[Closed] Todays Plan - anyone using it?

Yep.

I find it brilliant, but then I'm coached by Torq. First, my coach (or I) can properly diarise and edit my plan. I can download my workouts in Garmin Workout or Zwift format, and I can upload the result to the workout. This provides both me an my coach a central share point of training metrics.

Both (Garmin & Zwift workouts) can be uploaded to Strava, although you'll have noticed you can't see me as I'm advised not to disclose any potentially competitive data 🙂

In short it gives us both a central diarised repository of constant training data and communication. The graphic dashboard allows me to see performance, TSB etc simply, as does the daily and weekly hours/CTL/ATL/TSB summaries in the calendar view.

Before I took up the formal coaching, I used a couple of the purchase-able plans, and I found those harder, but much more appropriate to my own structure - I had better improvements with them.

I'm advised not to disclose any potentially competitive data

£9 a month?? I use train xhale for free 🙂

Thanks Kryton. I had noticed you'd gone dark on strava 🙂

Had you used Training Peaks previously? I'm wondering what Todays Plan has over and above Peaks as my sub is up and thought I'd have a look at what else might be about.

Garmin and Zwift sync's are a must so all good there. Plans and sharing with coaches, I'm not that bothered about, I'm kind of free styling at the moment.

I would like something that's a bit better at some high level planning, with Peaks you have to put in every workout to see the impact on PMC so I tend to work with spreadsheets for planning weekly load.

Do you use the analytics much or is that something you leave to coaching?

Wow, what level are you racing at ?

TBF on Kryton that is often part of the agreement with coaching companies as it'd be easy enough to reverse engineer their plans from sites like Strava.

scaredypants - Member

I'm advised not to disclose any potentially competitive data

Wow, what level are you racing at ?

Presumably they are more concerned that their tailored plan could jsut be copied by someone else and scaled for ftp if he uploaded data from all the differnet sessions!

edit. ah just beaten too it.

Wow, what level are you racing at ?

Faster than I was before October :wink:.

Had you used Training Peaks previously?

I hadn't so can't provide a comparison, sorry.

their tailored plan

Well not just that because it is also personalised to me, but because it can show my strengths and weakness. Even at Regional level, why show your peers where to attack you when you've got to the trouble of six months bloody hard work to train? Plus, as we are finding out I have more to give and will be looking at Nationals in the future, so again why reveal too much.

Btw Kryton, re the Torq coaching, what package did you go for? Sounds like you are happy with it so far.

Not sure I can really justify the cost of coaching over DIY given the time I have to train and race.

The only coached one I think - I did the Fitness test (that was a hard day), and then the once monthly coached plan. So I have a dedicated coach planning for me. We have a once monthly telephone review, but also email correspondence when need. Basically he watches my daily activity - I make notes, add the sleep/food/rest/rpe scores etc and he reacts to that with a Tel conversation as needs be. He's watching load, stress and outcomes etc.

Its not cheap no, but without gobbing off too much I've made some noticeable gains since October which have manifested themselves to others and it a recent C/test race. Much more so than I made in 2.5 years with TR, and I fully believe thats due to a combination of appropriate effort, rest and accountability - the latter being a massive motivator.

I'm only on 9jhrs a week Mr B (on average, I've done 12, and 6) but I wanted to try it out for the 2018 season and see it it was worth it - its also a learning curve for me. I have learned that I didn't rest or taper enough by myself, and that the TR plans do not necessarily match an appropriate periodisation for me. I've also learned a lot about nutrition which has changed for me.

If I did it without coaching next year, I use Todays Plan and replicate what I've learned this over Winter 18/19 based on a revised FTP. I probably would do the fitness test again as this is brilliant for LT and FTP.

if I did it without coaching next year, I use Todays Plan and replicate what I've learned this over Winter 18/19 based on a revised FTP. I probably would do the fitness test again as this is brilliant for LT and FTP.

Gone a bit OT, but that's kind of where I am at the moment.

The testing stuff sounds useful and something I've thought about doing in the past. Is that a separate thing or part of the package? For stuff like LT and FTP, I ride enough that I have a pretty good idea of where I am with it, though I guess differences between numbers I train to and lab based data could be quite informative.

Edit... also do you use the sync’ing of workout to Zwift and Garmin (as well as from). Could be useful. And does the iOS app work well?

also do you use the sync’ing of workout to Zwift and Garmin (as well as from).

I do, works fine. In fact the Zwift workouts I find awesome to have the "hoop" across the road at the end to aim for at the end of intervals...

And does the iOS app work well?

I use Android but yes, it basically a mirror image of the PC/Web app.

Is that a separate thing

Separate. You can do 1/2 day testing, or a full day testing plus energy / nutrition / training education.

Gone a bit OT

Apologies!

