Hey Ghosts234!

While we don't have any current plans to integrate with TrainingPeaks training plans/ workouts, this is something that's on our radar. Adding a feature like this would likely require an overhaul of our Workout Creator, which would be fairly heavy on development resources. On the immediate roadmap, our Developers are hard at work finishing up Performance Analytics and the ability to import outdoor rides, and further down the line they are working to create a Calendar View which will allow for adjustment and customization of our training plans. Any Workout Creator improvements would therefore happen after these major features are released.

Feel free to reach out if you have any more questions!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Hiya Bryce, I figured I'd throw this up here instead of emailing you and the crew at trainerroad.com directly.

I could use some advice, please? How should I plan my training out with my vacation coming up?

I'm 'racing' at IM Mont Tremblant this August 19th and I've built the plan back from there. I'm also doing a 70.3 weekend of June 23rd (and Ragnar Cape Cod weekend of May 13th).

I'm on Week 9 of the Full Distance Triathlon Base, just finished the hill interval run. And for transparency, I've only missed one ride (mid-week), 2 mid-week runs and 1 mid-week swim.

I'm going to be out of the country (Mexico Resort) from April Thursday 12th - Sunday 22nd. It's vacation so I'm going to pretty loose about my training schedule. I'll have access to ocean, fitness center and trails for running but let's be realistic, it's vacation! :)

That said, I'll be missing:
Week 10 - Thursday through Sunday
Week 11 - All of Week 11

What do you suggest for the rest of the build-out? Right now it's built-out as Base/Build/Specialty Full Distance Mid-Volume, one after the other..

Thanks!
Alex
p.s. - please let me know if I can provide anymore info.

Is there a way to assign or mark a ride at "outdoors"? I seem to remember there being a way to do it from my previous training blocks, but I can't seem to find to where.

BTW, really liking the Ramp FTP test. Quick ans "easy".

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Strava

On website, hover over ride you want to assign as "outdoors", click "assign", select outdoor ride.

Ah ok. So there's no way through the app?

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Strava

I only use the app on a desktop/laptop and it's the same process as the web. Don't know for tablets/phones.

Hey Alexander!

While on vacation it can definietly be hard to adhere to your training plan and also fully enjoy the trip :) If you can aim to get at least one ride, one swim and one run per week during the vacation, that will help to prevent backsliding in your fitness :) When you return, it might work well to jump in at Week 1 of the Specialty Phase since your Vacation will probably leave you with fresh legs, similar to how you would feel after a recovery week. You will then need to extend your training by a week to arrive properly at your target event, but you can do this by repeating one of the Specialty Weeks :)

If you're interested in further discussion related to missing training for vacation, check out this excerpt from our podcast:
https://soundcloud.com/...g-coach-134#t=37m40s

Let me know if you have any further questions and be sure to enjoy your vacation!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

The newest versions of the apps have removed the ability to Assign Ride as generic "Outdoor" because users with Performance Analytics Beta Access are now able to assign actual Outdoor Ride files in the Production Versions of the app. If you would like this access and the ability to upload your outside rides, go ahead and sign up here:
http://bit.ly/...alytics-Early-Access
You should be granted access within 24 hours. To learn more about the different features and offerings in this update, go ahead and join our TrainerRoad Beta Testers Facebook group :)

Feel free to reach out if you have any more questions!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

I'm after 6 weeks of Full Distance Low Volume Base training plan and now I don't have my TT bike untill end of month. I have MTB bike but it haven't got power meter. How to manage that to lower the power loss?

Throw your MTB on the trainer (use a slick if you have a wheel on trainer) and use virtual power. I use my MTBs on the trainer quite a bit. No problem there.

Thanks Bryce, I like this Idea!

Recovery week, fresh start with build phase and add an extra week.

While you wait for your TT bike to come in, you can easily set up your MTB on the trainer with a few steps:
1. I would recommend a road tire or a trainer tire for your bike. This will keep you from ripping through soft MTB tires and will keep your resistance consistent
2. Install a ANT+ or Bluetooth speed sensor to your MTB
3. Enable VirtualPower and select your trainer from the drop down menu. This will convert your speed reading into a VirtualPower reading.
4. Perform either an FTP test to determine your threshold according to VirtualPower (will differ slightly from your real FTP)

Once you've done these things you're good to go with VirtualPower on your MTB :)

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Thank you for advice. If I only had slick or trainet tire for my mtb I wouldn't ask and I just put my pedal powermeter and start making wats ;) Maybe I switch MTB pedals to road with powermeter but it can be dangerous to ride offroad in road shoes ;)
I think I just take MTB offroad and have 2 weeks fun looking for training durations. Will this have big influence for my power?

