TrainingPeaks is powerful, but it’s easy to fall into the trap of watching charts instead of watching your body. The magic is in using just enough data to guide decisions — not to create more noise.
The Three Metrics That Actually Matter
If you’re not a pro, you can get 90% of the value from focusing on:
- Workout completion — Did you hit the key sessions as planned?
- Intensity distribution — Are most sessions truly easy, with a few clearly hard?
- Subjective feel — How did you actually feel before, during, and after?
Yes, CTL, ATL, and TSB can be useful — but only once the basics above are dialed.
Color Coding Is A Conversation
Green, yellow, red — instead of judging yourself by the color, treat it like a conversation. A yellow or red doesn’t mean failure; it means something pulled you off-plan.
Ask why: fatigue, life stress, illness, or a plan that was unrealistic for your week? Adjust the plan before you blame your willpower.
Zoom Out To See The Story
One bad week means nothing by itself. Use the weekly and monthly views to see trends:
- Is overall volume drifting up too fast?
- Are hard sessions clustering because life keeps pushing easy days aside?
- Is your long run or long ride consistently getting chopped?
These patterns tell you more about why you’re stuck than any single workout file.
Data should make you more confident, not more anxious. If TrainingPeaks leaves you stressed, the problem isn’t you — it’s the way the plan is built and interpreted. That’s exactly where good coaching changes everything.