No problem Kryton 🙂 All good food for thought.

Having done a bit more reading I think I'll stick with Training Peaks for now. Still feels like it needs a bit of a refresh.

Now if there was a good mash up of the planning and tracking bits from Training Peaks, Strava Premium for route, segments, social sharing and stuff like that, and MFP for food/cal tracking, and maybe some of the analytics and integration of Today's Plan or WKO, all for about a tenner a month, then that'd be about perfect 🙂

There is also https://www.xertonline.com/ which is trying to muscle in.

Has some unique features I think:

http://baronbiosys.com/blog/

Free trial etc.

I've been using it for a couple of months now. Signed up to a 6 week plan which finished just before Xmas and now onto my second 6 weeker.

The planning function itself is OK, interfaces with Zwift nicely (i.e. puts your workouts in Zwift's custom workout folder for immediate use) but the workouts lack a bit of sophistication compared to the likes of Trainerroad. If you have previous experience with structured training, you can easily design your own workload, drop workouts on to the calendar etc

The actual analytics (dashboard) are where Today's Plan excels, there's a ton of graphs which can be customised showing every single performance metric, brilliant for data geeks and a much slicker interface than TrainingPeaks.

There is also https://www.xertonline.com/ which is trying to muscle in.

Might be worth a look, some of the analytic capabilities look pretty interesting in the demos there. The ability to easily tweak values and see how it changes the data looks good.

The actual analytics (dashboard) are where Today's Plan excels, there's a ton of graphs which can be customised showing every single performance metric, brilliant for data geeks and a much slicker interface than TrainingPeaks.

I'll check it out. There's a load of charts in Peaks too but it's the ability to really interact with them that I think is somewhat lacking. Annoyingly it feels like they deliberately hold a lot of the useful analytic features back from Training Peaks to avoid conflict with WKO.

Xert Online does look rather good. I'll sign up to the free trial for a play.

It has some interesting graphs showing how you stack up compared to others your age (not sure where they get the data from). I'm very average!! The only metric I have above average (just) is sprinting.

Never used TP so not sure what it lacks vs that platform.

Also it calculates your threshold/FTP based on recent performances. So if you haven't done a full gas effort for a while it might lag.

Also it calculates your threshold/FTP based on recent performances. So if you haven't done a full gas effort for a while it might lag.

Yes, that's a bit of a problem with the dynamic stuff as I'm not often doing full gas efforts over winter but I know roughly what my capability is. Though it does look like you can pick specific workouts and use the Advanced MPA to set what you think your max and FTP might be and see how that looks for that workout, and then apply that to all future workouts. E.g. it picked a max hour power from a 90 min z3 workout, so I can click on that workout and tell it that it's actually a fair bit lower than my max hour power.

Ah also see in the Advanced tab you can tweak all the constants and decay rates for the XPMC. I'll have a look into that.

Yeah you can tweak most of it which is nice.

Although I've never managed to work out how they determine your 'High Intensity Energy'. Or what adjusting that means.

I do.

It's not great.

It has a habit of throwing out really quite random workouts. For example:

1. Consecutive weekly 9hr Z2 rides for - for a 2hr XC race, in a wk which is already pretty heavily loaded..
2. Consecutive 4 x 20min threshold sessions, again in wks that already loaded.

Both of these workouts have occurred during wks when I'm already riding 10-15 hrs all ready.

I've spoken to a number of coaches who are currently using Todays Plan & they've experienced it too. They are thinking of going over to Training Peaks. When my current plan finishes, in about 2 wks, I shall look at Training Peaks too.

Never seen thay happen, since using it from May 17.

Not seen anything like that happen either. Nothing stopping you from deleting the workout pulling in something more suitable from the workout library.

Both good points, however, the plan shouldn't be throwing errors out like that in the first place.

As I said, I know coaches who've experienced it too - one of them is a Torq coach.

t has a habit of throwing out really quite random workouts.

Never seen thay happen, since using it from May 17.

That because you're having workouts assigned rather than using the generator capability?

They are thinking of going over to Training Peaks.

Is the easy choice really, a bit like the old "you never get fired for buying IBM" thing. Do quite like the look of what Xert is doing though, just need to find some time to play with it.

Ah, good point.

If someone is generating the plan for you then you won’t know about the errors.

If you’re training yourself then you will.

That because you're having workouts assigned rather than using the generator capability

I’ve only been coached since mid October, i was using the payg plans before then.

Interesting - must be a random bit of code.

Do quite like the look of what Xert is doing though, just need to find some time to play with it.

Seems to be a load of interesting stuff in Xert to dig into.

The ride analytics for example, fun to tweak about with the parameters and see what fits the perceived effort of the ride (had to tweak my High Intensity Energy way down.) Does give you quite a bit of insight into training efforts though.