Been on TR since 2019. I came over in preparation for Leadville. Overall pretty happy with the product on the cycling side. The multisport side has me feeling a bit disappointed. I’ve hung around for years now with promises that things are in the works and not seen much movement.
Bike- I do most of my workouts outdoors unless weather says otherwise. You can read the other threads about the bug with the AI FTP using outdoor workouts. I basically just ignore my predicted FTP at this point and do the workouts as prescribed. But, that has me wondering what I’m really paying for?
Run - TSS doesn’t update after you complete a workout. You have to go back in and manually set the RPE or you get a zero. If you forget for some amount of time (a week or so) you can’t go back and fix it. See TSS chart below.
Swim - No way of measuring or estimating load. See TSS chart below. Shows your moving time, not the overall time. The bike workouts don’t ding you the recovery time between intervals, why on the swim? Not a huge deal, but at the end of the week 3 hour long swims look like around 1.5-2 hours. Shows the distance in miles. I don’t think anyone who swims counts in miles, use yards or meters and give us the option to switch between the two. Again, see TSS chart below for more details.
TSS chart at the top of your calendar is my biggest complaint. It shows bike TSS, estimated run TSS (which is only accurate if you remember to go back and update the RPE after each workout). It gives nothing for swimming, or strength training. Miles can be viewed on a weekly bases (not on the chart up top) but that doesn’t really help for an overall big picture. When I look back at my last six months training on TR, it gives a much different picture of fitness and work completed then say Intervals.icu or training peaks because what you’re really seeing is bike work with small amounts of other sports sort of included.
Back to the main question, has anyone used another platform that they felt worked better? I’m tempted to switch over to trainings peaks and just pay for one of their training plans. Tridot looks interesting, but I get mixed reviews on that one. Or, is TR the best that’s out there and I just deal with the flaws?
Here ya on some of the issues as a multi-sporter (run/bike/strength). More than half my TSS is off the bike…
1 - yes it’s dumb that TSS from Run isn’t calculated the same as TSS for Bike w/o Power & w/HR . I complained about it last year to tech support… it still isn’t corrected. I don’t get it!? This system was built by a Triathlete @Nate_Pearson !?! Why wouldn’t running and other sports be handled at least in some fashioned like cycling? Come on
2 - You can edit the RPE/TSS for runs, strength, other… there is no time limit. (I always use Website&Desktopprogram, maybe other issue with app?) You just click the pencil/edit and give it a RPE and the nit assigns a TSS. I have went through hundreds of run/strength workouts when I 1st signed up each last spring to get TSS history!!! (and again this Janurary) (cuz again… stupid#1!!! )
3- TSS / Stress charts do include all TSS in the other, you can click the pencil to give detail to all workouts to manually input a TSS (to yoga, strength, run, swim, walk, etc). Quick and easy. Would be nice if TR prompted for a detail/TSS/RPE every time you open app if you didn’t report a TSS. @eddie this would help ensure reliable yellow/red days and proper AI handling of fatigue for multisport users. I get that TSS can’t be calculated by HR for strength and swimming very well.
4 - summarizing miles, totals, and time… I find report features of Garmin and Strava to fit the bill for all types of anyalytics (sorting, avgs, total time month or month, YOY, elevation totals, etc)
2 - Not sure why I was having problems editing past runs? I know I had a period of time where I couldn’t update the TSS. At least I think I know, lol. I’m on the web/desktop and have multiple weeks where the weekly totals don’t match the top. Here’s one:
3 - Yes, using TSS for strength and swim doesn’t make sense. The problem I’ have is that when looking at the top bar, it doesn’t really give me a full picture of what my training looks like over time. What if I had a week where my back was acting up (i have a bad back) and put in a bunch of extra time in the pool with less running/biking. If I look at the top chart that wouldn’t be reflected. It would be cool if this could be expressed as, or shown along side TSS, as total training hours as well?
4 - Yes, Garmin is great for this. At least pretty good. It just cumbersome to log training with muiltiple platforms and have to move across them to get data. I know, first world problems.
2- are you utilizing scheduled and recurring Runs/Lifts/Swims? You might be running into a bug where the planned run workout, lets say planned 45min Smooth (TSS=32) … but then you run 50min and report it as Moderate (TSS=41). It will show the run as a “matched with Smooth 45min Run”… in some views it will show the workout had a TSS of 41 and in some locations it shows TSS of 32…!!!
Not sure if this issue has been cleaned up, i think it was just a visual issue - not effecting FTP/Fatigue. But I don’t recall exactly… ever since my support ticket on it, I have been “unmatching” the workout and deleting the original planned workout. Then setting the TSS/RPE to the run that I did.
I’ll try to see if i can find the emails about it from Kent M
4- yeah I am a bit OCD on training history, so will fill out workout feedback/notes/descriptions into Garmin… but then also copy into TR and Strava… lol Each platform has training log/calendar/reporting that makes finding/searching/reviewing better. So good to have a writeup in there… depending on how I stumble into looking at a workout. lol Really wish that you could have not just the name of the workout edit and import into TrainerRoad, but also pull in the description/notes from Strava or Garmin!
