I’ve trained and raced for years (I’m 68 now), ranging from “pane e aqua” RPE/“ride lots”, to power meters, coaches, and now TR. I feel I know my body well enough to be able to use almost any plan and make adjustments as needed. I’m not suggesting TR is “just any plan”; I feel it is a well intentioned, quality product. Where I get confused is what I call the gamification of FTP. For example, being from NE I spend most training hours indoors. When I stick to the schedule and complete workouts, FTP steadily increases (recently 4.33 w/kg). Frankly, there is no way I could achieve my TR number using avg watts/hr but I know there are numerous ways of looking at FTP, so my attitude is- it’s a number to work with. On some level, I guess the changing FTP provides motivation to put in the work (the game). Now that the warmer weather is here our fast group ride (at least to us, 25mph+ 100 TSS+ 1.5+ hours) has started and been added to my schedule. I’ve also maintained my two TR intensity days by dropping a one of the shorter endurance days and weather/schedule permitting, moved everything outside. With 98% of work completed or exceeded since, “down goes” the FTP! (As an aside; in my opinion for intensity work getting on the trainer, blasting some tunes, and fully focusing on pedaling is a hell of a lot easier than trying to produce consistent power dodging cars, potholes and gradients outside). Clearly the TR system assigns a different value to outside work. Understanding this sounds like a contradiction to my “it’s a number” statement, I do like to understand the variables of any plan and this pattern doesn’t make sense to me. Makes me ask; Is the TR FTP number so fragile that minor changes to the schedule, including inside/outside, results in swings? Does constantly moving FTP up/down really build the depth of fitness and motivation needed to improve? Is this a system that is sensitive enough to ding a 30 second fan adjustment break on an inside workout, but can’t fully understand outside workouts? Don’t get me wrong I feel good about using TR but I can’t imagine my former coach saying, "I know you are doing a weekly training race with guys less than half your age, getting in your remaining workouts while maintaining rest days, but it’s bringing down your FTP!
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If you’ve just switched to doing workouts outside, and your FTP predictions are now trending down, you’re running into a bug that is our #1 priority to fix right now.
We’re testing an updated model for outside workouts, and our athletes have had a lot of success so far.
Hang in there! I’m hoping we can ship this soon. 
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