Trainer Road

chadmfurlong

Patrick, Rich or others,

Earlier this winter i was using the Trainer Road service when the Nov OS bike workouts were put in TR, but when i transitioned to Get Faster I don't see them listed.  Are they there somewhere?

ANd I guess more importantly as i transition out of GF to HIM and IM plans this spring and summer are those bike workouts in TR?

Thanks, 

Chad

Al Truscott

The OS wkos are the only EN ones in TR. You can write your own for GF, HIM, etc using theTR Workout Creator. Takes five minutes or so for the first one, then just a minute or two to update any changes week by week. I left instructions on how to do this in another Trainer Road thread, which if I can find again I'll post a link to, after I get off my iPad.

No programming skills needed, as easy as writing and sending an email,IMO.

Al Truscott

Here's the Workout Creator wiki stub awaiting entry:

Say you want to modify an existing Trainer Road workout or even create your own unique one. TR has a "Workout Creator" which makes this easy for anyone to do.

Step One: Download ( and install) the Beta Version of the TR software. (Labeled currently 2013.03.29 - 1.5.0)

Step Two: Open TR, and click on the "Custom" button (on the right, just below "Info").

Step Three: Click on "Create Custom Workout" (just below the Custom button). This will open another program called "WorkoutCreator". You can either create a new workout, or modify an existing TR workout. To make a new one, select the "Custom" button, and then click on "Create Custom Workout" just below that. To modify an existing workout, click on TrainerRoad, and select (or search for) the workout you want to adjust.

[When the wiki is fully operational, I'll go into more detail on the following stuff, but for now ...]

You can click on any blue colored interval. Up top, you'll see places where you can adjust the length ("duration") of an interval, and boxes to adjust the intensity of the interval ("Start FTP" and "End FTP"). IMPORTANT: The numbers in the start and end FTP boxes represent % of FTP, NOT absolute watts. So to change an interval from 120% of FTP to 110%, you would just changes those numbers to 110, not the watts you are shooting for.

You can add notes to an interval (on the right), you can add new interval templates (on the bottom), you can write a summary. You can delete an interval by selecting it and hitting the delete key, Don't forget to click "Publish" lower right, so the wko will appear in your "Custom" list.

Step Four: Click "Publish" to save the workout in the TR cloud. Only you will be able to see this new workout you created. And once you create it, you can modify it in the future. EG, you might want to change the warm up, or change the length of intervals, for a standard FTP or VO2 workout you do each week. Then close the WorkoutCreator window. [I usually close the TR window as well.]

[Ed.Note: I have generic FTP and VO2 Custom Workouts, which I just adjust as needed for that week's specific interval lengths. Takes about a minute to modify, after an initial five minute "programming" effort.]

Step Five: Use the workout. Re-open TrainerRoad. As before, select "Custom" button. Your new workout should appear below, just click on it and use it as you would any TR workout. 

chadmfurlong

Thanks Al.

Swanie

Thanks for posting this Al! This will open up a lot of opportunities for workouts this spring and summer.