Training Peaks vs other logs

What ‘ongoing trend’ ??

What ‘ongoing trend’ ??

It’s safe to say ddave doesn’t like TrainingPeaks :wink:
.

Eliminate that which is not needed. Avoid complication and confusion.

Or leverage and integrate existing tools that do a better job :slight_smile:
.

What ‘ongoing trend’ ??

In general there is a problem with any cloud/web based service that features can change or go away that you did not want to change/go away. Since you don’t actually own the software, you are powerless.

Thus, it is often better to use software that you actually own, that you run locally, so that you can opt not to ‘upgrade’ to new versions that you like less.

Therefore WKO+, Golden Cheetah, Raceday Apollo, or even just a spreadhsheet, all become very attractive options. Also, they don’t have terrible wonky web interfaces, which is nice. And you don’t need the internet to use them.

Once you objectively track all of you training there are two primary things you can do with the data:

  1. you can track progress (or lack of progress) in your performance. You can look at whether you are setting new PRs in power, running pace, etc. If you are trying a new approach to training, you can have some gauge of it’s effectiveness, and you can see when you have stagnated for a while and might need to add more training load, or rest

  2. you can track training load - whether you do it with the PMC or other means, having an objective, recorded log of how much you have trained is a great bullshit meter. You can no longer fool yourself into thinking you have been working hard. You will over time learn what sort of training volume tends to get you over trained, you can plan and observe how quickly you ramp up you running volume, etc.

Then there are lots of little things you can do with the data too, like evaluate how you paced a race, figure out clues to why you had a good/bad performance on race day, estimate your effective CDA on race day, look up a previous years race to set a pacing plan for next year’s race, and on and on

Sweet. That solves the “how”, now what is your impression of “why”? While I love data (HR, watts, elevation, laps, averages, etc), other than being cool, how can I make it valuable to me? Just because I CAN get everything in one place doesn’t really mean it will make me a better athlete if I’m not using it effectively. So how do YOU use historical data?

Michael

(Edit: it’s working great so far. Garmin data is going into Dropbox. Can’t sync with TrainingPeaks without a Premium account. I’ll test moving my Polar files into Dropbox, and see if they go to GC next)

  1. You can stroke your ego… in an very objective manner. When you crush IT in a ride, you can go back and see how much your crushed IT and brag about IT on your blog.

That is true, much more objective bragging can be done.

  1. You can stroke your ego… in an very objective manner. When you crush IT in a ride, you can go back and see how much your crushed IT and brag about IT on your blog.

What ‘ongoing trend’ ??

It’s safe to say ddave doesn’t like TrainingPeaks :wink:

ddave has been a paid user on and off since 2007(ish)

ddave liked Trainingpeaks, ddave had WKO 2.2 and 3.0 and used them since 2006.

ddave has seen when the “classic” view was the old beta view. Some features were lost then too.

However all I see now are bugs which I report that don’t get fixed (“wait for beta to be finished”) and features I use being discontinued.

Its not that I don’t like Trainingpeaks, I still have a premium account, I just don’t like the way its going, and the interaction of the support/owners/ambassadors with its paying userbase.

What ‘ongoing trend’ ??

In general there is a problem with any cloud/web based service that features can change or go away that you did not want to change/go away. Since you don’t actually own the software, you are powerless.

Thus, it is often better to use software that you actually own, that you run locally, so that you can opt not to ‘upgrade’ to new versions that you like less.

Therefore WKO+, Golden Cheetah, Raceday Apollo, or even just a spreadhsheet, all become very attractive options. Also, they don’t have terrible wonky web interfaces, which is nice. And you don’t need the internet to use them.

I am trying to find a good alternative to Trainingpeaks, that being said the more features Trainingpeaks strip out the easier it gets.

  1. You can stroke your ego… in an very objective manner. When you crush IT in a ride, you can go back and see how much your crushed IT and brag about IT on your blog.

Are we talking about Strava now? /pinkish

ddave has been a paid user on and off since 2007(ish)

However all I see now are bugs which I report that don’t get fixed (“wait for beta to be finished”) and features I use being discontinued.

Its not that I don’t like Trainingpeaks, I still have a premium account, I just don’t like the way its going, and the interaction of the support/owners/ambassadors with its paying userbase.

