Hi all,
I have been using TR for several months now, and I am currently following a low-volume polarized base plan, with two endurance workouts one threshold workout per week.
I am a bit surprised by the levels assigned to the threshold workouts.
Two weeks ago I did Wheeler Peak which is a Threshold 6.4. Today I did Cerro Vista which is a Threshold 6.7. However, when I compare the two, the former has two 16-minute intervals at 104% FTP with 4-minute recovery intervals, while the latter has two 16-minute intervals at 105% FTP with 6-minute recovery between intervals. I found both challenging, but I somehow found the former more challenging due to the shorter recovery interval. So I am surprised by the difference in difficulty level.
Has anyone had similar experiences with threshold workouts?
Those two workouts are indeed close to one another – it’s most likely that Cerro Vista is ranked just a tad above Wheeler Peak due to its higher intensity level at 105% of FTP.
This is also something we constantly strive to improve on, so as TR gets better and better, we’ll be able to handle better how workouts like these two get ranked when they seem so close to each other.
Please feel free to let us know if you have any other questions regarding Workout Levels!
My only general response would be that we’re not machines, and our individual capacities will change slightly from day to day for dozens of reasons: fatigue, stress, hydration, temperature, etc. That you found 1 of 2 very comparable workouts slightly harder than the other is probably more a reflection of that change, I suspect, than any real difference between the workouts.