This creates a conundrum for me. Every time an easy endurance workout comes up I’m gonna wanna us TN to do something more challenging/interesting. On the one hand, I figure the Plan is smarter than I am should I should stick with it. On the other, TN seems to be giving me permission to go harder. Today for example, I’m scheduled for an Endurance 1.5 (TSS 33, IF 0.58), and TN is offering up a Threshold 3.1 (63, 0.79), an Anaerobic 5.2 (74, 0.86), and an Endurance 3.3 (41, 0.64). All of which, including the last, seem more interesting than the scheduled workout.
This may change down the line, but keep in mind the key difference that TN looks at your recent past and assigns a workout in that context. It is NOT looking forward and not aware of any training plan that may have hard workouts in your very near future.
TN is mainly intended for use by people NOT following a training plan. It CAN be used in tandem with plan users, but context needs to be considered. Maybe that will change in the future, where TN will be more aware of these things, but it’s not the case now and should be used with care in some cases.
1 Like
For #2, I can see why this might be. It doesn’t seem much different from when I have had a personal coach. I would occasionally get a workout assigned to me that was because I had been crushing my current type (level?) of workout lately. It was a test, of sorts. If I passed, coach knew he could move me onto different programming. What TN is doing all sounds similar to that, to me.
1 Like
Fair point. My plan might have a hard workout scheduled tomorrow, but TN doesn’t know that. Of course, if the plan is adaptive, it would know I did the harder TN workout today, and ease off on the subsequent workout(s), right?
Yeah, your hard TN workout would be seen by AT and lead to yellow or red day, and some level of adaptation. I have not seen enough examples to know exactly how it would shake out, but there would be some level of changes that I would expect.
OK. I did a TN workout today instead of the scheduled Endurance workout. Funny thing, but I had looked and the TN suggested workouts today a couple of times, but when I went down to the trainer and started TR, TN offered up different ones. Anyway, I chose the TN Endurance workout which was tougher than the scheduled one. After, the plan showed a Yellow Light for tomorrow, and offered an adaptation, which was a reduction in the intensity of today’s scheduled workout, which I wasn’t going to do since I did the TN workout instead, and a reduction in intensity of next week’s Endurance workout. It didn’t touch the intervening Threshold and VO2 Max workouts.
I think PL 20.9 is bug, it is inflated by hard start. TR automated PL assignment gets confused by sprint either at the beginning or end of long effort. Usually this kind of workouts are manually adjusted. My guess this specific workout is simply missed by TR team.
For example, similar Redoubt +3 has PL 8.0.
I agree there is something wrong with the 20.9 PL. I looked at it through the website and it shows that completing the workout would give me the PL 20.9, but only a +5.7 increase from where it is today - which is not right, my current threshold PL is 4.3
Also, the similar workout Cody Butte is Threshold 8.9
4.3 + 5.7 = 10 is (used to be?) actually right, athlete’s PLs don’t go above 10.
But I am not sure how PLs fit into new brave world. Is it even compatible anymore? I guess TR will update their guides once it passes testing period.
2 Likes
I just had a look at what TrainNow would recommend for me today
Apparently it’s a 9.2 PL anerobic workout 
I am only just back on TR, my progression levels are like 1 for VO2 and Anerobic and I’ve done one endurance ride with 3 sprints and one really easy vo2 1.5 level.
2 Likes
I’m new here and still somewhat befuddled by all this new TR stuff, but I believe that 9.2 is the Workout Level, not Progression Level, so it’s suggesting a very tough Anaerobic workout. TN suggests some pretty tough workouts for me too. IDK how much sense it makes.
1 Like
Right, Workout Level is what it is, but that value becomes your Progression Level if you perform and complete that Workout without having an All-Out rating. So onw bwcomes the other and is why the terms are often interchanged.
2 Likes
For context it’s winter here and base time, I’ve done zero specific vo2 work and typically work through vo2 from 30s, 1 minute, 90 seconds etc.
For science and this thread, I trusted TrainNow when it offered up a 6.1 vo2 session consisting of 2 minutes intervals. A huge jump from 1.2
I actually got further than expected, failed into the final 2 intervals and set the ride as All Out in the feedback survey.
Did I still get value from TrainNow, despite being a little optimistic? Yes!
- despite the ‘All Out’ rating (Maximum Effort was the answer on mine), my PL has been bumped up. This was a suprise to me based on what’s been said, @mcneese.chad but maybe it now considers that I completed enough of it?!
- I’ve saved a few weeks working my way up
- still got an AIFTP raise as a bonus
1 Like
Quick look seems you did enough that AT will give “full credit” even with the A-O rating.
This scenario doesn’t seem mad to me - unless you’re a very unusual athlete, it’s not very likely that (for a given FTP setting) you’d be a 7.0 for Sweet Spot but a 1.3 for Threshold and 1.0 for VO2Max. So even based on those progression levels plus knowledge of your history, it would be wise for TN to suggest a VO2Max of way higher than 1.0. Going straight for a 6.1 seems bold, but you more or less did it, so it clearly wasn’t far out.
Have you been riding much outside in recent weeks / months? My understanding is that the new TN model takes that into account, so if you have been doing anything outside that is suggestive of potential performance in a VO2Max session, then that could have played a part too.
I think there is a lot of potential validity in the TR response of “yes I know it seems odd but it’s right - trust it and try it”, but there’s also a solid chance that it’s not always as right as they think - I had TN suggestions that I am sure would have been unachievable for me. For zones that I had been training, and without any preceding outside rides for many weeks.
There’s also the obvious contradictions that need to be fixed (and presumably are slated to be pretty soon if the TN algorithm sticks) - I’m sure TR are also not happy with the “TN says I should do xxx, yet when I look at xxx it says not recommended” situation.
1 Like
(I’ve now ridden outside a couple of times since previous experiences.)
Today, TrainNow suggested these workouts, and here are my current progression levels:
I’m sorry, but those are a hard nope from me.
I wonder if the AI could be being thrown by the fact that I’ve never ‘failed’ a workout except once or twice many years ago when ill? I don’t think I’ve ever dialled one down either until recently when I tried a threshold workout (that was still lower level than TN was suggesting). Maybe it has a poor handle on how ‘stretchy’ I can be because in its eyes I’m invincible!? Regardless, the current suggestions are not very useful to me.
5 Likes
I was given a 9.9 Threshold workout a few weeks ago. (Level at time was 5-6)
Promptly opened a support ticket and was told to give it a go. Related to new changes.
Ended up doing a much longer outside ride but surprised myself with almost matching the prescribed.
1 Like
TrainNow doesn’t seem to work properly either in my case. I’m currently 5.1 Threshold level and TN recommends me level 1 to 1.5 Threshold workouts consistently even after refreshing and changing to several durations.