Correct on transferring external workouts too sufferfest. You can’t. You can only mark them as complete on your calendar. I use Strava as my main repository for all of my workouts.
It’s tough trying to deal with a newbie to structured training like me - I understand. So for me RPE is just way too much to think about while riding. Trying to equate that to anything meaningful on the bike is pretty much impossible for structure to me. It seems like it’d be simpler to just strip the bike of all e gadgets, forget the workout details and just ride.
Less than greater than, the part I don’t get is the signs. The difference between higher and lower numbers yes I understand. Then even if I could figure out the symbols, there’s the math that goes into trying to figure out percentages and zones so they can be inputted to training peaks. (Why training peaks doesn’t just use fields to input workout details with the less than greater than is beyond me, especially if that’s a normal thing in the cycling/sports world).
That’s what RPE is. You don’t need anything but you.
Personally I think RPE is easier than anything else and I only pay attention to that when I ride outside, cruising or racing.
Thanks Brian. I use Strava too. I had years and thousands of miles of workouts on map my ride, but everyone in the bike club used Strava so I changed a few years ago, wasn’t able to figure out how to get my map my ride history into Strava and started all over but still have lots of data in there. Really too bad that there’s not a way to input all that real world riding data into Sufferfest, imagine the improvement for rider profile and fine tuning for SF training that would provide!
Your welcome. AFAIK Sufferfest doesn’t use any stats or data to track your progress or adjust your training plan, so it doesn’t matter if you don’t record a workout in the app.
I use the fitness and freshness analysis from my Strava subscription to check I’m not over training. for example on G.O.A.T I rode the rest intervals too hard when I did the workout outside because I ran out of gears to get my cadence up to 90rpm while keeping the effort easy enough.
Hi JGreenpass. Not sure what AFAIK is, but are you saying that Sufferfest doesn’t use the stats from workouts to adjust the user’s training? I thought it took that info and made proper adjustments for power, cadence, heart rate and other things from the 4DP test, to tailor the training… Did I misunderstand that or am I thinking of a different app, (maybe RGT), that adjusts based on your stats?
Yes but stats from subsequent workouts do not adjust the training plan. You’d have to do another Full Frontal or Half Monty to update your 4DP values to get the training adjustments.
AFAIK = as far as I know
Titanicus thanks for that info. Good to know.
As for the difficulty and disappointment I have currently with the outdoor workouts, it’s hard for a software company to be all things to all users.
The things I need probably don’t matter to others and vice versa. SF is awesome for indoor workouts though, (once I figured out all the nuances and places to go for device settings and downloading videos ahead of time).
For a newbie like me looking for an all in one solution, unfortunately there’s nothing on the market currently that meets those needs. I think “Today’s Plan” might come closer but it’s ultra expensive and wouldn’t know unless I tried it.
AFAIK = As far as I know
Yes, Sufferfest only adjust your training plan and the power targets during workouts based on the results of the Full Frontal or Half Monty fitness tests, it doesn’t “matter” if you do the workouts in the training plan calendar, mark them complete or not do them at all. Doing Half Monty of Full Frontal out on the road or trail on a bike with a power meter while technically possible would be very messy and too dangerous for me to contemplate.
It is TrainerRoad that just announced that they are going to use your data to adjust and recommend workouts.
J Sampson that’s what I thought it was, but then online it’s telling me it matters which way the symbol (arrow) points, etc. Very confusing to me.
So, if I’m working on the simplest part of the workout details conversion, “warm up”, the alligator is “HR” and the percentage is 55% that means that my target heart rate should be higher than 55% of my LTHR? I’ve got no idea what my “maximum” heart rate is… I’ve never gotten it so high that I passed out so I really don’t know. Anyway in my case that’s 163 for LTHR, so I’d take 163 - 45% = 89.65 or rounded up 90 BPM? And then I ride for 15 minutes at anything over 90 BPM?
Rinse and repeat for all the other steps or sets?
No, you have it backwards.
HR < 55%
Means your HR should be less than 55% of max
Ahhhh… Interesting. So the HR “alligator” is smaller than it’s prey. See that’s what’s always goofed me up. I thought the arrow was like a mouth and whatever was on the jaw side could eat whatever was in it’s open mouth.
That’s it… I’m enrolling in 1st grade.
Hmm. I think the “arrow” is representative of the alligator’s mouth, opening wide to eat the larger number.
I admit, I’ve never heard of this analogy outside of this thread.
Anyway, the “arrow”’s direction points to the smaller number hence
5 < 12, 5 is less than 12
HR < 55%, your HR should be less than 55% of max
e.g. if your max is 200 bpm, your warm up HR should be less than 110 bpm
Thanks for clarifying Titanicus. The warm-up heart rate you calculated does sound more appropriate for me. I’m usually at about 70 bpm resting, 80bpm after waking up and having coffee, 90 BPM getting my bike gear on and 100+ by the time I straddle over the bike and start pedaling.
Yesterday’s workout for some reason when I manually tried to transfer over the targets into training peaks, then to the bike computer and started the workout, it kept beeping at me until I reached 130 bpm which seemed high for a warm-up. When it came to the actual efforts between the 20 mph winds and 30 pound urban urban cruiser I took out, I was either gasping or not able to reach my target zones. That’s unusual because I usually cruise around outside at 150+ bpm and spend a lot of time in zone 5 however many BPM that is. Maybe I had everything backwards. Dang alligator analogy from grade school didn’t work so well.
As a PS: side note, it seems like it would be just as easy (or easier) to simply type “under or over” instead of using the symbol “<” which took me about 8 times longer to insert into this message lol.
@toddsdonald Actually the “<“ symbol is the alligator. If you think of the “<“ or “>” symbol as an open alligator mouth it always eats the larger number. So your heart rate should be below 55% of max.
Cool so the alligator analogy does work, you just need to translate greater than less than and flip them 180 degrees to match the mouth, (because an alligator can’t eat something bigger than itself correct?). I think that I can remember. SAT test, here I come!
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I think as you do this more often, you will (a) learn very quickly how to do these workouts and (b) actually come to appreciate the flexibility of these outdoor workout descriptions.
Like for example, the warmup. An alternative might be they could tell you do 25 mins at 150 watts. Great, super easy to follow and trainingpeaks automatically puts it into your bike computer. But what happens if when you first start out, you’re tired and that wattage feels hard. What if at 25 minutes you still feel like you need to warm up more. Worse, what if you were riding from your house and at 25 minutes you’re still at a traffic light or you’re otherwise not at the place you do intervals. Then you need to fumble with your computer and erstart the step. Meanwhile while you are riding by feel the stupid computer is beeping at you because your power is too high or too low. When in fact all it really needs to say is, “do a warmup”, or “do an extensive warmup.”
You’ll very quickly get to a point where taht’s all they need to tell you and you’ll know exactly what to do.
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Just an FYI, I contacted support and they indicated there is a current built in functionality to transfer the workouts from Sufferfest to Training Peaks, for upload to a bike computer!
They’re going to be emailing more info on it, I’ll post anything new in this thread.
I’m telling you, you’re gonna miss the flexibility