way. I’m sure that TR would like AT to do this sort of thing, but it’s hard. I think threads like this show some of the many reasons why. It would be great to feed the system a bunch of data so it can make better predictions, but in the end I think we’re all edge cases in some way. (Ask about my RHR and HRV data if I’m doing evening or morning workouts…)
They may already have something in the works, but what occurs to me is some AT analysis behind the scenes that is looking at Loading (TSS) as well as Time in Zone (TIZ) to name a couple of things. Something that looks at the rider data and might set off some red flags when something like TSS spikes over some step percentage for one trigger. Another might be if TIZ for stuff like SS or above exceeds some threshold.
Essentially, automate at least part of the process they show when they dig into a user’s account to see what they have done and why they might have blown up. I could see this being something like a flag that pops on the calendar maybe after completing some unplanned work/ride, or maybe if a planned workout (particularly outside one) notably exceeds the intended power targets, TSS, IF or other stuff.
Nothing is easy, but via power data and the tangential calcs, there sure seems to be the opportunity for TR to “watch out” for our careers and maybe warn us if we seem to be veering off from whatever plan we might have loaded, or a relative training load history on the calendar. Pie in the sky sort of goal, but considering the number of times we see discussion like this where at least part of it is “extracurricular” activities or other plan deviation is what lead us astray.
From where I sit, and I’m sure TR / TR fans are not going to like some of what I write, but here goes. For some people the TR approach is pushing the highest load and progression/ramp rate you can handle. Because it is more time efficient, and I completely agree with that with TR LV plans. While that works with 3 workouts a week, what if you start adding rides? What if you do that and have a high stress job? What if you need more conditioning than TR LV plans provide, in order to do the harder build/specialty workouts? Then it becomes entirely possible to “fly close to the sun” (apologies) and hope you don’t burn up. Thats why some forum folks talk about picking 2 of the 3 workouts, and riding outside. Thats why I’ve mentioned it would be great for TR to provide tools for managing additional work outside an LV plan. There are other approaches, it is possible to build plans around outside workouts and group riding.
Failing/nailing workouts was not new to me, I knew that from running, swims and judo as well. With a power meter you have a more objective measure of what constitutes failing and nailing. Back when I was doing a lot of running, I’d see how well I was doing by looking at my pace and total time (on a known course where I’d roughly know when I’d arrive at what landmark). Ditto for judo, although here it is a bit trickier since nail/fail usually pertained to learning technique.
If a coach did to me what they did to @Jolyzara (e. g. shortening 800s to 400s), I’d definitely feel that I did not perform that well today — I just find that totally ok. I definitely would not have the reaction that @Jolyraza had. Perhaps we are just wired differently, not sure. Failing is part of training. I don’t find nailing/failing workouts very stressful. Usually there are clear reasons why I’d fail a workout, the most common one being insufficient rest. It only sucks when it is not clear why I failed a workout. Or if I really want to do a workout but know I can’t/shouldn’t.
As a counterpoint, I really like precise training targets for indoor workouts. When I was training without power, e. g. doing hill climb repeats (essentially 4:30~5:00 minute VO2max interval sessions at best power), I’d have less of an idea of whether and by how much I had improved. Yes, I could tell the time were often improving, but that’d also depend a little on how much I held back to pace myself across several efforts.
That’s a good point, you always have to add power/cadence to break the spiral of death. Even a minute of inattentiveness can put you in a tough spot. Personally, I don’t use erg mode for Z4 and above, so that’s not an issue for me.
What is the context of their criticism? Are you failing to complete harder workouts or otherwise finding the intensity too much?
Presumably you contacted them about some problem/issue and that’s why they were looking at your workouts in general.
Totally theorizing - but if you can’t complete the intense workouts and are doing a ton of volume outside of their training plan it seems reasonable to suggest you decrease volume and see if that changes your ability to complete the harder sessions
Note - I say this as someone who is consistently around 900 TSS during loading weeks, so I agree with your comment that it isn’t necessarily problematic
I’ve failed 2 maybe 3 workouts out of 300. 2 of the 3 weren’t technically failed. I dropped the intensity by 5 -10% on the last set. The third which I definitely couldn’t complete I went back two days later and did it.
Steady gains the whole way.
The criticism came from a post I did a few months after I started questioning burnout. At that point I was doing all three TR workouts plus 3 more. Now I drop the SS.
Gotta say - that’s a logical (even if ultimately incorrect) criticism. If you’re burning out you’re doing too much of something compared to the amount of recovering
say more!. How is this subject to criticism?