I Used TrainingPeaks for Marathon Training, Here’s How it Worked Out

Editor’s note: I had never used TrainingPeaks before this article, so to get me familiarized with the platform, TrainingPeaks set me up with full access and matched me with a coach for a 12-week training block leading into a 50K trail race and the Boston Marathon. This is my full experience in using the platform. I’ve also included some comments from my coach (Greg from Treeline Endurance), who will give his thoughts from a coaching perspective as well.

My Experience with TrainingPeaks

For most of my running journey, I’ve relied on the good ol’ American/Puritanical values of self-reliance and common sense to get me where I’m going. In the beginning, I joined a local training group and used their marathon plan; in the years since, I’ve basically just replicated it. Running five days a week, some speedwork, one long run ranging from 10-20 miles during a marathon training cycle.

I saw progress for a few years, then I had injuries. Then I had kids. Then I had bad habits that drug me backwards. I got rid of two of those things for the most part (the kids love their new home on the southern shores of Siberia from what the telegram says), but I had mostly plateaued in my running progression. 

Marathons always started out with a bang but ended with a whimper. I would maybe sometimes do speedwork, but it was erratic and there was no real foundation to build upon. I was kind of just drifting along. Running, finishing, but never improving.

So when I was offered the chance to work with a real coach in my training for a 50K trail race (HAT 50K here in Maryland) and to use the TrainingPeaks platform for all my data and workouts, I jumped at the chance. Maybe it would be the magic I needed, maybe it would all go down in flames. But I was willing to give it a shot.

Here’s how that worked out.

A Brief Overview of TrainingPeaks

I’ll be up front with you right here– I’m not a big data guy. Poring over power metrics and VO2 maxes or minimums and REM sleep cycles is just not my thing. I like running for the sake of running, to get outside and see new places, to clear my mind, to make me feel like I’m not a lazy piece of shit. That’s not to say I don’t like the performance side of things. I enjoy the feeling after a hard workout, the appetite after a long run, or the satisfaction of finishing strong in a race. It’s just that when it comes to granular data or subatomic splits, well, I have more pressing matters to tend to, like watching the fresh coat of paint dry on my front door.

To say that TrainingPeaks has some data would be like saying Willy Wonka has some candy. Because TrainingPeaks is a platform with just about every conceivable metric you can imagine. There’s the usual stuff like heart rate, pace, elevation, and power. But then there are things that may be variables for alchemical formulas, things like IF, VI, EF, VAM, or w/kg. I still have no clue what they mean, but my coach seems to think they’re important.

When I first started using TrainingPeaks, I got a walkthrough of all the different features. I’m not going to deep dive into the whole thing, if you want to get an in-depth look at the platform you’re more than welcome to check it out. I’m mainly here to tell you what I liked about it and what I didn’t. But the basics are this: the platform comes in both a desktop version and an app for the phone (more on that later), and is designed to work seamlessly between your coach and your training. 

You don’t have to have a coach to use the platform, as there is a free version that’s essentially a calendar tool. There’s also a premium version that allows you to gain access to the myriad of metrics I described above. But if you really want to get the most out of the service, then you should work with a coach who uses the platform, or find a coach through TrainingPeaks’ custom matching service, where they will work with you to find the best coach to fit your running needs.

Of course, if you’re working with a coach, it probably means you want to take your running to the next level. That comes with a cost, ranging from bronze tier ($149/month) to gold tier ($359/month) in the TrainingPeaks ecosystem. That’s a serious commitment, but if paired with the right coach, it could pay dividends in the long run when it comes to achieving your goals.

I was essentially set up with the gold tier (which includes unlimited plan adjustments, something I truly took advantage of), and they paired me up with Coach Greg from Treeline Endurance, who– six months later– is still my coach. In my base level training phase, he was working with me on two fronts: getting me ready for the HAT 50K, a local trail race with mixed terrain and 5,000 feet of elevation, followed three weeks later by the 2024 Boston Marathon. So far, it’s been a great relationship and I’ve seen a lot of improvement and felt the strongest I have in years, and the whole thing has been seamless because of TrainingPeaks.

So let’s get into what I like and don’t like about the platform.

