I actually haven’t paused any workouts and was referring to someone else’s comment earlier. Rereading now, he had a 12 min recovery, not 10, and did not have his PL adjusted down.. He speculated maybe bc he extended the workout but maybe the model actually knows that additional 90 sec makes no difference so didn’t adjust it down to begin with.
True. But it’s a bit discouraging for some of us apparently. As long as it doesn’t impact the AI model, agree not really a big deal though.
Doesn’t matter if someone else got ahead of you in Zwift. What matters is hitting the objectives of your workout.
Unless it’s a very short high intensity interval, a small increase in recovery doesn’t make a meaningful difference. I agree doubling a 2 min recovery is meaningful. Adding 2 min to a 10 min recovery is not.
I intentionally avoid workouts with long recoveries bc feels like I’m just wasting time on the trainer.
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Right, but are they EXACTLY THE SAME? If not, then if we want to see reality, we have to accept that they are not going to show the EXACT same output.
Same thing here. Just did a 3 hour endurance ride where I stopped for 1 minute and 6 seconds to fill up a waterbottle. I did this in the 10 minute valley at 65% between two 50 min blocks at 75%.
This lowered my score from 7.3 to 7.1.
Surely doesn’t make much of a difference results wise, but feels a bit silly? 
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Ha, I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree but I’ll repeat myself once more. The PLs for an interval workout should be driven by hitting/missing numbers that matter. That’s what impacts actual adaptions. PL and AI adjustments should occur when, and only when, intended adaptations are impacted.
You seem to be arguing there should be a penalty if I take a 10 second break to tighten my boa since the workout didn’t call for that 10 sec break. Good thing we only ride on a trainer since it would be impossible to have a productive workout outside where it’s impossible to spin steadily for an entire ride.
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No. But I have taken a 2 min break to pee during a 4 hr workout and my HR and RPE almost immediately returned to where they were pre-break.
I’ve had the pee break mental trauma of not getting full credit, stll haven’t recovered! I’ve also had an initial 13 watt predicted increase drop to 5 watts, main reason being I rated a 4.0 under / over workout that was predicted to be hard as very hard.
Its cycling really meant to about the absolute precision of duration and effort to achieve extra watts?
I do like all the predictive features but the cynic in me thinks I will eek out the usual measly few watts each block if I am lucky 
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OK. Here’s a workout of mine with a long recovery (10 min). Heartrate was 158 at end of the first 20min interval. 5min into the recovery it was 101 (fully recovered). At the end of the 10min recovery, it had actually crept up a bit. I am fully convinced that adding another 2min recovery would not have lowered my HR/RPE further nor negatively impacted the adaptations from the next 20min interval.
I don’t think we get to decide which numbers do and do not matter. Its math. If the numbers don’t add up, I don’t want to see some fake number to make me feel like I preformed better. So, I’ll stick to agree to disagree. 
I almost panicked during today’s workout when my water bottle nearly got bumped to the floor which would have caused a few seconds without pedaling. 
I fully admit, this is OCD or something probably unhealthy with me!
More importantly, when I finished, I debated between rating the workout Easy or Moderate bc AI has predicted Easy and I figured a Moderate rating would ding my AI FTP. I was honest and rated it Moderate but it can be tempting to “game the system” with the ratings. Of course it only hurts us to have an artificially high training FTP but I doubt everyone can always resist that temptation.
I mentioned this in another thread. Part of me feels like all the technology in cycling is taking away the fun of it. This AI update is another step down that pathway. So tempted to sell my turbo and get a gravel bike and embrace riding outside in the wind and rain again. I might not be as fit, but I’d make a lot more memories…
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I definitely agree, you need to find a balance. Weather here has been constant rain so happy enough grind it out in shed until it improves.
With predicted FTP you now see it up front that a social group ride or solo junk mile adventure is going to cost you watts. But we already knew that anyways.
I’ll probably hide it and not let it overly influence every micro pedal stroke!
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I don’t really understand the language being used here, of people feeling “penalized” by taking pauses etc.
No one’s being “penalized” as such - the workout outcome classifier is simply, and coldly, marking the work it’s presented with. If you complete fractionally more or less work than expected, the level “score” will differ to the template workout’s level, whether that’s up or down. No penalties, just a cold-hearted machine (accurately) scoring what it’s presented with to the best of its abilities. “Watts are truth”.
I write “accurately”, that’s the idea but it’s still to be confirmed by us as users, and we should learn more about this over the coming months/year as we put it through its paces and learn to trust it (or not). But, TR has a very sophisticated statistical model driven off 40 terabytes of relevant data. It’s possible 
this model can make inferences and draw conclusions more accurately than any of us can. That is the basic underlying premise here after all with this type of technology. All to be proven in practice still, and it should be fun putting it through its paces, but that’s the basic premise here.
With Levels in particular, don’t lose sight of the fact they don’t even matter now - they’re just eye candy for us humans, an approx representation of our current capabilities. They are the map, not the territory, so if you don’t like the number for some reason, my suggestion is don’t waste too much mental energy on this.
I think within several months’ time the vast majority of TR users will have become a great deal more relaxed about some of the things that are currently grinding some of their gears. We’re in a transition period now - where the tech must prove its worth - before we’re all ready to fully welcome our AI overlords…
I’ve worked with stuff like this in a previous life, and tend to think in probabilities, so TR AI is like manna from heaven to me.
I suspect (nearly) all will be assimilated eventually. 
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100% agree with this.
It will learn, it will get better. TR will take the feedback. Using it as intended will make everyone doing so faster and more fit. If that’s the goal, then great.
If that’s not the goal, then all the FTP, AI prediction, PLs talk is subjective anyway, so it doesn’t matter in terms of what you actually do on your bike.
It’s not dinging you. It’s just reflecting what you did. Prior to this, it did the same thing you just didn’t see it in PL. It’s no different than using power smoothing in erg…sure you get pretty, smooth lines but double legs know the UPS and downs through the workout. And a 0.1 “ding” is inconsequential in a year long training plan.
At least that is how I see it.
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I don’t think anyone is arguing that. Just that extending the recovery could impact the impact of the workout.
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@ibcoleman can you change the title to
“pauses lowered your score” so people like me can find it as it doesn’t show up when using those as search terms.
I often break to take off layers and turn the fan on after warm up in winter as below. It would be good to hear from TR if this is important, as I can change my protocol and suffer the discomfort if needs be.
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Stop reinforcing the stereotype that triathletes have no bike handlings skills!!
Adding the context and showing the pauses is a step in the right direction, when this popped up in beta it was more a mystery at first. Pauses like you are showing are even common for people stopping to recalibrate power meters and trainers once they have some heat in them. I am not saying that this area needs some different weighting, but definitely something to be considered since a break there is different than at 35 minutes.
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You don’t know my tri saddle like I do!