If you are getting out and riding your bike a good amount each week, you are unlikely to see significant fitness reduction. You may not gain fitness like you would with structured training, but maintaining fitness is actually fairly easy :)

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Got a couple of training questions for you.

1) Sick currently and hopefully it will only be 7-8 days total since my last prescribed ride before I can continue. On the General Build low volume plan and still have the last workout on Week 7 to go before the recovery week. Ok to just pickup that last hard ride (forget the name but saw a brutal 3x20 threshold set prescribed) and continue once I'm healthy?

2) Really not racing this year (except some short 10 miler TT series when I can make it) so should I just do another build or go specialty? I'm going to mix riding outdoors 1-3x (depending on the week) once the weather finally gets consistently nicer but with 1-2 trainer rides a week so it will definitely take me more than 8 weeks to finish. Maybe the first few weeks of the next phase will be all indoors with the way April (snow) showers in my neck of the woods has been going. Only major goal is to increase my overall ftp at this stage since I'm not really racing. My TT series I'll just treat it like a 20 minute ftp pacing like I have before and try not to blow up on the steeper of the rolling hills on that course. Any real concerns with doing this over the summer?

I'll probably take a few week break from all cycling in late October or early November and then start over with base again anyways.

Hi Bryce

Am sure this topic has been posted before but was struggling to wade through the 4000+ replies on this thread! The "easy" sessions on TR seem so easy as to be doing almost nothing. E.g. I did Pettit+1 last night, other than the 2 sprints at the end my HR barely scraped into the low 120s which for me is extremely low (for comparison even a gentle jog at 3 minutes/mile over race pace gets me up to about 130).

Does riding at that intensity achieve anything more than active recovery? It doesn't seem like it's creating enough training stress to be improving fitness. If it's just about active recovery, then is it reasonable to assume that it's got more of a place in the training programme of a pure cyclist rather than a triathlete? If the only training I was doing was cycling then I could see a lot of benefit in active recovery days as you can't go hard every day and taking a whole day off can leave you feeling sluggish. As a triathlete who can just run/swim in between the hard cycling days it doesn't seem so beneficial and I wonder if my time wouldn't be better spent running or in the pool. My running fitness seems to correlate well to total running miles almost regardless of intensity, whereas my cycling fitness seems to correlate better to the amount of intensity I'm doing (e.g. my FTP is higher at the moment off the back of ~6 hours/week of high quality cycling than it was a year ago off the back of ~12 hours/week of mainly commuting and doing group rides with friends who were slower than me). And even quite hard swim sessions don't seem to have much impact on my freshness for running and biking.

TLDR - I'm doing the Mid Volume General Build plan at the moment, most weeks I'm dropping the easy session as I don't have time, and I'm wondering if I'm missing out on anything. The weeks when I do manage the easy session are the ones where either I have an easy work/life week and have more training time, or where I have a hard work/life week, am struggling with the training and drop one of the hard sessions and do the easy one instead.

It would not benefit you to jump in after a week of sickness and do that hard workout before jumping into the recovery week. When you're sick, you are really not recovering at all becasue you are simply substituting training stress for a different and less productive type of stress. When you return, go ahead roll into that recovery week. By the end of it, you should feel good and ready to start the Build phase of your training.

For overall fitness building and FTP improvement, the best progression is Base->Build->Specialty. This sequence allows for periodization and constantly changes the demands your body must adapt to. This prevents stagnation and plateaus of your fitness. IF you plan to ride outside often, a good choise would be to do the Low Volume plan and have all your outdoor rides be like icing on the cake. Alternatively, you could also run the Mid Volume plan and replace indoor workouts with outdoor workouts. We now have a Beta that will allow you to import your outdoor work into TrainerRoad, so that can make things a lot easier in this respect. To geain access to the Beta, go ahead and join our TrainerRoad Beta Testers group on Facebook :)

Your plan to race and enjoy the TT series is a great way to continue to challenge yourself and give yourself a fun, stress free competition over the summer.

I hope that answers your questions, let me know if there is anything I can clear up for you :)

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Thanks and I'll just skip that last hard workout then do the recovery week to get back into the swing of things. Still not sure when I'll be over whatever I've got as I still feel pretty crappy. I'll just pick a Specialty phase then and get it done at my own pace (already completed the base phase so just gotta get back to the build once I'm better).

I wouldn't mind joining the beta testers group to be able to include outdoor rides for TSS calculations but I'm not on Facebook and plan to keep it that way. Any other way to join?

I have a question about peaking twice that I could use some guidance on.

