Using tr outdoor cycling workout mode is frustrating

Since I traveled to a new city without a riding station, I used the garmin 840 and loaded tr’s workout sessions, but I found it hard to find a suitable road to ensure enough power intensity and time, for example, when I needed high power riding, I encountered a traffic light, or a downhill road, and the worst part was that during the rest phase, I wanted to just skip it because I had already rested enough downhill before, and I pressed the skip button twice, which directly led to only 30% of the training session being completed. It seems that the strava only shows the course name, not a nice graph
I don’t know what to do better, maybe it’s better to abandon loading the course outdoors and ride for longer periods of time in actual road conditions? Forgive my English, thanks guys!

Ride aroun, explore the surrounding and see if you can find a good stretch of road. The workouts in the polarised plan are better suited for outdoor riding imho

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It does take a little effort to find places to do a workout outdoors. It may be worthwhile to check out the nearest rural roads, find out where local time trials are run, find the nearest velodrome, or check out where the local crits are run. Once you find a few good roads or other sites, you’ll be set.

FWIW, I work out on the farm and in the city. Rural roads on the farm are great for zoning out and enjoying the scenery. Training in town increases the mental load and builds my situational awareness. Both have their advantages.

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You can do your workouts more Fartlek style if the terrain demands it. For example, if the workout was 4x8 minute Seiler intervals. You could slice it into any number of intervals that add up to 32 minutes of work at the target intensity. Push it on every hill at the target intensity until you get to your 32 minutes for example.

This is an example of why TR stresses that doing outside workouts can be a challenge. They have a few worthwhile articles that get to some of the ways to make the most of them. In short, it takes some planning and effort to get the right route & workout together.

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Sounds like this is a problem with your road choices and not necessarily TR.

I would imagine you would run into the same exact problems doing ANY sort of structured workout outdoors.

Solution is to find better roads, if that’s not possible, then you need to get a trainer and doing your workouts indoors.

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if you’re less familiar with an area I find the easiest way is to repeat a stretch of road, loop, or hill. Often my first couple of rides after arriving somewhere new are just easy endurance/recovery spins- good opportunity to get a feel for the traffic conditions and scout out appropriate spots. (Experience is your friend when it comes to outdoor workouts, both as it relates to your surroundings and how you’re riding.)
If you’re a Strava user, segments can be really useful for this too- usually gives you a clue as to where the locals are riding, as well as helping you find something with a roughly suitable length/gradient for the kind of effort you want to do.

Failing that, there’s always the trainer (or a gym bike if you don’t have one with you), or just pick sessions that you can execute well in those conditions. And if you’re only there temporarily I wouldn’t stress about it too much :slight_smile:

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Definitely too rolling where I live - it’d be hill repeats, which I’m not sure are any better than the turbo. However, with no turbo, that’s probably what I do - find the suitable stretch and do repeats.