Aa a software developer, I would say is not hard. But there is a lot of logistics problems. Like once you have the data… What you do with it. Then there is the new data coming in, that could potentially be a lot of data, so they need where to store it forever, since people will like to keep it on the system forever.
Also, they need to create new views for said data files, and figure out ways to make the data useful for the athletes… Just uploading data does no good. I know many say that’s what they want, but once they have it they will realize it’s garbage just having the data in.
Then we have the roadmap. They are doing a full refactoring of the mobile app, plus doing o&m of the online app and the old mobile apps… Creating and maintaining apps is not something you just throw more people at it to make it quicker.
If we all think about it, making the new app, will probably open up many things. Maybe the old app didn’t had the capabilities to support running, now that they know people want that they could add support for thread mill running using their app (guided workouts maybe).
In any case. The new app was probably designed (or I certainly hope) to support many more things in the future.
From a software standpoint, creating a new app is the right move, although it may take longer than most of us would want …
I am really not sure if/how this would apply to me, but I am a pretty serious runner, but race competitive MTB. So I would think the app tracking my running stress would be useful for my MTB training. But I don’t know, I train by feel only (just started TR and haven’t even done a workout yet).
But having run a 25k trail race on Saturday and not seeing it in my calendar seems odd to me, from a training data standpoint.
Exactly. If they put a just there running, I can hear the mob calling for heads and saying they are not getting their money worth or that was not what they asked!
I’m a new triathlete who just signed up two days ago, but may be canceling tomorrow after reading this disheartening thread. There’s lot’s on TR I like, including the tri plans with great cycling workouts – but I’m not going to manually enter all my running and swimming workouts.
When this feature is live, broadcast it out on the InterWebs and perhaps I’ll come back and try again.
Followup question: Purely theoretically, if the runs showed up (from Strava) and auto-completed, and the swims were planned and could be ticked off, would you stay?
I simply ask this because I think this ‘simple’ functionality would already provide a lot of customer value. And now it is sometimes suggested in the thread that it is not worth it, even though I think it is.
I am not sure why both runs and swims could not show up from Strava (or Garmin or wherever). It is my understanding that they are already pulling all of this data into TR.
Just pulling in basics, like run time, pace and heartrate, or swim time/distance would go a long way for me. I have tried using TR as my training calendar, but it just gets too annoying to manually enter swims/runs/strength workouts.
My other issue with TR and triathletes is plan builder. It does not take into account running volume at all. I have played around with it and several times have seen “plans” that jump from a long run of 1 hour in base/build to 2 hours runs in build/specialty. Those “plans” seemed like an injury waiting to happen. Has anyone else seen this?
I’m on the same boat. I subscribed in September (choosing the whole 12 months option). I’m very happy with the plan (HIM MV) and the whole ecosystem of forum and podcast. But I can hardly imagine myself tracking manually every workout and copy&paste data from garmin connect/TP after each session when this season has ended
Interesting, perhaps you’ve found a bug or edge case? The plan that the builder spat out for me looks like it has a pretty reasonable progression in terms of total weekly mileage (though it does follow a sawtooth pattern with one week at lower volume followed by one at higher volume, but both increase by less than 10% over the course of a plan). I’m not seeing a big cliff edge when the phase changes, but there are so many inputs to plan builder it’s probably quite likely that you could produce some scary jump in mileage.
My bugbear at the moment is a northern hemisphere/latitude annoyance:
Like, come on coach, this isn’t a change of shoes and a jog, this is a military operation when it’s freezing, blowing a gale, probably raining and I’m soaked from the 2 hour tempo ride There’s a reason we don’t do the actual triathlons in winter; that reason being that transitions would take me 10+ minutes to put my 15 pieces of winter clothing on…
I know, I know, I could get a treadmill. I’m just grumbling
I think the issue was I had a couple sprints, an Olympic and a 70.3 scheduled this summer. I wanted one of the sprints and the 70.3 to be A races. The 2 races were far enough away to allow them both to be A races but not far enough to get build and specialty half distance in. The plan kind of jumped into the middle of half build after the sprint race.
Plan Builder is definitely good for when you are doing something that sits just outside the normal bounds of a plan, having more weeks than a standard plan and it throwing in a couple more weeks from a base/build plan etc, but seeing as it just looks at the type of events you put in and then “works backwards” from them it isnt really surprisng that this is what it put out. I very much doubt that it would ever have the functionality to look at the fact that you want to do two races with reasonably different training requirements and come up with some sort of mashed up Franken-plan.
My biggest gripe is with the fact that while I think the Sprint plan gets me to a good point for racing at the end, its only 16 weeks long. And plugging the fact that I want to do a Sprint Triathlon into plan builder gives me just repeats of Build and Specialty over and over. I would really LOVE a general “Triathlon Base” plan which would see me through the winter without having to resort to putting Sweet Spot base on and then trashing my legs for both running and cycling at the same time. But then I know that TR is just a generic plan creator and there is only so much they can do and I accept that I make my own way in the sport at times
Yes, exactly this. I’m lucky in that I’m only doing half (multiple, B) and full (one, A) races and the regular full plans before Plan Builder just assumed that you’d be doing the odd half distance race in the later stages of training, so not really any mixing and matching there. If you want more base and build and less specialty I think the trick is to low-ball your training experience in Plan Builder. I believe it leans towards more base for less experienced athletes and towards more specialty for grizzled veterans.
Maybe for multiple A races of different lengths TR could build in a rule about run mileage progression and tweak the long runs specifically within the plan segments.
The thing with the sprint plans is that get intense very quickly. So even selecting more base isnt really base. I could put an Olympic base plan on (Half and Full plans get too volume heavy for my time restraints and desire) but that isnt what plan builder would give me.
It isnt really a big issue for me. I only do sprint distance events and normally work out my own plan and dont use Plan Builder but I did this time because I had nothing to lose and what is training if not a fun personal experiment.
Welcome Bbdude! I joined a year ago and I’m still flabbergasted for the same reason. If you look at the marketing on the main site, you’re led to believe road/tri/off-road are on equal footing. And that TR is serious about tri:
But to be sure you understand correctly: earlier in this thread it was confirmed that in fact the runs are imported (and I think swims too). Internally they can also be shown, just not to us. The discussion last year was that tri people feel it would add a mountain of value to just show and auto-complete (and keep track of TSS), while TR thinks this somehow does not add appreciable value. My analogy is being thirsty, and not getting water, because the bartender would rather give you a nice drink at some undefined point in the future. So the triangle of marketing, actual product and wish of the customers don’t line up here.
We’ve been told it is on the roadmap, but there is no timeline. We don’t know if it is 3 months or 3 years. But that was last year.
I don’t mean to sound bitter, I love TR and it is an invaluable training tool. But they are taking the concept of “low hanging fruit” to its utmost limit, to a level that I don’t think they understand what is fundamental when selling a training: show the plan, autocomplete the workout when done and update TSS. Add fancy later.
I think the plan is to release the new apps on mobile, then the mystery mouseketool , and then this.
The apps are on beta and many people are testing the app daily. Lots of feed back.
The mouseketool, i have no idea what it is, but I suspect it will be something related to how we interact with the wo. I think they are trying to make the system slightly smarter so it can detect if you are failing and it might adjust it self to let you finish. I have no clue, but some other people have mentioned the addition of smarts to the system, and as far as I know adding auto adjustment to the workouts would be very cool and very unique… A selling point if you will, something no one else does…
Then eventually we will get this… My guess is early next year or late this one…
There’s a reason we don’t do the actual triathlons in winter; that reason being that transitions would take me 10+ minutes to put my 15 pieces of winter clothing on…
