It trained me to only use easy for endurance/recovery workouts and hard for other workouts!
Anything else negatively impacts estimated gain… For example, I had been predicted to get a 2.5% gain. When I rated an endurance ride moderate it got cut to 1.5%. I then changed it to easy to stay on target. This feels wrong. Perhaps the problem is in rating workouts. I would rather the system drive me to the point I can’t complete a workout and then dial it back (or I lower the intensity).
There’s not much info to go off here, but… how long was the endurance workout (or which workout specifically)? How long until your next FTP detection? What does the rest of your recent training look like and how did those workouts feel?
If your next FTP detection is a few weeks away and a short endurance ride felt anything other than “easy”, then yeah it makes sense to see your calendar change and estimated FTP change a bit. If it’s a few days away then 1 workout shouldn’t move the needle that much and I’d contact support to ask why this happened.
Changing your survey response to game the AI isn’t reflecting reality, is it?
I’m seeing a lot of these posts lately. Why not just answer honestly and let the system do it’s thing?
I totally understand the temptation.
But it’s important to note that changing the rpe to get an extra percent in your prediction isn’t necessarily putting you on track to get there.
If you rate a workout easier than it felt, you’re essentially telling trainerroad that you’re fitter than you actually are at that point in time, which will of course lead to a higher future prediction, but may make future workouts harder than intended, potentially leading to more fatigue, less gains, and higher likelihood of burnout.
And when trainerroad finally figures out you’ve been faking it when you struggle with future workouts, you’re prediction will once again drop, perhaps even worse than had you just stick to a sustainable rpe.
So if I were you, I’d put that ride back to moderate, and don’t worry about it. Who knows, maybe you’ll have a hard ride later in the block, that you rate moderate and it goes back up.
As many have stated, I wouldn’t cheat TRAI by reating the workouts easier just to get a better FTP prediction number. That might backfire later, in the form of too hard workouts, which you could fail even.
I think the honest rating for workouts will lead to better results overall. After all, FTP prediction is JUST a number, it shouldn’t define your training too much, I think. The main thing is, that TRAI can pick you the right workouts at any given time by knowing how your past workouts have been.
I’m probably splitting hairs, but the challenge is how to rate the workout, especially on the easier end? Perhaps I just need to hinge on “You could repeat the ride and pass it without issue.” Given that guidance, I’m having a hard time knowing when I would ever use moderate. Again, I feel like going forward I’m going to pretty much rate any endurance workout easy given this guidance.
On the harder end, very hard and all out are very very close.
Long endurance rides. Or when tired. Today I did three zwift tiny races then after the 4th I continued riding and loaded up brasstown as it had been pushed to Zwift. I was worried the AI gods were going to punish me when I rated the 35 minutes of it that I did as Moderate. I was tempted to rate it easy but knew Jonathan would know I was being deceitful as my HR was elevated.
I use Moderate when it’s harder than Easy but still easier than Hard.
Radical, I know. 
Ultimately gaming the system to increase the predicted FTP will end in failing a workout that ai expects you to be able to complete.
just answer honestly and let ai do it thing. On Thursday I did a ‘moderate’ sweet spot workout. Completed it, rated it hard, aiftp prediction went up 1 watt!
Would you lie to your doctor about your symptoms so you can trick him into thinking you are healthy? No, you would tell him the truth so he can make sure you are on the right track.
Answer honestly, go with your gut, answer without thinking about it.
The system will adjust and then re-adjust, it happened to me. I had a bad day and had to rate a workout harder than expected. My prediction dropped, the next workouts adjusted lower. I got proper sleep and recovered, I was back to normal. The next workout completed was on the easy side and I rated it appropriately. My ftp prediction then jumped back up and the following workouts changed.
It doesn’t matter what scale YOU use to determine how difficult a workout was
All that is important is that you are consistent with your ratings. AI will take care of the rest
I think people invest significant time and effort in their training and want some confidence that what TR is doing makes sense and will work. People are paying for a service and want to understand what they’re getting. I see that as perfectly legit and reasonable. The new AI is certainly different and behaves in some unexpected ways. I had those questioning thoughts when I signed up again after the new AI launched.
That’s totally fair. But if you “want some confidence that what TR is doing makes sense and will work” shouldn’t that include answering post workout surveys truthfully?
Has anyone even read the learn more bit on the post workout survey?
https://support.trainerroad.com/hc/en-us/articles/4404884465563-Post-Workout-Surveys
Roughly halfway down the page gives explanations on the 5 ratings. Seems pretty clear cut to me 
I have read the summary. IMO moderate and easy blend together. On the harder side, very hard and all out are very very close.
What I didn’t mention is that I had been using more of the ratings spectrum, but realized TR was not pushing me (in fact my FTP has slowly been getting worse). Part of this may be because I was some what inconsistent in my ratings. I feel like I have a bit more in the tank, so will try lowering my ratings for a while to see where that leaves me…
During an easy ride, I can read the book I keep on the shelf next to my trainer. As soon as I have to put the book down, or struggle reading due to intensity, it goes to moderate. To me this is the distinction between the definitions, the ability focus on something else.
Not exactly. For me, the guiding principle is
easy: You could repeat the ride and pass it without issue.
moderate: If the ride had an additional set of intervals, you could complete it.
hard: If there was an additional interval, you could have done it with some focus.
very hard: If there would have been one more interval, you wouldn’t have been able to do it.
Which works reasonably well for most workouts. But then take the Truchas workout, which is SS 2x22. In this case there is no distinction between “an additional interval” and “an additional set of intervals”. So how to decide between moderate and hard, or hard and very hard?
The thing that I always smile at is when I ride a 3, 4, 5 hour endurance ride. It is rated at easy. I think, could I repeat the ride and pass it without issue. In other words, repeat a 4 hour ride without issue. No. I always wonder what easy means in that case.