Today's Plan

raymond82

Tried finding any threads on here about Today's Plan but didn't find any to my surprise, did I miss it?

If not, anyone has any thoughts on their approach or is using it? It looks quite good to me so I'm considering but I'm interested in what other people think.

https://www.todaysplan.com.au/

sloppyschleckonds

Team Sky are using it, so that seems a good reason not too.

meursault

I suppose it depends how seriously you want to train. If it was me getting serious, I would research my own plans and save the money.

raymond82

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Team Sky are using it, so that seems a good reason not too.

Fair point! Who knows what it will turn me into..

meursault wrote:

I suppose it depends how seriously you want to train. If it was me getting serious, I would research my own plans and save the money.

This is exactly what I mean, now I'm simply basing my training on TSS and increase in CTL. Was reading a bit on polarized training so I was thinking of skipping the sweet spot/tempo parts and sticking to low intensity and VO2max intervals.

So basically like that I have something to go by which doesn't cost me anything at all, I can see how having a real coach adds something but I'm not serious enough with training getting one so was wondering how much added value something in between like Today's Plan has for me.

SuperHans808

Looks interesting, has anybody on here used it and can testify to its use?

supermurph09

I initially considered ditching Training Peaks and using it, but I found it a bit "busy" so have parked that idea for a bit. I'm auto uploading to it still and plan to revisit it now I've got more data in. One reason I stayed with TPeaks was that the CTL wasn't matching, this may have corrected over time but having used TPeaks extensively and trust what it's telling me I was loathed to switch.

I can't quite remember exactly why / what, but I did feel that TPlan looked like a good option once you had got to grips with it. It had a few different breakdowns which I found useful. I'll have another look at it

raymond82

Supermurph09 wrote:

I initially considered ditching Training Peaks and using it, but I found it a bit "busy" so have parked that idea for a bit. I'm auto uploading to it still and plan to revisit it now I've got more data in. One reason I stayed with TPeaks was that the CTL wasn't matching, this may have corrected over time but having used TPeaks extensively and trust what it's telling me I was loathed to switch.

I can't quite remember exactly why / what, but I did feel that TPlan looked like a good option once you had got to grips with it. It had a few different breakdowns which I found useful. I'll have another look at it

Did you use their training plans or only the analytics? For analytics I'm more than happy with Golden Cheetah but it's the training plans that made me consider signing up with Today's Plan.

supermurph09

raymond82 wrote:

Supermurph09 wrote:

I initially considered ditching Training Peaks and using it, but I found it a bit "busy" so have parked that idea for a bit. I'm auto uploading to it still and plan to revisit it now I've got more data in. One reason I stayed with TPeaks was that the CTL wasn't matching, this may have corrected over time but having used TPeaks extensively and trust what it's telling me I was loathed to switch.

I can't quite remember exactly why / what, but I did feel that TPlan looked like a good option once you had got to grips with it. It had a few different breakdowns which I found useful. I'll have another look at it

Did you use their training plans or only the analytics? For analytics I'm more than happy with Golden Cheetah but it's the training plans that made me consider signing up with Today's Plan.

Analytics only.

cgfw201

Giving the Today's Plan 14 day trial a whirl. Looks overwhelmingly complex, much like TrainingPeaks does when you first load it up. Look forward to getting used to it and seeing what it offers. Uploading the last 364 days of activity currently.

bobmcstuff

Supermurph09 wrote:

I initially considered ditching Training Peaks and using it, but I found it a bit "busy" so have parked that idea for a bit. I'm auto uploading to it still and plan to revisit it now I've got more data in. One reason I stayed with TPeaks was that the CTL wasn't matching, this may have corrected over time but having used TPeaks extensively and trust what it's telling me I was loathed to switch.

I can't quite remember exactly why / what, but I did feel that TPlan looked like a good option once you had got to grips with it. It had a few different breakdowns which I found useful. I'll have another look at it

CTL formula is really really basic (rolling TSS average) so there's only a few things that could affect it unless they have really screwed up - either you've got different data in each system or they are using different time constants for the rolling average - are you able to adjust the time constant to match?

raymond82

cgfw201 wrote:

Giving the Today's Plan 14 day trial a whirl. Looks overwhelmingly complex, much like TrainingPeaks does when you first load it up. Look forward to getting used to it and seeing what it offers. Uploading the last 364 days of activity currently.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! I actually signed up for the two week trial but never followed up on it, the training plan that was designed seemed a bit too tough for the winter months.

Alex_Simmons/RST

bobmcstuff wrote:

CTL formula is really really basic (rolling TSS average)

While it's not a complex formula, CTL is not a rolling average. It's an exponentially weight moving average of daily TSS values with a time constant adjustable by the user, usually with a default of 42 days.

bobmcstuff

You are right (as usual). It's still really, really easy to stick into Excel, and it's hard to see how 2 programs could be getting it different unless they are using different time periods. Or possibly if both working off the same source data they could have different power zones set.

Alex_Simmons/RST

bobmcstuff wrote:

You are right (as usual). It's still really, really easy to stick into Excel, and it's hard to see how 2 programs could be getting it different unless they are using different time periods. Or possibly if both working off the same source data they could have different power zones set.

Well apart from the CTL (and ATL) calculation being correct and using same time constants, it relies on the correct calculation of the input daily TSS values, which in turn requires correct calculation of NP and the same FTP history. Of course it also assumes that both programs have the same data set to begin with. How software handles breaks in data or multiple files for same day can affect such things.

So somewhere in there a difference lies. If I had to trust one over others (assuming all input data is correct), it would be WKO since the creator of the NP and CTL algorithms specifically worked on the implementation of his formula within that software.

bobmcstuff

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

You are right (as usual). It's still really, really easy to stick into Excel, and it's hard to see how 2 programs could be getting it different unless they are using different time periods. Or possibly if both working off the same source data they could have different power zones set.

Well apart from the CTL (and ATL) calculation being correct and using same time constants,it relies on the correct calculation of the input daily TSS values, which in turn requires correct calculation of NP and the same FTP history. Of course it also assumes that both programs have the same data set to begin with. How software handles breaks in data or multiple files for same day can affect such things.

So somewhere in there a difference lies. If I had to trust one over others (assuming all input data is correct), it would be WKO since the creator of the NP and CTL algorithms specifically worked on the implementation of his formula within that software.

https://xkcd.com/1318/