Hi gang!
I am new here and am testing out TR and Adaptive Training to see how flexible it is but I haven’t actually done a ride (indoor or outside) yet with TR. I have already setup my calendar with a plan that I think fits me well but I am curious how the Adaptive Training works if I don’t do exactly what the planned workout asks me to do. For example, lets say my prescribed workout for the day is to do an easy ride but instead I do something totally different such a harder ride because I was enticed to do a hard group ride, how will that impact the adaptation/algorithm? Will it be thrown off because it thinks I did the workout or will it just use my data from the ride to make adjustments to my training? If it will be thrown off because it thinks I did the workout, should I change the workout to match the ride that actually occurred?
Also for people who use Garmin, do you all just make sure you put the workout from TR to Garmin so you get the analytics from Garmin as well such as training status? Is there any benefits of always running TR workouts through Garmin head unit or watch vs directly from TR (when doing indoor training on smart trainer)?
If you skip the workout (and don’t replace it with anything), the plan will adjust. I am not sure what it would do if you put in a different workout that is from a different zone, like vo2.
If I were in that position I would do one of two things (assuming the easy ride is on a wednesday with a harder workout on thursday):
option 1) I would not replace the easy ride, and then replace my scheduled thursday ride with an achievable alternative. AT will update the plan accordingly.
Option 2) If the group ride is super hard, I would do the easy ride on thursday, and then skip the hard ride that week and let AT do its magic.
Thank you for the feedback. As I am reading your response I am able to better articulate my question.
Lets says that one week I am unable to follow anything on my calendar because of a crazy hectic work week, family issues that take priority, or I just want to take a break from structured training. So either I do random rides or do no riding at all.
So in this situation, will AT assume I did the workout or do I need to actually start the workout for it to know I completed the workout? Do I need to actually delete the workouts, or is it not necessary to delete the workouts because I didn’t actually start the workouts? Will AT just take into account my riding activities (or lack thereof) that it gets from Garmin and adjust accordingly what my next week should be?
Ideally, I would love for AR to just go with the flow with my habits. So if I had a week or a few days where I didn’t do structured activities it would just adjust to consider my new fitness status (due to my choice in riding much harder or prioritizing recovery) and increase or decrease the next day’s or week’s suggested workouts.
I am new to structured workouts but not new to cycling. I am sure there will be days where I can be very structured and days that I just don’t care to. I am competitive but not so serious that I will feel bad about myself if I don’t complete every workout every week.
A little more specific question: If I have a TR workout that I want to do outside, I know I can transfer the workout to the garmin watch/head unit to start. So I can be very specific in following the prescribed intensity/duration of intervals of that workout if I use garmin. But what if I choose not to use my garmin to start the workout and, instead, just estimate the power and the duration of the workout from memory? It won’t be exact but it might be good enough. Will AR use this ride data as accurately as if I did the workout? Will it know that I was doing a workout develop anaerobic capacity?
No. Do not delete your workouts, when you have to ‘skip’ a workout, just leave it incomplete and Adaptive Trainign will adjust your future workouts accordingly!
If you have more questions or need specific help with your calendar or a second look at your adaptations, feel free to check in with support@trainerroad.com.
In short no. If this is the case using TrainNow might be a better idea for you. No need to worry about AT adapting to missed workouts or group rides that replaced workouts. When you are able to ride load the app up and let Train Now suggest a workout for you. TrainNow will take into account outdoor unstructured rides for ride type, just not PLs (someone correct me if I am wrong here).
I just want to second that if you have no intention of actually trying to follow the plan, I would not set up a plan. You’ll just be constantly adjusting the calendar and questioning why the plan didn’t produce results when you didn’t follow it.
Instead, you can do whatever works for you, but use TrainNow to give you workouts on the days you want one. Notice that you can select alternates to the suggested workouts: longer time, higher or lower intensity, etc.
