That's awesome, we're glad to have you training with us! And congrats on the new equipment, that's always fun. Of course, congrats on the marriage as well!! ;)

We typically recommend a 28 week progression through the three phases of our training plans, so you're going to have some extra time to fill. To accomplish this, we recommend athletes extend their base conditioning. And in your case, building a deep aerobic base will be especially beneficial for you as a triathlete.

In the time period you have until your honeymoon, we'd recommend hopping into the Sweet Spot Base training plan. This won't quite fill an entire 4 months, so you can fill the gaps by repeating a couple weeks in there; whichever weeks are appealing to you. Then you'll hit the honeymoon, and it's likely you'll lose a bit of the fitness you've built up. But you'll be able to pick things up relatively quickly as you enter into the full Base, Build, Specialty progression following the honeymoon. The plan sequence we'd recommend is the Half-Distance Base, Build, and Specialty plans.

And no need to think about a tapering strategy for IM Philippines as it is already built into the last 2 weeks of the Specialty phase training plan. The tapering strategy will reduce your training volume to make sure you're as fresh as possible for the event.

Hope this helps — let us know if you have any other questions! Have an awesome season, and congrats!

Cheers

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Quick Trainerroad setup question-

I'm just getting going with Trainerroad and it looks great, love the training plans and the straightforward interface. I have a Cycleops Hammer trainer that I'm using with Trainerroad and the power information seems to be way off. My problem is that when I look at the power information from the hammer to trainerroad compared to my Stages PM to my elemnt computer the information is way different. The watts coming from the hammer to traininer road app on my ipad read about 35-40 watts higher than the numbers coming from stages to my elemnt. I'm calibrated on both ends as well.

I'll be in touch with cycleops but I'm curious, do people using trainerroad usually use their pm to control their smarttrainers?

Thanks for any help!
Brent

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Thanks,
Brent

Thanks a bunch Nick! Will be doing sweet spot base after my olympic race this november 5. :)

Are there an plans for being able to extend warm ups and cool downs for TR workouts? I am using the iOS app, kickr, and stages w/ power match.

I really like your workouts but in most cases the warm ups and cool downs are too short for me. Many start with 2 min at 50% FTP before bumping the power and I often need more than that to get my stiff legs in gear. Right now I simply pedal away before clicking start on the workout. With the cool downs, I also almost always need an extra 5-10 min after the workout ends of easy pedaling. Having the ability to pre-ride before starting the workout, and to extend the cool down would be a lot of use for me. It would be nice if TR recorded that power and time during those periods. More importantly however, I have not found the best way to control my kickr during the pre ride and extended cool down periods while the workout is not active. Is this something that has been considered/is in the pipeline? If not, do you have any suggestions for controlling the kickr before starting a workout and after the workout ends?

Thanks in advance!

Hey Tom,

Sounds like a great plan choice! (That's exactly what we'd recommend) :)

As for increasing the duration of the sessions, we'd suggest substituting your scheduled workout with the +1 and +2 versions like you mentioned.

If you find a workout that doesn't have a +1 or +2 version (I'm pretty sure we've covered all of them except for certain tempo and endurance power zone workouts), search in the workouts page or workouts tab of the app to filter for a longer workout within the same power zone(s). You can filter for intensity, duration, etc.

We plan to revisit the triathlon plans down the road, but no ETA on exactly when that'll be.

Hope this helps Tom. Have a great season!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Brent,

Stoked to have you on board! And thank you for the awesome feedback. :)

It's not all that uncommon for there to be slight discrepancies in power output between smart trainers and power meters, but that discrepancy can increase with single-leg power meters since the power will be doubled from the stages. That could be why you're seeing such a difference, but it may also be worth following up with CycleOps.

As for your question about using a pm to control a smart trainer, we have a feature that does exactly that called PowerMatch. When you pair your pm and smart trainer to TrainerRoad, PowerMatch will automatically be enabled and it uses the power from your power meter to dictate resistance change on the trainer. You also have the option to disable PowerMatch and apply a manual offset if you know the difference and it stays consistent. You can access this by drilling into the smart trainer settings within the Devices tab of the app.

Let us know if you have any other questions! And always feel free to follow up with our support team at support@trainerroad.com if you run into any tech concerns.

Thanks!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Heck ya, you're very welcome!

Have a great 2018!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

We have thought about creating a cool way to extend warm ups and cool downs and we think the best way will be to build it into our workout creator. We're still thinking through a lot of details, but we're going to revamp the custom workout creator completely, so it makes sense to add it there. We're thinking something like a warm up button or cool down button that adds ~5 min to each.

But that's not to say you can't add in extended warm up/cool down periods within the workout creator as it is now. To extend these portions of your workouts, take the workout that you have scheduled in your training plan or you'd like to complete, open that workout in the workout creator, and extend the durations of warm up/cool down by whatever duration you'd like. :)

In case you don't have the workout creator, you can download it from here: Custom Workout Creator Download

Hope this helps! Give us a shout at support@trainerroad.com if you have any issues here.

Thanks!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Similar request re warmups/cool downs. Is it possible to create separate warmup / cool down sessions and queue up the sessions to run automatically one after another?

