Hey all,
Yesterday I tried Warlow +2 and failed the workout with about 30 mins left (made it an hour through). The second interval was even quite difficult, and the third was nearly impossible. I’ve been doing trainer road for about 2 months and this is the first workout I’ve failed. I’m curious if my FTP might be overestimated, or if it’s just that the “over” segments in Warlow +2 were too much for me, and I need to build my Vo2 max more?
Open to any thoughts and thanks in advance!
We (almost) all fail a workout at some point….let AI do it’s thing. Answer the survey appropriately and workouts will adjust.
And yes, some people just struggle with O / U workouts….so keep doing them and you’ll get better at them. You have only been at this for a few months.
You may have failed the workout for a number of reasons. I think you just answer the survey accurately and let the adaptive training take care of itself. It’ll drop the intensity until you can get back up there.
I’d also consider lowering the intensity if you’re in a similar situation again. Dropping it 5% before you felt like you were about to fail, and completing the workout would have meant you still did ~97% of the workout instead of 2/3’s.
To start with, threshold and O/U especially are painful period. You could try shorter durations ones or some with overs at 105% instead of 115%.
How do find other threshold workouts e.g. Marion?
Now another cause could be that as your FTP improves, it can get close to your Vo2max (5min max power is a good proxy). THis is known as fractional utilization (FTP over vo2max ) and if it gets >=85% then it’s probably time to spend time on improving Vo2max.
When that happened to me,O/U became much more difficult than in prior year while thresholds wo that were <100% were though but doable.
I found the OU’s super tough at the beginning but after doing a few maybe 4 or 5, I really started to get them done. Persevere. That are hard and sometimes you fail. I have in the past.
Warlow +2 is really really hard try carpathian peak +2 next time, higher workout level but imho much more doable than warlow +2
Over Unders are the WORST! Don’t feel too bad about it. You really need to work up on those. I’d just rate it as you see fit and accept the adaptions as necessary 
Over/Unders are supposed to be really hard and Warlow +2 is a particularly nasty variant so don’t beat yourself up because of a failure. They are as much a mental challenge as a physical one but all sorts of things might have come into play on the day. Maybe more carbs would have helped, maybe you’re slightly tired or your heart’s not really in it that day or it’s just a little bit too much for you at this time. Try a different version and see how that goes.
Over-Unders are HARD, period. That workout is a particularly tough one, don’t beat yourself up over failing it.
I have a feeling that once workout level v2 is implemented that warlow +2 will get a much higher rating than 5.5 probably something between 6.5-7. Like i said carpathian peak +2 which is rated 6.0 is much easier
Have to try warlow now but I’ll do -1 for next week’s session and see how I get on. I did Carpathian Peak last week and found it surprisingly manageable.
I’d rather do Warlow+2 than Carpathian Peak +1 or +2 (similar PL), but I’ve slowly come to the conclusion that it I can’t manage a roughly 5ish pl Threshold workout then my AiFTP is too high and I’d get a more consistent training load dropping it a bit. This is of course if I have no unique reason to think I failed (bad sleep, fuelling etc).
This can sometimes happen if you’re anaerobically strong or your vo2max is a high % of your FTP, meaning the ML model sees your success @ high PL VO2 workouts and assumes you can handle a higher base wattage - whereas you’re actually an athlete that just needs to keep progressing up the vo2 scale and not change their FTP.