Just created a Plan, used the TR app and for a road race in August. The plan has weekly hours of between 4-6 hrs. Hardly enough if I’m aiming to compete in a 75-100km race. Also the Masters Option is Off. I’ve been racing since I was 23 now 67, Vo2 max of 51, MaxHR 184, FTP 257.
Comments?
Would be good to provide a history of your training over the past couple years and recent few months for context. Screenshot or descriptive trends
New to TR? Did you import all your past training?
You have looked at the format of 3 very hard workouts a week? Are you accustomed to training hard structured intervals many times in a week?
TR in general develops high fitness and cycling ability through structured workouts. Often can get away with just 60-90min rides to get it in. Focus on avoiding undue fatigue, stress and recovery needs of frequent longer endurance rides… with the goal of hitting higher and higher workout targets.
When setting up the plan give it the days and how long you want each workout to be. It will likely make adjustments from there.
Been competing over 40+ years. I average between 8000 - 10000kms per year. Used TR for the past 2 years, I love the structured training and ease of use however from past experiences (Last season) TR plans were a bit light on intensity as well as duration i.e. lack of hours. I noticed that when I was racing I felt my engine was not there…missed some “top end jumps and lacked steady state power”. I believe longer time on the bike was necessary and now here I am again creating a plan and it looks like I don’t have enough work to do.
Just edit your plan and increase the hours 
Right I can do that…but then is that not the reason I subscribed to Trainer Road?
Maybe reach out to support to get their recommendation, but I just set the hours in my plan as part of the plan building process. There is a page that lets you move your days around and set durations. And TR has a strong bias toward time crunched athletes (in my opinion) and I find you need to nudge it a bit to build more volume into the plan. I just did a quick plan builder test and the default for me was ~8 hours per week and under 400tss. I’ve been doing 1000+ TSS 20 hour weeks for the past several months building into Unbound, so there is no way I’d want to back volume down that far. So, I’d just bump the hours up on this page as part of the planning process. I’m not sure why the system doesn’t seem to recognize past volume, maybe it just thinks that anything over x hours is counterproductive.
Maybe TR could create an alternative and more advanced plan to meet the needs of racers with decades of training and race experience. I’d pay for that but presently I feel they are catering their plans that meet the needs enthusiastic riders that want to improve without burning them out.
Isn’t the whole point of TR to not have to make your own plan?
It depends. Personally I don’t subscribe for the training plans, I am here for the workout player and calendar. (The AI Workout selector has been a nice bonus too). But like many here have stated, the training plan does seem to be geared toward “minimum effective dose,” which in itself is not a bad thing, but many people just like getting out and riding their bike more. In that case, I can see the frustration of those users. If I use a plan, coach or AI, I have never thought a template or formula is perfect. You always need to give feedback and tweak things. It’s not a closed system. But that’s me.
It doesn’t know how much time you have to train though.
Lots of athletes so the same as you at first and get frustrated that TR isn’t giving them enough time on the bike.
You just need to tell it you want more volume… like you would a real coach.
TR very rarely tells you not to ride.
TR provides an excellent program for basic and intermediate cyclists, in my opinion “generalists”. The business model captures what represents the greatest numbers thus allowing the highest way to capitalize their business. If however they created a more serious program for the higher level and elites, then the generalists wouldn’t know what hit them and they’d leave Trainer Road. It’s just business and they’re simply aiming to maximize a profit…Full Stop.
Yep. Looking at the charts they have posted on the average TR athlete it’s pretty reasonable that it’s very very geared towards low volume recreational individuals.
TR. Will. Give. You. 20hour. Weeks. If. You. Ask. It. To.
There is no conspiracy here.
Totally agree that TR’s default behavior is highly biased towards time crunch athletes. But I wouldn’t assume all those athletes with limited time are just “recreational” cyclist that aren’t too serious about their training. I know some very competitive athletes who simply don’t have a lot of time to train and they are competing at a high level (particularly for shorter disciplines/events).
Absolutely true. While the default TR behavior will point a user toward lower volume, it’s as simple as telling TR how many day/hours a week you have to train and it will go along with it. And if you have recent training history that shows you can handle 20+ hour weeks, it’s not going to adjust your schedule or give you red days when you go out and knock down 300-400tss rides. If you are doing much more than 20 hours, it starts getting tricky to have TR manage all those workouts without jumping through some hoops, but that’s not a big deal. The biggest limitation is that they cap the interval workouts to 2 hours, but I just add another workout on those days (even if it’s actually executed as a single ride).
And there are lots of ways to use the TR system without asking TR to manage all the workouts/volume. My preferred approach is to use TR to serve up my 2 structured interval sessions per week and then I manage all my non-interval work on my own. It’s not complicated, just riding enough to hit the TSS targets I’m looking to hit. I could probably force the TR system to manage all those rides, but I don’t need a system to tell me to go out and do x TSS of Z2 work.
Bottom line, TR can still be a very effective tool regardless of the athlete level and time available to train. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect for every use case, but that’s asking a bit much from an inexpensive automated training system.
You are still the coach and the software is just a tool for the coach. You still have to tell the software your parameters. The software is not going to think you can train 20 hours per week because most people can’t do that nor have that much time. The “AI” is not an all knowing general intelligence that will be your coach.
You also don’t have to follow workouts like a drone. If it says 1.5 hours of endurance but you’ve regularly done 3 hour rides then you can just ride more. As long as you stay within the intended focus of the ride and fuel and are able to recover you’ll be fine.
It’s hard to believe you’ve actually been paying for TR for 2 years now.
It sounds like you just came to complain about a program with it’s roots in time crunched indoor training.
If you change the default settings and feed TR your recent training history it will give you more. You can choose aggressive plans or more relaxed plans but you actually have to drive the software.
The problem with forums is that legitimate observations and real critiques from serious long term riders can be met with personal comments like “It’s hard to believe you’ve actually been paying for TR for 2 years now” and “It sounds like you just came to complain about a program”.
TR might be actually listening to these concerns and strive for ways to make it better. Maybe even charge more for that upgraded program for elite riders. I’d pay more for an upgraded option.
So the program is at fault because you haven’t moved past the defaults nor contacted support for help?
Your observation is legitimate.
The initial onboarding seems to be letting people down with regards to not making it clear that volume can be easily increased by the athlete if they wish. That is a (small) failure on TRs part.
But, you need to listen and take on board the fact you can easily change this if you want.
You literally just have to tell it how many hours you want to train and it will adjust the intensity to suit.
