It may go against the current model but as a coach I like to keep things simple. Tempo/SS/Threshold are all the same thing to me… just different paces of essentially the same thing.
Athletes and coaches have a tendency to overthink training a lot. After being an athlete… and then a coach for 20+ years I’ve found that at the heart of it all is that training is training. Even bad training can get you a long ways and even the podium with the right genetics and buy-in.
I personally would do:
That covers all disciplines from ultra endurance to track sprints. It’s essentially similar to the power profile stuff from Coggan.
Yes, I like Garmins high-level approach for “load focus”
I know they explain “training effect” using Recovery, Base, Tempo, Threshold, VO2, and Sprint
At a quick glance 3 coloured zones are easy to interpret, 5 more than enough for detail.
To be clear, I do not do this, exactly for the reason that @mcneese.chad brought out, known issues in PL estimator with certain combinations of various zones in single ride.
I have actually found that current state is good enough for me: I’ll do whatever workout is prescribed and add Z2 before/after as I wish and have time for. As a result, PLs are valid for all zones except Z2, and AT + RL/GL + AI FTP still work as expected. I don’t even know what to expect from WLv2 
As for Z2, I can always admire Garmin’s Endurance score instead 
What’s the view from TR when returning from outdoor only back to TR in the autumn with regards to progression levels? All mine had fallen back to 1.0 after a few months away but I’ve now done a 2 hour endurance ride inside at the difficulty I wanted to achieve and it has now set a realistic endurance PL. Should I do the same for sweet spot, vo2 max etc before starting my winter plan?
Hey there,
If you’re feeling confident in your fitness right now, you could probably find workouts in the zones you’re looking to train at around Workout Level 3.0-4.0.
That will give you a good starting point if you’ve already got some solid fitness and feel like Workout Level 1.0 is a bit too low.
From there, keep on following your plan/completing workouts, and Adaptive Training will get an accurate picture of what your fitness is like to get you dialed in. 
Thanks, this is what I felt like was the correct way to proceed. I’ll go a touch conservative at the higher effort levels compared to what I was doing outside in order to not risk failing the workout. I’ve already done a ramp test to get my ftp correctly set.
Man, I could not agree more on this!
I left Trainerroad about 20 months ago due to waiting and waiting for months and months for unstructured rides to be included in AT. At the time it was yet another feature that sounded amazing but was announced too early and from what I’m reading here this is still not working as it was promised all that time ago!?
I was thinking about coming back and I presumed this would be working now but wow…its not and on top of that 2 x price increases plus more announced features that seem half-baked and like RL/GL and group rides/multi-sports/strength training that require some kind of nuance and work around to begin using them. It’s all too confusing…and I’m experienced at this!
I really hope Trainerroad can sort all this out and just get one thing working correctly before they announce it or the next “game changing” feature. Maybe then will I come back but for now there are far too many alternatives that offer as much or more for better value.
My view is: WL was an awesome creation, really interesting, as long as you do the workouts (indoor or outdoor). Everything else isn’t being taken into account in this realm. They might be, and I think they are, for fatigue management, adaptive training, etc. But not for WL.
It also seems to me that is very hard, if not impossible at this point, to translate erratic efforts (unstructured rides) into the progression of your WL.
So, how can I be sure that adaptive training is “doing its thing” correctly if my unstructured ride isn’t being taken into account? I guess adaptive training will use the workout catalogue to suggest to me the best next workout. But, if my WL isn’t accurate. It’ll suggest a VO2 level 5, but I’m capable of doing a level 8. So…
TR response will be: ok, do the VO2 level 5 and rate it easy. Fine, but that’s not the idea. It should be your best next workout.
It feels confusing to me as well, and that’s the reason I don’t come back (yet). I might, though.
Has any other platform / software got any further than TR with this?
Join seemed to me. I haven’t tried others so I can’t say.
Join worked pretty well when I used it, and it costs 1/3 for me as I’m in Canada. The lack of a long-term calendar might bother some, me included, but I understand that knowing your endurance ride 2 months in advance isn’t helpful.
We may have announced it too early, however software development is non-linear. All of us at TrainerRoad have a high standard for our work. We never want to ship sub-par products so we focus on building a specific experience and functionality for our athletes and ship when we reach that. This is in our athlete’s best interest.
Have you tried these features? Without the context for which they are being discussed, I understand why it can appear complicated from the outside. If you are curious, give them a try and let me know if you have any questions. Happy to clear up any confusion.
I cancelled my sub about 20 months ago because I was waiting for the afore mentioned outside workouts/adaptive training to work as promised. I waited many months but finaly gave up. I’m astonished that nearly 2 years down the line it’s still no further along.
I came back to the forum to see if it was working as I was thinking about coming back if it was. But it isn’t.
You only would use TrainerRoad to assess outside workouts for a PL?
Not sure if you know, but RL/GL is based on WL v2 and it does take outdoor rides into account. In my experience, the fatigue management part is more important than gains/changes in PLs due to unstructured outdoor rides.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Would be nice if Nate could give status updates here or in the podcast more regularly but to me it seems that the openness and enthusiasm of the past have vanished a bit (which is a pity).
Good catch! Correct- they are related but separate, and Outside Workouts are considered by RLGL. Thanks for clarifying this @OreoCookie 
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So glad you are finding it so beneficial. Thanks for sharing 
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That’s a good call. The group rides I tend to go on are too short or low-intensity to actively contribute to my levels, my outdoor workouts are TR, & I really don’t do a lot of racing (one or two a year). That just leaves my all-day adventures, & I’ve got a pretty good idea of the maximum power level I can hold depending upon the expected duration.
Question for @sarahlaverty then (& by the way thank you for the inside info 
) or others on the TR payroll, whilst we’re waiting for WLv2:
If I head out on an all-day solo adventure, or find myself solo on an audax because I decided to treat it like a training ride 
, following the usual recommendations: minimal coasting/stopping, keeping power under control on climbs etc, is it fair to match to a TR workout using non-coasting average power & non-coasting time rounded down to a quarter-hour block? Are there other metrics that could be beneficial in getting a ballpark idea of what an endurance ride is worth?
It depends:
FWIW, here are PL estimates for various duration 60% FTP rides (this is where I live usually):