The biggest benefit to masters that we’ve launched is AT. That’s huge because of the difference in VO2 to Threshold relationships can be different for older athletes.
It also allows master athletes to progress at a different rate than the default plan. This is very important.
Respectfully, Nate, older athletes need fewer intensity workouts per week and more frequent recovery weeks, as has been discussed repeatedly on this forum. Comments have been made through the years by TR staff indicating that such plans were upcoming. A feature that still requires the same number of intensity workouts per week and the same number of work weeks in between recovery weeks simply is not a feature that accommodates us older guys simply because it will decrease the intensity a bit. If that is TR’s fulfillment of a promise to offer masters plans for us older guys, I’m sorry, but I have to give TR a grade of D- on that matter.
As far as the other activities, I think your comment illustrates what I’ve been trying to point out. Instead of working on those other activities like running as TR has said it would do since the calendar was released, it worked on other features such as Plan Builder and AT, which like previous features, were released with flaws that limit its real world functionality for too many users. Similarly, TR has acknowledged that AT needs further improvements, yet, we get another post (this time from the CEO) stating “our roadmap is opening up”, once again suggesting that we just have to wait a little longer. It sounds way too familiar to what we’ve heard in the past. I appreciate that you dream big, Nate. You are a visionary in that sense. However, I feel TR has misjudged just how important fixing all the little details of previously released features has been to their users. Many of your competitors don’t have AT or Plan Builder, but because they are doing a better job of “nailing the basics”, I am finding them to be much more functional in the real world.
I hope you understand that if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t say anything. I’m rooting for TR, just like I’m rooting for you. There is so much promise in what you are trying to do, but letting the little details go unsolved for so long while continuing to put so much effort into new features will ultimately prove fatal for any company. Cheers!
Masters athlete here and I think your masters intensity feature has been built? Do a low volume plan and utilize train now with endurance rides if you want to add more hours than that. Between that and AT toning down the VO2 etc your requested masters intensity feature is there. Not saying this is you but I’d wager large amounts that the majority of people who say TR has them doing too much intensity are on mid or high volume plans.
Low volume has different type workouts. SSBII low volume is vo2 threshold and sweet spot. SSBII mid volume doesn’t do a vo2 workout. It is one threshold and sweet spot.
They are designed differently. Low volume gets me doing vo2 workouts now at pl of 7 and 8, Add in thresholds into the 5s and my legs don’t recover enough for the sweet spot. So I do 2 days of endurance with my vo2 and threshold. If I pick mid volume I just find it is too much sweet spot and I am subbing out for more endurance.
I would disagree that the low volume plans, which still call for 3 intensity workouts per week and do nothing to modify the work/recovery week ratios, represent the masters specific plans that we’ve been told were coming for a very long time now. As I mentioned in a previous post, I improved using those plans. However, improving or “getting faster” does not equate to achieving our best. I’ve seen much more improvement with my own workouts and plans limiting the intensity to 2x per week and taking more frequent recovery weeks than through the TR plans. But that isn’t the real issue at hand here. It’s just one small cog in the wheel. The issue is that TR has a history of releasing new features that need improvement before they are truly functional for many users, acknowledging that those improvements are needed, indicating that they are going to make those improvements, then moving on to the next new feature before making the promised improvements to the previous features.
It is so nice to feel valued with special treatment for being a long term customer for once. I really appreciate it!
And long time users probably don’t take much effort to keep happy with customer service and such.
But how long do you expect it to last? I mean, 50 years from now do you expect to be paying the same amount? And with all of the enhancements that have come along in those 50 years? How realistic is that? (spoiler: it’s not!)
For gods sake end legacy pricing for new subscribers now and see if natural attrition will occur with current legacy users. If it only costs $2/month to carry a legacy user, consider just leaving them be.
There sure are a lot of you bastards paying $99/month. Clearly I’m a bIt jealous!
Hi i’m with trainer road with something like 4-5 years right now. I’m grandfathered at 99$/year. So jump to 15$month will be significant amount increase. But if we want to jump to 20 then i think it will be cheaper for me to pay to some real coach to train me… and try garmin connect with strava for free, or even use TP.
I was always thinking that made a promise to freeze prices for current users is not a smartest idea, but… it was a promise!
So i think good option will be to start increasing price for grandfathered users, but lest say, for the half on increase of what get new user.
For example TR decide to increase price for new users about 3$, then grandfathered users get increase on 1.5$.
And of course, new users shouldn’t be grandfathered from right now!
A lot of people seem to expect legacy subscribers to pay more to support the development of new features.
As a “customer” I pay for s service as it stands today, not for a service that is promised in the future that may never happen.
People have also said it’s a business. It is.
So a lot of businesses take on debt or outside investment which they then use to develop the product in the hope that they can reach new customers with the additional features.
I don’t know what trainerroad do but I don’t believe they take much debt (if any) or outside investment.
When you reach a certain size there comes a crunch point. For me TR are at that point. If they want to move the platform on, at the scale they want, raising the price for legacy customers isn’t probably going to do enough. They probably need to take some debt or investment.
Look at Zwift, raised millions and they are still struggling to develop the platform… But they aren’t raising prices all the time.
There are a lot of things that have been said would be coming and haven’t. This is due to a lack of resources to accomplish these things and I think TR have developed an amazing product for a purely subscription based business model. But I’m not suddenly going to want to pay more for a “roadmap” that may never materialise.
I think this is a software industry problem in general. The new and shiny always takes precedence and no time is given to go back to the fix the issues. Apple developers complain they reported bugs to Apple years ago that have not been fixed.
I imagine Zwift users have a long list of issues they want fixed as well, but new features are added instead.
Simple response from me, I grandfathered thus supported the startup to be what it is today. Don’t create double standards and alienate the clients who supported you when things were though. I want product growth. If you want to create different products offer that to the new and standard clients.
Yep - I’m turning 50 this year (not sure what the cut-off age is for ‘Masters’), and my Sprint Tri plan is very heavy on VO2Max (which I can do) and Threshold (which I find really bloody hard!). I’m just about holding on to the end of my current Speciality phase.
Even then I have had to switch things around - for some reason AT keeps putting the hardest Threshold workout at the end of the week when I’m toast! Additionally, it wants to try and bump me up by 0.5 of a level in that workout, when I’m just about able to eke out a 0.1 increase.
I don’t mind the intensity, but more recovery time would be good.
I think it would have been worse to unilaterally implement price structure changes for legacy users without floating it first or giving rationale.
If you’d frozen legacy user features and asked them to pay an extra $5 for new features without explanation, that would have alienated a lot of users I would suggest (not saying that’s what you should/will do necessarily).
Incorporating run and swim workouts. That thread was started in 2018. As others have said, at and train now don’t know what to suggest properly if it isn’t getting fed proper data.
Exactly, Alan couzens can write a model that can do this by himself and he’s not a programmer, just a researcher who learned to code. So at gets rolled out and the logic is basically a yes no to increase the pl or drop the pl. I can do that on my own.
