FYI, CTL (“Fitness”) is approximately the “6 Wk Avg” TSS that is in the Calendar. ATL (“Fatigue”) is approximately that week’s TSS (also on Calendar). TSB (“Form”) is the difference between the two, which is not displayed numerically but can be seen on the chart as the gap between the grey line (6 Wk Avg) and the green bars (week TSS). Bar below line is positive Form, bar above line is negative Form.
Other software will show you that information with a resolution of days instead of weeks, but I get the impression that Chad would not consider that particularly valuable.
Really though, if TR had a performance management chart and some annual planner or annual plans it would be incredible. I kind of just hop around TR, Zwift, Sufferfest and Xert and do a bit here and there. Run Strava for the metrics and live segments and TrainingPeaks free edition to occasionally bridge workouts to my Wahoo.
It’s just a big mess. Everyone’s being niche and it’s the end user that’s either paying more than they need or missing out on some features. That’s not the worst bit - worst bit is the messiness of it all. It’s 2019 and you can’t have a cycling app with all your data, charts and training plans etc on it.
I love TR and Zwift but realise that the philosophy of Xert is the future clearly - but I’m far from satisfied with the way things are. Too many apps for me, I want it all, bit I want simplicity. I’ll pay for it too. £300 a year would be cheap for a machine learning training app with every feature.
I know it won’t happen - TR will not develop a virtual world like Zwift, so if I were to place a bet for which app will do it all 5 to 10yrs from now? Smart money must be on Zwift. Possibly a Zwift buyout of TR (even though I’m sure Nate would swear against it until he’s blue in the face) but people and circumstances change daily, let alone year to year.
You can’t set an A race (or date, for non-racers) and have TR analyse your previous year and set a plan leading up to it to maximise your best performance. And it certainly can’t re-configure the plan based on compliance (though that’s going even deeper into machine learning).
We’re just playing lego at the moment with training blocks but that’s not how people work and TR coaches know it from looking at compliance rates. Guarantee you they want to go next level but know it’ll take ages to implement - have they even started? They seem busy with a lot of polishing and doing the outdoor workouts stuff which personally I think they do need to finish up first before moving onto more ambitious next-gen features.
Think about it - why does TR need to be the way it is. They can take it all the way and make the current platform look basic AF. Every TR user should want that. Doesn’t mean we won’t support them all the way until they get there, but it’d be cool to see a long term vision, though zero obligation for them to do so and perhaps even bad business practise to show your hand to competitors.
Behind the scenes, every single cycling training platform has machine learning on the horizon. At some point it’ll start heating up and anyone left behind will look properly old hat.
Using that info, I designed a season starting August 26 and consisting of
6-weeks SSB-1 as early base
9-week polarized block as late base to raise “CTL” to 90 (using 6-week average TSS in calendar) using a combination of long slow distance and hard vo2 efforts (trying this as alternative to SSB-2 HV).
8-week sustained build
8-week specialty
That is 60% of a (365 day) year, and after that I’m just going to enjoy unstructured riding before starting the next season around September 1st of 2020.
Using the TR calendar, plans, and workouts has been the best experience as compared to buying plans (including free ones like SUF) on TrainingPeaks, using Zwift plans, or using CTS plans on Strava premium.
Does TR have all the charts I’d like? No. I’ve settled on TrainerRoad and doing data deep-dives in WKO4. Still have accounts on other services, for specialized reasons (data sync and archiving). Could I get along just fine with TR only? Yes. Would love to see TR add features to performance analytics.
Did it today straight from my account…updating to yearly. Always felt weird that I was grandfathered in on monthy but not annual…glad it was a mistake!
With features that other people haven’t done before I tend to share less about roadmap timing and specifics.
There’s two reasons for this.
New stuff is new, so things change a lot as we learn and develop it. I wouldn’t want to promise something and then not deliver it exactly the way it was promised.
Competitors do seem to follow in our footsteps sometimes . I don’t want to give them an advantage.
Don’t think the PMC is what the team has in mind for a next-gen platform… And they have “some assembly required” plans with guidelines on how to make them an annual plan…
Your real point it seems is
which is an interesting point and fun discussion topic to debate.
That was the head scratcher for me. Reading your later comments it all makes sense if I ignore PMC and equate machine learning with your “annual planner” and “annual plans” statements
