In the past I have followed some of the plans and got good results from them.
Current work and family commitments keep changing meaning that I could not commit to a plan.
So I intend to use TrainNow every two or three days so should get 3 workouts in a week. I may supplement these with outside rides as the weather improves.
Just wondering if anyone who has used TrainNow for a period of time could share their experience and outcomes.
Not looking for suggestions of how to fit a plan in.
I’ve been using it for over a year and love it. Training plans ruin my love of training, and I’m also a runner, so this approach works really well for me. It does tell me what I should work on and I usually just follow what they suggest (after filtering how much time and what intensity I’m after), but I also use my progression levels sometimes to decide what I want to work on (eg I got really into VO2 max for December training).
If you can trust yourself to be consistent without a plan, Train Now is ideal!
I’ve been using it for a few years now almost exclusively (only switching to a dedicated plan for about 2 months to prep for the A event of the year).
For the most part it’s been going great and I love the flexibility it provides. Red/Yellow Light was already a big improvement and with the changes currently happening in the background it may get even better.
Two things to keep in mind though:
TN will not account for future events. It will not automatically start a taper week if you have a race scheduled. You’ll have to do this yourself
There will be no automatic recovery weeks. With TN it’s game-on all the time. Depending on your training load and life, you may want to make sure to manually prep a relaxed week after every three weeks of training to not hit a wall
I asked a very similar question a couple of months ago. The official answer was to do a plan anyway. It’s easy to drag workouts on the calendar to account for schedule variation. And, if you’d like, you can chose do an alternative workout, add workout, or delete a specified workout, and the all-knowing algorithm will make appropriate adjustments to the plan. Unfortunately, it does not yet account for non workout specific outdoor rides.
x2 - I do the same thing as Wynter - as a runner I sometimes switch a suggested ride if I am not feeling it that morning or maybe increase the progression level if I am feeling good. I started to dread hitting a plan workout, so after a few years I ditched the plans and roll with train now. I don’t compete in cycling events I do rides, Triple Bypass, etc.