I am organizing my notes for inputting my race schedule for 2027 into the Plan Builder.
On the second page, near the bottom.
"Anything else relevant?
Anything else you’d like your coach to know, such as goals, preferences, or context that doesn’t fit above. Optional."
When you refer to “anything else you’d like your coach to know…” You are referring to the AI coach, correct? Will this be read and interpreted by the AI coach?
My plan was to include information such as “ultimate run objective is 6:00/min for the 5K off the bike.” “prioritize development of run threshold/AeT and off-the-bike running.” “goal is competitive age-group performance and Worlds qualification.”
Hi Joe, I am not quite sure if I can answer your question correctly but will give it a go as an athletica user. Im not quite sure of the “anything else you would like your coach to know” box, this might be new from when I started 3 years ago! I will give you a bit of info that may or may not help. The AI coach does not adapt your session plan. This is a separate system. (I am not techy, so apologies for lack of techy speak)… Firstly the most important part when signing up or starting a new plan, it is important to do the test phase as this gives the session plan data your baseline in all your modalities. If and when you progress after doing your sessions, the system will update your thresholds automatically. You can set the notifications to warn you when the system detects a progression (or regression) then you accept the change or not depending on your state of play (injuries, fatigue etc). Once you get established, it takes a few months for the system to get to know your “normal” and all the recovery data is collected (if you have that capability from your wearable), then you can start having real time conversations with the AI coach. The AI coach can read your session plans and give you advice on how to adapt or change sessions, based on your feedback. Give the AI coach as much information as possible for it to make a good informed decision. AI coach will advise you what to change (manually at this stage as future Athletica is looking to change this) and can help you resubmit your own personalized training schedule. Hope this helps a bit?
Thanks for the reply! This is also my third year with Athletica.
The “Anything else…” box appears to be new with the updated user interface. In previous years, there were separate boxes for goals and objectives for each race. I’m not sure how much of that information was actually interpreted by Athletica during the plan builds, though. Maybe I’m remembering it incorrectly, perhaps these sections were more for personal notes.
For this upcoming year, which is going to be a pretty ambitious one, I used ChatGPT to help determine which races should be my “B” and “C” races, with Nationals as the “A” race and the goal of qualifying for Worlds. It also provided recommended finish times and splits for each race.
I then had ChatGPT help me put together some verbiage to include in the upcoming Plan Builder. My plan is to feed all of this information into Athletica and see what it comes up with for the next 12 months.
So far, I’ve been very pleased with what Athletica has provided, and I’m looking forward to another year of learning, training, and hopefully making some big improvements!
I’d like to know more about your experience with this feature. I’ve tried to adapt some parts of the plan with it. Like the vacation periods when I’ll have access to run and swim but not cycling. And providing busier periods at work to have lighter sessions during this period. However, it does not seem to really make any adaptations I’ve asked. I see that the system (AI coach or some other ai engine) took that into account and showed me it during the summary but the plan wasn’t really adapted.
It would be helpful to understand if this feature worked for you and allowed to make a customization on demand. And if yes, how have you made it work?
With my annual plan now built. I will use the Workout Wizard, if I’m away and can’t get to my bike or the pool, to swap those sessions for another run or swim. Sometimes that means I end up doing two runs or two swims in one day. That is okay, because I want to stay on track with improving my fitness, even if I can’t stick to the original plan. If I need lighter workout, the Wizard now has options that cut the session length by 15%, 30%, and so on. That’s been helpful, especially when time is tight. On days when life or family comes first, I’ll switch things up and do some mobility work or a Pilates mat session instead.
@KinesioMS “Anything else relevant” is read by AI Coach and stored in memory. It does not affect plan generation itself. So if you’d like the Coach know about your hamstring strain from 2 months ago, here’s a place to inform AI coach.
Thanks for sharing the details. I think I’ll adapt it to my usage. BTW, you wrote “my annual plan now built”, does it works well to build the plan for a full year? Is there any benefits compared to the shorter periods like 3-4 months plans?
You can certainly build for a few months based on your fitness and/or racing goals. I go with the annual plan, because the dates for my events were announced and am looking to peak for that “A” race. Good luck with your training.
Hi @odkv - can I just add saying that the longer the plan, the more powerful the data is. The more time you use the platform, its data is more refined and personalized to you. Like any data, it is easier to identify trends and patterns the more you input. As @Marjaana also noted, the more personal data like, injuries, set backs or illnesses, the information is stored to adapt to you personally. After say 6 months, nobody else’s plan should look like yours… so yes, this is a good example of a longer term benefit
Thanks for explanation. Do you say that the athletica app works better with the longer plans?
I already have a few years of data exported from the Garmin app. And let’s say I’ll spend one more year with Athletica. Do you mean that it’s better to target a one one-year plan with let’s say 4 races instead of the 4 plans during the same year targeting these 4 races individually?
If you do 4 plans, then you have 4 A events, which means 8 weeks of taper, and 4 weeks of recovery across those events. One plan allows you to have one A event and several B or C events meaning less weeks tapering over the year. Depends on how you see the priority of each event, and whether you see the extra tapering as beneficial overall.
One plan with one peak fitness period over a year, or four plans designed around peaking four times for the four events over a year.
Personally next year I feel I need two peaks in fitness. Therefore will do two base, build cycles. What I consider A events are far enough apart to enable that. The first peak being early May, second peak late August.
I second what Phil said. Just one plan works for me. My example for this year was a T100 race in May and my Ironman this month. In between, I added adhoc events like a half marathon, or a long sportive cycle event, bearing in mind, I was in control of extra rest days and other tweaks due to health and previous injuries. The AI coach can help you tailor your sessions if you think things need changing - then you update your plan manually with the advice given. You can check in every so often to make sure you are hitting your goals. I found it easier just to continue with my yearly plan, as I have long term goals and I like to see my progression over time. Do what works best for you and good luck with the 4 races
This is exactly why I do a long annual plan. Athletica does all the calculations so that I am fresh and ready for each race. I can see my current fitness and projected fitness improve over time. Highly recommend building an annual plan if you plan to race multiple times. Trust the process.