2 - Yes. I utilize the scheduled workouts as the base for my training. I generally follow the swims 100%. The runs, I’ll often just follow the prescribed time. As I mentioned, I have a bad back and too much intensity on the runs can cause issues. Say I have a 50 minute run with strides built in. I may do 50 minutes at endurance pace instead. I will update the RPE accordingly. Getting the numbers to match between the weekly totals and the top totals doesn’t seem to work with this scenario… Also, once you update the run RPE it is reflected in the weekly total but you need to do a screen refresh for anything to reflect up top.
Honestly, no. I do wish TrainerRoad invested more in the triathlon plans and multisport capabilities in general, but I’ve dabbled in a few other platforms, and although some of them might be better at individual sports (like Runna or Stryd for running, Form or MySwimPro for swimming), none of them handle the multisport aspect of it as well as TR, in particular the fatigue management. I tried Runna’s triathlon plan last year and it was absolutely destroying me because it’s not aware of what I was doing on the bike. The way TR handles runs is more rudimentary but at least it feeds into RLGL and I can adapt accordingly (and frankly, the runs in the tri plans have worked pretty well for me so far anyway).
Run - TSS doesn’t update after you complete a workout. You have to go back in and manually set the RPE or you get a zero.
I’m curious about this. This is not the case for me; all of my runs (whether outdoors or on my treadmill) have a TSS and they all trigger RLGL as needed, why is that?
When I run, I look at the TSS from TP and Intervals, split the difference, and then choose the TR RPE that aligns nearest to that TSS number.
I’m not a triathlete…I don’t swim, but I do ride and run, and I really wish there was a way to get assigned TR Rides AND TR Runs, but not scheduled as a brick on the same day. This is actually one place where Join seems to do the best because it domes think you have to swim and it doesn’t assume you want to ride and run on the same day. You can go in on any given day and say “make my ride a run”, and it will update the prescribed ride.
The TSS triggers on the weekly total, and works for RLGL, but it doesn’t match the graph up top that shows your long term training (with 6 week TSS rolling average). Unless I go into the run, hit the edit button, and then save it, and refresh the page. This concerns me because if I look at 6 week TSS (graph up top) it won’t be representative of my ACTUAL training unless I keep on top of it.
TSS doesn’t mean much in any sport, I’ve learned. But it’s irritating that TR can’t separate cycling from run tss in the graphs, nor process run based on (Garmin) power.
And there is the issue that TSS incorrectly promotes long continuous efforts beyond the point of fatigue, over the well executed.
I’ve tried a bunch of tri platforms over the years and didn’t like them.
The biggest issue for tri platforms is the quality of swim data which no one has cracked….unless you use form goggles. And the point there isn’t how much effort you’ve put in, it’s how well you did it.
I wish the graph at the top of the calendar could be set o hours rather than TSS. I realize TSS is very valuable for cycling however, I would rather see hours of training up there for multisport. Just because I have a low volume cycling week doesn’t mean I had an easy training week. The graph is rather useless for me at this point.
Have you tried using training peaks? I see they have cycling workouts and plans. I curious how they work with indoor / outdoor training? I’ve got over a decade of endurance sports in me, and while I still have plenty to learn and don’t claim to be anywhere near a coach, I feel like I could progress the workouts myself and probably do well enough. After all, I’m a 47 year old age grouper who really just does all this stuff for fun and to stay healthy. Being able to use one platform would be REALLY nice!
I’ve not used their plans, but as a load management platform I think it’s too TSS centric for me - not surprising as they own the TSS intellectual property.
Plenty of other people use it thought.
I agree that seeing hours trained per sport is useful. But it’s more a ‘compliance’/progression thing.
My spreadsheet - don’t pretend that you don’t have one - did have time, tss, per discipline but now I only look at that to compare to years ago. Garmin does all that. TR does the detail, the weekly planning.
Are they scheduled runs? If I have a scheduled run it has the TSS that I set for it, you have a calendar icon on your RUN so that must be part of a plan? Does it have a planned RPE? Then it will have the TSS… but NOT based on what you actually did (if you added strides, did it way easier or harder, longer/shorter…etc) See my notes above about the Tech support case with Kent
With Enduco you can create personalized triathlon plans and sync your bike, run, and swim workouts to platforms and devices like TrainingPeaks, Garmin, Apple Watch, Zwift, and more.
i have 20 years in Training Peaks and many plans over the years. The last couple plans (and some coach provided workouts) would not sync to my set individual paces/zones and customer service is poor. Final Surge is another training platform i have sampled over the years (mostly for run training) and has multisport available on it with access to plans. For now, i’m still parking everything in TrainingPeaks but using Rouvy for cycling with a mix of old TP workouts that got imported, Rouvy cycling workouts and then some weekend outdoor free rides. Maybe someone else on here has the magic combo or found the platform we are all looking for.
JoeX - FORM goggles are the way to go for logging swims. Love mine.
