I just signed up to see what TrainerRoad was like. I have been using TrainingPeaks for several months now, repeating an FTP Builder program. My current FTP is 211 and my average TSS per week has been around 450, with some weeks 600+ and some 350. I went through the plan setup and it has me on a mid volume plan, training for a Century at the end of August. The plan looks good and appears a bit easier than what I have been doing, at least in the beginning. (2 hours and 40 minutes sweet spot and aerobic endurance rides on the trainer on weekends is tough on the hind quarters) For the winter, the prescribed program is fine, but when the weather warms up, I would like to fit in time on the weekends for my outdoor group rides. Should I switch to a low volume plan M-F and add free rides on the weekends when it warms up?
Most people who use the LV plans do so either because they are really time crunched or because as you mentioned they want the flexibility to include longer outdoor riding with their friends. I would do that but maybe try and include versions of the harder weekend over/under sessions during the week if you are going to miss them on a weekend as they are the sessions which really increase your FTP (you could always do one of the -1/-2 versions if you don’t have time for the 90 minute session during the week).
I just finished my first TR workout (Ericsson), and it went great. I have been recording my workouts on my Garmin 830 along with the “other” online workout platform that I’ve been using for my TrainingPeaks workouts, so that Connect will track my training load, VO2Max, etc. This is not unique to TR, as the program that I have been using with TP had this result as well, but I get to a point in the training where Garmin Connect says that my training is “unproductive” and my VO2Max is actually decreasing in Connect. It looks like my current training load is skewed too much toward “high aerobic” according to Garmin. Has anyone else experienced this and is it something to be concerned with?
I’m invested into the Garmin ecosphere as well, and I’ve found almost no correlation between it’s training load data/Vo2 Max/fitness, etc., and my actually expression of fitness. In my regimen, that information from Garmin gets completely ignored. There might be useful information there, but I haven’t found it consistent enough to employ in any meaningful way.
I’m a Garmin user too, Fenix 5, and I have no idea how it computes VO2 max. The only data it gets is my heart rate and power output, so I see no way to derive VO2 from that. I ignore it. Data is only useful if you have confidence in the numbers. Heart rate and power output are pretty noisy data at the best of times, and they’re the state of the art.
