I’m coming off of two weeks of a bad cold but finding my fitness is coming back pretty quickly. I just rejected a couple downgrade AT recommendations for my next workouts. AT still has them at the high end of productive… we’ll see how I do.
It got me thinking though how often other (closed beta) people reject AT recommendations and when and why.
Thoughts?
Granted I’ve only just been accepted in the last two weeks but I rejected my first adaptation as it was a big increase in SS level and IF a couple of days after a hard outdoor ride.
I wasn’t confident that I had the adapted workout in me so stuck with the achievable ride.
I’ve accepted the adapted workouts ever since without issue including today’s which put me at IF 0.91, way higher than original workout and although initially daunting looking at it I found it spot on. Tough but achievable with a real sense of encouragement for what’s to come.
If the legs aren’t there though I’ll definitely stick to the achievable workout instead of progressive in the future.
I’m very interested in this topic.
Last week was my first foray into AT and it was a recovery week. This week started out with VO2 on Tuesday (Rosennock, 6.2) I completed the work and marked it as very hard and now all of my adaptations are asking me to step down to 5.5-5.7 VO2 workouts.
I’m not sure I understand that and am considering rejecting the adaptations.
Is this from week 5 of Rolling Road Race? And do you know what your VO2 level was at going in? Was the workout rated as achievable/productive/stretch?
I’m interested to gauge how much the survey response influences things. In this case, I can kind of guess that during speciality phase where you’re looking to hone rather than build, a VO2 workout like this should probably be hard, but not very hard, so maybe that’s the reason here. That said, those RPE responses are kind of subjective, so I’m not sure how much difference choosing “hard” vs 'very hard" should make, unless there were other factors that led to the adaptation (it sounds like your compliance was spot on).
Personally I’d probably accept the adaptations if you’re nearing the end of specialty phase, as you’ll be tapering soon anyway. But if you are feeling good and want to push on, go ahead and reject them! Best case, it all turns out well. Worst case, you struggle in the next VO2 workout and it will adapt down again anyway and lesson learnt.
I always accept adaptions…
Go with the AT flow! 
If I somehow think a workout is to easy, I switch to a harder one via the alternate workout tab…
Valid point. I had not thought about the fact that I’m finishing up a specialty phase. I did accept the adaptations and then it switched them all back to 6.0+ level workouts.
We’ll see how it goes. I’m in a rest int during San Joaquin +5. 
I think I’d feel better trusting AT if I had started in a different point of the season. After my “A” race in July I’ll be resetting for marathon xc and I plan to follow all of the adaptations and see where it takes me.
I’ve only been in for a couple of weeks now. I rejected updates to this weeks VO2 workouts as I have a hard time with VO2 and I didnt want to make them harder. This left yesterdays as “achievable” with no VO2 uplift but todays was still “productive” with a +0.5. This then however prompted another adaption of my next VO2 workouts, however(!) they are both AFTER my next ramp test which will surely affect them further so I rejected those for now too until I’ve done the ramp test after next weeks recovery week.
Hope that makes sense.
Very Hard must mean you need more work below a work out like that to get stronger prior to adding work outs you might miss.
Same here.
I think in time most TR users will most of the time just relax, “let go” and choose to delegate: take the the option of having AT automatically do its thing, continuously adapting their plan, without them reviewing every proposed plan change…
By then they’ll have become very tuned in to Workout Levels, and if their plan on a given day is offering up a workout that looks a bit too much much (or too little) for how they’re feeling or wish to do that day, for whatever reason, they’ll just choose an Alternate at that point, immediately pre-workout. ie. occasional tactical override on the day, while still leaving AT on autopilot for the overall strategy.
I’m not getting many adaptations, but have rejected maybe 1/5 to 1/3 of suggested. Reasons vary I guess, but in every case the changes haven’t been significant either adapting up or down.
IIRC, the rejections were from downgrades I felt the system was suggesting based on incomplete information.
Overall, I am changing things a lot. I was pretty hands on before, but am way less stressed about it now. It is much easier to decide in alternative workouts and I don’t worry about if I exactly stick to a planned workout - either failing it or super passing it. Just do my thing, take into consideration the info AT is giving me and have confidence over the long haul I’ll stay on track.
A month or so in and I’m feeling great about it. I’ve updated my plan goals a few times, worked in an outside hard group ride, swapped days without using the replace option and everything still seems on track to me. It really does just about nail the right difficulty of the workout - as in starting out I’m feeling it may be too easy, and by the end I’m just fine being done. That allows me to come in feeling strong each workout rather than dreading things.
So far the system tends to prescribe on the conservative side. That works out great for me. I can send it when I’m feeling good, confident that I won’t be far off if I have to back off on subsequent workouts.
All in all, for me AT is a massive moral booster more than anything else. Time will tell if that will help me break through a long standing fitness plateau I’ve been on.
Interesting- yeah, I’ve often found the adaptations to be a bit more conservative than I feel capable of - though I’m grateful for that on days I’m not feeling great or after an ftp bump
Thats a great perspective- I’ve had the opposite impression. For me AT creates a meaningful feedback loop so that I can much more easily and precisely adjust my workouts day to day, week to week, and the plan updates accordingly. I used to not mess with things because it was too complicated but now I feel like I can.
I cannot argue with any of that 
- Workout (+Progression) Levels provide that insight enabling you to do the tweaking instead of or alongside AT. I wonder if you’ll be tweaking to that extent in a year’s time, or letting the system do more of it for you? Time will tell.
I think the real advance here is Workout Levels, which I see as a very elegant innovation: a simple to understand but extremely powerful concept. Good work, TR.
I have rejected quite a few, but in my case, all my levels started at a 1 (I didn’t do another assessment when I was accepted to the beta mid block). Some of the adaptations were throttling achievable and stretch workouts for me based on an inaccurate level. I am in specialty so it will take a couple of blocks to flush through the different zones, but in the beginning, it is quite possible that the adaptations won’t make sense.
Other thing I do like about the adaptations is that it’s prescribing whole new workouts for me, which when you’ve followed the same training plan (Olympic Triathlon) for a few years is a welcome aspect
The way I look at the Beta is that I’m a lab rat gathering data for TR so they can optimize the algorithm. So I always accept the adaptations. I’m
Taking all of 2021 off from racing so not too worried if I don’t hit PRs as a result.
I’ve only been in a week or so, and all my progression levels are set at 1.0, so all my suggestions are the easiest versions of workouts. I’m a few weeks away from a 150 mile road race that goes to nearly 11,000 feet in elevation and has 15 miles of gravel-the last thing I need now is super simple workouts lol.
I’m primarily riding outside now though (partly to get used to 95-100 degree temps) and i know AT has trouble with that still.
In fact, it’s never suggested any harder workouts at all, just easier ones. And I do rate the workout each time.
What road race is that and what category? Sounds like a Tour stage!
P/1/2 for me. It’s more or less the resurrection of the old Tour of Park City with a slightly different finish.
So far I’ve accepted almost all adaptations.
Rejection
I rejected a deletion of a swim and a run, not sure why they were suggested deletions but maybe because it was ramp test day. I kept them and did them after the ramp test later in the day.
Reversed adaptation
I accepted an adaptation but then went back on it - a 3.5h endurance ride was cut back to 1.5h. I decided to do the 3.5h and decided I’d had enough at 1.5h! 
So I got no progression where I could have if I’d just gone with the AT flow!