šŸŽ‰šŸŽ‰šŸŽ‰ Introducing Outside Workouts! šŸŽ‰šŸŽ‰šŸŽ‰

Iā€™m hoping it will work on my Forerunnerā€¦

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@hubcyclist clearly knows the score

It would be really interesting to hear on the podcast some of the reasoning behind the way the outdoor and indoor rides are matched. Some of the switches make a lot of sense in terms of making them more simple to complete outside, but others seem less intuitive from a physiology standpoint.

For example, I have Dicks -1 (5x8min 105% 5min recovery) being replaced by Mount Carru (3 sets of the following 3x3 minutes between 401-418 watts with 3 minutes easy between intervals). So the workout is going from sustained efforts just above threshold, to VO2 intervals at 120-125%.

Iā€™m sure a lot of thought has gone into how the workouts are matched, but some more insight would be great. Even if only to get an idea of which styles of workouts may be better kept indoors.

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Oh, this is great. And also clever from you guys. Since it keeps you relevant for the whole year and not only the winter season. Because many (like me) are certainly puzzled what good is an intricate indoor training plan with many intervals if you would only want to ride one time in the week on the trainer anyways in summer. If at all.

I like the idea of getting special outside variants of the indoor workouts with regard of the outdoor realities and efficiency loss.

Now we more then ever need a clever built in way to also set indoor- vs. outdoor FTP!

My outdoor FTP is 15-20 Watts higher than my indoor FTP. In the calendar I always have to correct the FTP for each single outdoor activity to keep the TSS and Zones correct. I already had asked / proposed if we could have 2 FTP to set and TR would assign these accordingly. Now this is definitely needed since itā€™s nice that I get the kind of cue sheet for which watts to aim forā€¦ but itā€™s all wrong and way to low. And - there is no switch or field to enter a higher outdoor FTP to get the right numbers on the cue sheet.

So that is proposal No.1: Have fields to set indoor and outdoor FTP.

Proposal No.2: While eventually our head units will get even more capable and blend into / use the same apps like mobile phones the current reality is that most / many / myself at least :wink: donā€™t want to have their mobile phone on the handlebar (certainly not as these things get bigger and bigger, or foldable) but prefer their Wahoo or Garmin. Soooo - anything you put on an mobile app will have to be a brilliant piece of added value to convince people to ditch their cycling computer and use their phone on the handlebar. I wouldnā€™t hold my breath for this. So - long story short: please just let me export these outdoor workouts to my Wahoo. That would be nice.

But cool work so far - Excited what will develop out of this. :slight_smile:

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If you read DCRā€™s report from the Garmin meeting, the training plan API supports loads of Garmin devices. Now as to whether the TR implementation will allow it, thatā€™s another question; but Garmin devices have supported structured plans for a long time as weā€™ll.

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Quick correction to this post I made earlier in light of @JHowā€™s post (#273 in the thread, if youā€™re interested).

Clearly what I SHOULD have said was ā€œbecause there is no way with my current skill set that I personally could execute a workout like Junction outdoors with any level of accuracy or quality although clearly others probably couldā€. :wink:

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Thanks, I was too eager to get outside to read the whole thing.

We tested the idea of having a time multiplier for endurance workouts to account for this, but since that doesnā€™t allow us to account for everyoneā€™s unique terrain situation this ended up not being the best solution. We came back to the idea of having the prescribed time be similar for endurance outside workouts with the disclaimer that you may need to ride longer than is planned to hit the prescribed TSS.

The prescribed workout instructions are meant to net the correct TSS, so if you are able to execute on those to the best of your ability then the amount of additional time needed after the fact should be reasonable. The alternative to this would have meant a prescribed workout that didnā€™t match what the prescribed duration was, and we felt this would have led to more confusion overall.

I know what Iā€™m doing Saturday morning!

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Ditto. Built the workout in TP. Need to figure out the transfer to my Bolt, and then have some fun :smiley:

Iā€™ve heard this mentioned several times now with no response. @bnied, @Pete, @Nate_Pearson, @chad, @Jonathan, any plans to address this?

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As a Garmin user, one issue I see with this is that Garminā€™s live TSS is generally quite a bit higher than TRā€™s TSS calculation for the same workout even when the FTP is set correctly in Garmin. I donā€™t know why that is, but it does make it harder to know you have hit the right TSS target.

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ā€œLive TSS a bit higherā€ - havenā€™t noticed this, although I donā€™t constantly look at TSS during a ride.

After the ride TSS matches up well, for example my last 3 outside rides:

Wednesday 10 April

  • Garmin 1:14:54 moving time / 75.9 TSS
  • TR 1:14:56 moving time / 75 TSS
  • on this group ride I went off the back to ride in zone 2, and looked a couple times at TSS as my goal was to keep it under 100. Didnā€™t notice a ā€œtoo highā€ TSS during the ride, and when finished the head unit was at 75 and thats what I saw after the ride on TR and Garmin Connect.

Sunday 7 April

  • Garmin 3:18:57 moving time / 161.3 TSS
  • TR 3:19:05 moving time / 159 TSS
  • only looked at TSS a couple times mid ride, appeared normal

Wednesday 3 April

  • Garmin 1:51:32 moving time / 145.7 TSS
  • TR 1:51:34 moving time / 143 TSS
  • didnā€™t look at TSS during ride

Garmin Edge 520 and Stages power meters (first with L-only gen2, and now LR gen3)

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Love this concept for sure - Iā€™ve generally been making cue cards to ride outside, however today I have Mallory +1 which is pretty confusing for outside. The swap for outside is Eldorado Peak which is below. My question for @chad @Nate_Pearson and team is, if Mallory is over under why not swap with a more simplified over under instead of 3ā€™ V02ā€™s? Love TR all around just trying to understand better! Stu

"Main Set:
3 sets of the following

  • 3x3 minutes between 354-370 watts with 3 minutes easy between intervals.
  • Spin easy for 6 minutes between sets.
  • After main set, ride 40 minutes steady at 200 watts.

Interesting, thanks for the comparison. Maybe there was a hiccup with my FTP somewhere in the system, Iā€™ll make sure to check all the spots. Itā€™s also possible that this was partially because this was because these were sprint workoutsā€”where data interval differences in the way the data is recorded/processed etc. would have quite a significant impact.

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Iā€™m a little OCD about data, and havenā€™t noticed an issue between Garmin TSS and TR TSS. Only time there is a mismatch is when ftp differs between Garmin and TR.

After a TR ramp test I always forget to update Garmin ftp, and notice TSS mismatch after a ride or two.

Just built my first workout in TP. What a pain in the posterior. Head unit integration for my Wahoo canā€™t come soon enough!

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The opposite would make you an outlier around hereā€¦

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This is going to be great!!! @Nate_Pearson, at the moment do we have to first go into our Calendar in a proper browser to set a given workout to outside? In other words, can I not simply open the TrainerRoad app on my iPhone when Iā€™m getting on my bike outside the garage and cue up the dayā€™s Outside workout right then?

true dat!

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