So I’ve been doing Trainnow. It predictably will recommend the workouts in progression, climbing and attacking workouts separated by endurance workouts, So for example…E-C-E-A-C-E-A.
But then I took two days off. The day before I took off, it was recommending endurance. After two days off, today it again recommends endurance. That makes no sense to me. Endurance are basically recovery workouts. Why do i need a recovery workout after I took two days off?
If people did more endurance and less sweet spot, they would be much faster. Endurance is not recovery.
TrainNow is not a plan. It keeps recommending lower IF endurance workouts, meanwhile if its not 90-110F outside my idea of an endurance ride is 100 minutes at 66-79% on a 2 hour ride. I’m knocking those down with ease.
The goals still define it as recovery, and its only 45-55% FTP.
The “endurance” workout it recommended for me was a .5 IF, a 60 min ride… You know though, it is only a 1.5 value on the 1-10 step thing. It kind of make sense in that if you’re going to limit yourself to a 60 min ride, in order to get ten steps, 1-10, it has to start out at low intensity.
if TrainNow were tuned for adding workouts to a TR LV or MV plan, or any other plan, then I definitely see the logic of TN recommending lower IF endurance workouts. Especially because right now all of my progression levels are 1.0 - I’m patiently waiting for full outside workout support to see those go up to reasonable levels.
My progression in endurance is 6.8 and it recommends 6.8 90 min but with 60 the max is 5.8 (quite logical it would be pretty strange to have 10 with 60 min Z2).
If you refresh the results for TN, it’ll recommend various stuff and not always Lazy Mountain as endurance, which IMO is flawed because while both Lazy Mountain and Bald Knob are endurance they are very different IF wise. I still maintain TrainNow recommends the right TYPE of workout (endurance/climb/attack) but when it actually chooses within that type it’s a totally random crapshoot on which specific workout it recommends and thats where the suitability part kind of ends for me. I’ll usually check to see what it recommends as far as the type of ride and pick the workout myself
Today it recommends endurance zone, refreshing the results for 60 minutes I get IF as follows: 69,66,68,49,66,49,72. It’s almost like picking out of a hat
Are you in the beta? If not I’m guessing TrainerRoad is estimating your endurance level at 1.0.
I’m reserving judgement on that, as I’ve never seen an attack recommendation.
I’d put it this way - if you don’t have a clue on picking a workout then I believe TrainNow is better than randomly picking a workout.
my recommendations today are between 0.49 to 0.58, which has been pretty typical. But again, my progression levels are still flatlined at 1.0 because all my workouts are outside and coming from a coach (except for a week ago, I did Echo -3 on Garmin outside and that didn’t upgrade progression levels).
They’re based on levels not IF but even if they were IF based these seem pretty logical recommendations to me - 66-72 equates to whatever endurance level you’re at, but if you want to take it very easy (recovery) you can choose the 49.
That’s my logic though - probably way off how TN works!!
So as I said, it’s intelligent in picking a general zone (endurance/climb/attack) but within that it simply pulls a random workout. It doesn’t actually know whether you need a .5IF or a .7IF, so you still have to decide.
Yes that makes total sense to me to offer a bit of a range up to but not over what AT has as your level. You might not want to go right up to the level so it makes sense to throw in a few easier suggestions if you keep refreshing.
I never got the sense trainnow made sense for me. Every time but once it recommended an endurance ride. The rides were at a low PL level.
It’s neat for newer folks but for me, I know that after a hard day I should take an easy day, and probably shouldn’t jump straight into a monster workout after 2 days off, but maybe that’s just me and my body. It’s probably good at keeping newer guys from overtraining though which seemed to be a common complaint, but now the complaint is it recommends too much endurance, proof you can never please everyone.
I’m just hoping it gets smarter with more data because as of right now it recommends such a wide range of workouts in a given category it’s hard to see a specific workout suggestion as intentional
As someone that is only training outside, I’m sure TrainNow will get better once it can ‘see’ all rides.
Hmm…. I’ve seen attacking show up once a week for the last few weeks.