I’m in week 7 of sustained power build (high vol) and have had a conflict with a family event come up on the date of my spring ‘A’ event and cannot make it anymore. I’m wondering if I should, and how to adjust my TrainerRoad training plan to maximize fitness for my main event of the year on September 8, 22 weeks away, counting this week.

The event is a 94 mile road race with ~6500 ft of climbing. It’s essentially made up of 3 long climbs ~18 miles each at roughly a 2% grade. The descents are 15 to 17 miles long, but only at -1% grade. It’s point to point and we end higher than we finish.

I have 12 weeks of sweet spot base (high vol) prior to this build. I’ve been able to follow the plans with very few missed workouts, ~95% completion. For a little more background, I have several years of road and MTB riding and racing, but this will be the first year I follow a TrainerRoad training plan all the way through specialty and throughout the year.

Here are the options I’m considering and would appreciate your advice on which would produce maximum fitness:
1) Continue with the full 8 weeks of specialty after I finish the build. That leaves me with 12 weeks to this main priority event when that completes. I was thinking 1 week rest, 3 weeks of base, 4 weeks build, and 4 weeks of specialty to hit that September 8 event.

2) More of a ‘maintenance’ mode: Continue with the 8 weeks of speciality, take 1 week off, then 3 weeks of base, repeat 8 weeks of specialty.

3) Take 1 week off when this build completes in a week, leaving 19 weeks to the event. Then, 5 weeks of SS base (basically skip week 5), 4 weeks of build, 7 weeks of specialty, then weeks 6, 7, 8 of specialty to get me to my event.

I’ve read the TR blogs, on peaking twice and ‘maintenancd’ but couldn’t come up with what would be right for this situation. Thanks for your help!

Half Iron, Mid Volume, Week 6

I'm getting ready for a 70.3 on May 12, and I'm racing an oly 2 weeks before. It falls into the weekend of week 6, and I brought this up a few weeks ago with you and Chad said it's great race prep. But my question involves swapping sessions within that week. The sessions that week are:

Tue - Sierra
Thur - Echo +2 (run otb)
Fri - Whorl
Sat - Polar Bear (60 min run otb).

To me, the Polar Bear brick is an absolute key session (to practice my nutrition which is still not set in stone) 2 weeks from my 70.3 target. With that said, should I do the Polar Bear brick earlier in place of Echo or Sierra and use the olympic race instead of that workout? So it would be:

Tue - Polar Bear (+60 min run otb)
Thur - Echo +2 or Sierra (+30 min run otb)
Fri - Whorl
Sat - Olympic Distance race (in lieu of Sierra or Echo +2)

I'm not *too* concerned with showing up to the olympic rested.

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

There absolutely is. You can request access to the Beta here:
http://bit.ly/...alytics-Early-Access

You should be approved within 24 hours :) The Facebook Beta group is the best place to learn how to use the new features and get the latest updates on the progress and improvements being made, however, you do not need to be part of the group to have Beta Access.

Enjoy!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Hey there!

It is not super beneficial to revisit the Base Phase mid-season unless you are trying to bounce back from a sickness/injury etc. Typically for a situation like this, we would recommend a Re-Build. In that case, it would look like this:

Rest of Build (2 weeks)
Specialty (4 weeks)
Build (8 weeks)
Specialty (8 weeks)

This approach keeps the types of stress varied, which prevents the issue of fitness stagnation, and will also leave you at your highest peak on the day that you need to be your fastest :)

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any more questions!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

I would recommend doing Echo +2 on Tuesday and replacing the Sierra+Run combo with the Olympic Race since the Olympic Race will more more closely match the demands of that workout :)

Good luck!

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad

Hi Bryce,

I'm hoping either you or Chad can help me decide which Specialty plan to use. My target race will be my 1st Half (17th Tri total) at Wimbleball in the UK, http://www.immortalsport.com/...eball-immortal-half/ it has 5,000ft of elevation with a couple of nasty climbs per lap, including one that tops out at 24%.

Since October I have been using Trainerroad and have so far done the Half Distance, Low volume base x2 & Build (to week 7), I have rest week next week an then I'm due to start the Specialty phase. It has gone well with decent gains in FTP, which made a big difference in my first race (a sprint) so far this year, -5 minutes on last year.

Given the elevation gain at Wimbleball am I better using a road plan (Climbing or Rolling Road Race) or sticking with the Half Distance plan? I swim with my club and plan my own runs, only using the Bike workouts from Trainerroad, so I wont miss them if I move away from the Half plan.

Thanks

Dan

I'm going to run this one past Coach Chad, I'll get back to you when I hear back at the beginning of next week :)

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Get Faster with TrainerRoad