This thread seems to be the closest to answering my question, so I will post it here. If you are doing a structured ride outside of TR (say on Zwift or outside) that differs from the TR planned workout, should you:
delete the TR workout from the calendar leaving only the actual activity
leave the TR workout on the calendar as undone alongside the actual activity
delete the schedule TR workout, add the closest workout from the library to the calendar and associate it with the actual activity
My context for asking is that the upcoming Zwift integration has brought me back following a plan on TR. When starting the plan, I was trying to “educate” the model on most appropriate PL’s leading me to select more challenging workouts. SS and Threshold currently feel appropriate, but upcoming VO2 and anaerobic workouts will need to be schooled. I also coach NICA athletes, so I will be doing occasional structured outdoor endurance rides with them, but at level lower what I would do on my own.
I’m also interested in the answers to your questions. A few months ago asked similar questions and was pointed to the page below. The main takeaways I found were:
Unstructured Outside Rides don’t currently affect your Progression Levels and won’t be considered by Adaptive Training when it adjusts your scheduled workouts
We only recommend associating outside rides with planned TrainerRoad workouts if you have completed the exact structure of the planned workout.
Unstructured outside rides are incorporated into AI FTP Detection, TrainNow’s daily “Recommended” workout label, and Red Light Green Light.
Yeah, that is how I thought that my question was slightly different than the OP’s. I get not associating an unstructured ride because the adaptations not equivalent, but if it is structured, should I try to inform the model. It will all become moot when Workout Level 2.0 is ready.
I’m not sure if this forum allows ‘kicking’ older topics or prefers creating new topics for the same issue, but as this topic essentially is about the question I have, I hope it’s allowed this way:
I’ve been training indoors all winter with an Adaptive Plan. Great!
For today, I have a 1.5hour 192W endurance training, but due to great weather I’d like to go outside for a ride with some friends. I expect to be riding for 2.5-3 hours, having some chat, do some faster slipstream sections, maybe a sprint or two.
As far as I understand, it’s not recommended to connect that activity to the proposed training, because I had no intention to go for an endurance ride on a constant wattage (don’t even see how that’s possible on a steet course, with traffic lights, corners, crossing streets, wind and so on).
I also understand that the outdoor ride won’t be taken into account in the Adaptive Plan. Skipping the indoor ride and not associating it to something else, might (as far as I understand) lead to correction of the upcoming indoor trainings to a lower effort. Also, the various levels are not updated based on the outdoor ride. Correct so far?
The topic above mentions Workout Level v2.0 in one of the first replies from Nov 2022, and at another page I read that integrating unstructured outdoor rides in the Adaptive Plan are a top priority. This was a response from 2023.
Are there any developments at this moment? In two weeks I have an organised ride of >100km and approximately 1000m of altitude, it would be a bummer when such efforts aren’t recognized to adjust the training plan, but lead to suggested decrease in intensity of the next trainings because the AI sees it as a missed structured training…
Not quite….Adaptive Training will take the ride into account and adjust your training plan, if required. It won’t however adjust your PL’s based on the ride. (Someone from TR can correct me, if I am wrong, but pretty sure that is correct).
Net-Net: Go ride your bike outside and don’t worry about your training plan. One ride will neither destroy nor make any training plan. Enjoy the ride!
The plan does not take into consideration or adapt for outdoor rides. You only get RED/Yellow days as a result. A Red day may cause the plan to cancel a ride on that day, but no further
adaptations are made. I’ve been corresponging with TR Support on this topic. There was a lot of info there but the bottom line according to that as of a couple of days ago is:
“”"While unstructured workouts don’t affect your Progression Levels, either a TR Workout or an unstructured ride’s TSS can affect the fatigue detection system (RLGL) and trigger a Yellow or Red Day…unstructured workouts don’t affect your Progression Levels, which are what guide future workout adaptations…
On the last podcast Nate was talking about ‘AIFTP 2.0’ currently being developed, which analyses unstructured rides and updates FTP on the basis of that data without the need for TR workouts. Sounds pretty cool, and would also indicate some sort of progress is being made on wlv2.
I went outdoor, had a great ride. As TSS was lower than for the scheduled ride, I immediately got 3 upcoming trainings which were downgraded. Denied it, because it was not that I didn’t make it in todays training.