I was kidding, the pink didn’t take :slight_smile:

As far as features getting stripped/discontinued, aside from a change in the way you enter nutrition the only thing gone is the meal library/planning which next to no one was using. Everything else is still available in the classic app as it migrates to the new app which will remain in beta until the bugs are fixed and features are migrated (this has been stated by TP publicly).

ddave has been a paid user on and off since 2007(ish)

However all I see now are bugs which I report that don’t get fixed (“wait for beta to be finished”) and features I use being discontinued.

Its not that I don’t like Trainingpeaks, I still have a premium account, I just don’t like the way its going, and the interaction of the support/owners/ambassadors with its paying userbase.

I was kidding, the pink didn’t take :slight_smile:

As far as features getting stripped/discontinued, aside from a change in the way you enter nutrition the only thing gone is the meal library/planning which next to no one was using. Everything else is still available in the classic app as it migrates to the new app which will remain in beta until the bugs are fixed and features are migrated (this has been stated by TP publicly).

But not all features in classic will be ported over (this has been state by TP support)

Strava premium account, you come home from your training with a garmin product and it uploads automatically. The only frustration is opening ANT Agent or Garmin Express. Strava analysis tools are truly wonderful, it’s what you need when you need it, and has all the social media bragging capabilities anyone could want.

Golden Cheetah, for a little more detailed analysis at the cost of nothing. You can also batch export your .FIT files into .tcx files which can be read by WKO+ to upload to trainingpeaks to be left incredibly frustrated. Or you can experience the same frustration for free using garmin connect. Actually, the new garmin connect isn’t all that bad… I’m just not a fan. Truthfully Strava is so easy, and actually fun to use by comparison everything else just leaves me angry.

To recap, Strava Premium is the way to go for web based services.

Strava premium account, you come home from your training with a garmin product and it uploads automatically. The only frustration is opening ANT Agent or Garmin Express. Strava analysis tools are truly wonderful, it’s what you need when you need it, and has all the social media bragging capabilities anyone could want.

Golden Cheetah, for a little more detailed analysis at the cost of nothing. You can also batch export your .FIT files into .tcx files which can be read by WKO+ to upload to trainingpeaks to be left incredibly frustrated. Or you can experience the same frustration for free using garmin connect. Actually, the new garmin connect isn’t all that bad… I’m just not a fan. Truthfully Strava is so easy, and actually fun to use by comparison everything else just leaves me angry.

To recap, Strava Premium is the way to go for web based services.

This is my experience as well. I’ve played with Golden Cheetah and RaceDay Apollo and feel that Strava does everything I need in an easier to read and quicker to interface manner.

that PMC chart.

and sure wish they’d just say they abandoned the Mac Release for WKO+ instead of kicking the can…

cheers
S.

that PMC chart.

and sure wish they’d** just say they abandoned the Mac Release for WKO+** instead of kicking the can…

cheers
S.

It hasn’t been abandoned - http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/an-update-on-wko4 Specifically on June 25th “Here are a few definitive answers we can give right now. Yes, it will be released this year, it will run on both Mac and Windows, and it has some amazing new features to make use of your training data.”

Excellent news! Any idea of system/OS requirements at this point?

cheers
S.

But not all features in classic will be ported over (this has been state by TP support)

Like? Virtual Coach, Annual Training Plans, Power Profiling, Race Reports are all being ported. If there is something missing that you think is important I’m more than happy to pass that on, add to the feedback. I’m more than happy to take any and all feedback and send it up the chain.

Excellent news! Any idea of system/OS requirements at this point?

cheers
S.

Don’t know about system hardware requirements but OS is typically what the OS vendor supports and will adapt to match that over time. Today that would mean Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and OSX 10.7+

Strava premium account, you come home from your training with a garmin product and it uploads automatically. The only frustration is opening ANT Agent or Garmin Express. Strava analysis tools are truly wonderful, it’s what you need when you need it, and has all the social media bragging capabilities anyone could want.

Golden Cheetah, for a little more detailed analysis at the cost of nothing. You can also batch export your .FIT files into .tcx files which can be read by WKO+ to upload to trainingpeaks to be left incredibly frustrated. Or you can experience the same frustration for free using garmin connect. Actually, the new garmin connect isn’t all that bad… I’m just not a fan. Truthfully Strava is so easy, and actually fun to use by comparison everything else just leaves me angry.

To recap, Strava Premium is the way to go for web based services.

This is my experience as well. I’ve played with Golden Cheetah and RaceDay Apollo and feel that Strava does everything I need in an easier to read and quicker to interface manner.

x3…