Check out my response above^

You can create workouts with extended warm ups/cool downs within our Custom Workout Creator. But you won't be able to queue them up to run automatically. You won't need to since you can build it right into the workout. :)

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Workout creator means amending every workout before doing it (not going to happen). Having the ability to create a standard warm up/cool down and queue them up before / after the main workout session is surely more flexible?

We're still throwing ideas around on it so nothing is set in stone quite yet. I'll share your guys' suggestions with the team. In the meantime, using the custom workout creator to extend the durations of warm up/cool downs is your option.

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Apologies if it has already been discussed, but is there a way for me to export a workout to my Garmin edge for purposes of doing the ride outside? Would love to find a way to do this so I don't also have to run the app on my phone simultaneously...

Thanks,
Eric

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@CycleHeavy

Hi Eric,

We don't have the ability to export a workout to your head-unit. :/ We do have some exciting news coming out soon about importing outdoor ride data into TrainerRoad, but nothing in the works for the other way around at the moment.

We do have something that will help you with your outdoor workouts, though. :) We whipped up an article to help athletes get some of their workouts done outdoors that you can check out here: Outdoor workout substitution Q/A

Hope this helps Eric! Let us know if you have any other questions.

Cheers

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Can I use Spotify simultaneously with the TR app on an iphone? I might have to switch up my training area soon and it would be way better to just start using the iphone instead of the macbook.

Also, I love you guys. I'm going into my last 2 weeks of the half iron plan with my first 70.3 two weeks away. I held an all-time 90 min & two hour power (276w; 268w) best yesterday during polar bear and ran my goal pace for an hour off the bike. I am so ready to crush this race, thanks in large part to you guys.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

Yes you can. Do it all the time.

Is anyone else have issues with getting response on support questions?

I am having lots of issues with workout creator and running custom workouts. Anyone else seeing this?

What other workout creators are people using? preferably one that let's you switch between erg and resistance mode, when designing workouts.

Alright I just set up my honeymoon. I will be away from the saddle and triathlon training for 18 days (Doing the Everest Base Camp Trek no just a bunch of walking with the wife with zero training).

I get back with 6 days before starting up a training program. Was wondering bow much fitness I lose after 18 days. Also what shoud I do on the 6 days to lessen the loss before i start my HIM plan?

Thanks!
Dom

Sorry to hear you've been experiencing a delay in support! We want to fix that immediately! :( Direct message me your email/username and I'll make sure an agent gets back to you as soon as possible.

One thing I can add about the TrainerRoad workout creator is designing a mode change (intervals that automatically switch you from erg to resistance, and vice-versa) is really finicky. That's why we don't officially support it; because we don't have a designated feature that allows it , but there is a workaround that some people have been successful in using. Some users have been able to use a 8- or 20-Minute FTP test as a workout shell in the custom workout creator, then manipulated the existing testing intervals to have a mode change in the workout. But again, some people have been able to do it and some haven't. This is something we'd like to add into the workout creator when we revisit it, though!

In case you need any pointers on how to use the workout creator in the meantime of us chatting in support, here are some useful resources: Custom Workout Creator Info

We'll talk to you soon!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Dom,

Sounds like a nice time!

The amount of fitness loss will be largely subjective considering a wide number of things (e.g. age, experience with high intensity training, muscle fiber composition, etc). That said, I'll reference Dr. Vladimir Issurin's data in Training Residuals that aggregates the rates of fitness loss below.

• Aerobic Endurance - Establishment: 25-35 days; Residuals: 25-35 days
• Anaerobic Power - Establishment: 14-22 days; Residuals 14-22 days
• Muscle Endurance/Threshold - Establishment: 10-20 days; Residuals: 10-20 days
• Sprint Power - Establishment: 2-8 days; Residuals: 2-8 days

Then some data on VO2 max residuals:

• 1-7 days: negligible decrease
• 10-14 days: 6% decrease
• 14-30 days: 12% decrease
• 30-63 days: 19% decrease
• >63 days: 26% decrease

There's no hard and fast rule here, but this is at least something to work off of to have an idea of how fast certain types of fitness dissipate. And considering the next 28 weeks of training you'll have on your plate in front of you, I'd recommend spending those first few days back in the saddle performing a couple low-intensity workouts. Then HIM plans. :)

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Thanks for the response Nick. This sounds like a great strategy, I'm going to get started on the sweet spot program from Monday. Cheers

Very welcome. Have an awesome season!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Super random:

You guys ever given any thought to spin studio/group licensing—ie. "Powered by Trainerroad"?

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

So I didn't read through the entire thread, but can anyone provide me with some info on olympic distance/40km time trial plans? I'd like to dedicate 2 evenings each week to trainer workouts and keep my sunday longer rides outside from now until March somewhere.. So basically 2x/week for 16-18 weeks. And did you have a lot of success with those plans?

Loving it so far Nick. The structure and intensity of the sessions is just what I needed to get me going again over the winter.

I plan on following the programs pretty much as they are described, however, if I have to miss a day due to work/family events, should I move on to the next workout in the program or find another day in the week to do it? Do you have any other advice for swapping sessions during the week?