What I Liked About TrainingPeaks as an Athlete

Before I get into everything, let me give you a quick rundown of what the platform looks like. From a top level view, TrainingPeaks is presented as a calendar of your workouts, week by week. Within those days you’ll find your assignments, loaded by your coach (or built by you). Those workouts have the usual metrics, a section for comments between coach and athlete, ratings for difficulty after you’ve finished, as well as an analysis tool to really get down to the in-depth metrics.

Hands down, the number one thing I love about TrainingPeaks is that my coach loves it. It makes his job way easier in seeing where I’m at with my running, which means he can build me better workouts and fine-tune my training. Each week, he loads my workouts onto the platform where I can see what I have going on. If I need him to change things, he can drag and drop everything to switch it up.

Easy to leave comments and rate each workout

The second best thing about TrainingPeaks is that the platform syncs seamlessly with all of the major GPS watch platforms. Meaning, as long as my Coros Apex 2 Pro is synced with my app, I can literally just get up for my run in the morning, hit the activity button on my watch, and there’s my workout ready to go. In the past, a coach or someone would give me a workout, and I’d spend 15 minutes every night building my workouts through the Coros app, adding them to the workout library, then finding them on the day I needed to do them. With TrainingPeaks, the workouts are there and when I’m done they sync straight back to TrainingPeaks where I can leave a note and rate my run immediately after I’m finished. This saves me so much time and effort over the long run (literally). Honestly, that alone is worth the price of the platform.

Again, when you’re finished with your workout, your GPS watch app will sync again to TrainingPeaks, almost instantaneously, so that you can comment and rate your workout as soon as you’re finished. 

If you are a metrics person, then the data will serve you well. There are loads of metrics and ways to compare them, including split selection and comparison, fatigue levels, smoothing controls, and around 15 different chart displays within the analysis tool.

What My Coach Likes About TrainingPeaks

TrainingPeaks is the gold standard in endurance coaching software. In my opinion, there’s no other tool that comes close in terms of analytical power (with the exception of their additional data analysis software that integrates directly with TrainingPeaks, known as WKO5). For athletes, the interface and many of the metrics lead to sensory overload, and I’ve seen athletes pushed away from using the tool as a result. But for a coach, it has more than enough tools to allow for a clear understanding of an athlete’s fitness and improvement.

The best way for athletes to experience the platform for the first time is going to be through a coach– someone who already knows the tool inside and out, who can guide the athlete in what number they should pay attention to and which ones they should ignore. Which category a certain metric falls into depends on a lot of things and tends to change throughout the season.

The best part of TrainingPeaks is that they act as a shared log between the coach and athlete of subjective feedback. How did the athlete feel on their run today? How hard were they working compared to what they expected for the session? Does the athlete have any theories why they felt the way they did? The coach and athlete relationship is streamlined since we have one space where we can look at all the hard numbers through the lens of the athlete’s experience.

What I Didn’t Like About TrainingPeaks as an Athlete

I’m a big fan of good UI/UX (I mean, who isn’t?), which is why I love my Coros watch and app even though it may not have all the bells and whistles of a comparable Garmin. You shouldn’t need a user guide to use an app or technology, it should just be intuitive. 

TrainingPeaks is not that. The mobile app is clunky and crowded and honestly a bit stressful to use. It’s not the worst ever, but it kind of gives off early 2010’s vibes. Good for just seeing the workouts and commenting and rating each one, but the organization and presentation of the interface could use some serious work. If I could compare it to anything, it would be Microsoft’s Sharepoint: a bloated steampunk ship lumbering through the seas of “saying yes,” each person with an idea in a weekly meeting rewarded with an add-on feature that results in a Frankensteinian structure of clunk. Maybe that’s a bit of a hyperbole, nothing is as bad as Microsoft Sharepoint. I get it, you want the user to have all the data in their hand. I appreciate the sentiment, but the overall design needs work.

The desktop version is a bit better, which is what I ended up using most of the time outside of my post-workout comments and ratings. Because there’s so much information and data, it’s easier to view and manage on a desktop display. If you do need to make an adjustment to your schedule, you can just drag and drop workouts around, which is nice (you can also do this on the app, but only if you have a premium account). Nevertheless, it still requires a bunch of poking around to figure out where certain metrics are and how to view them, none of which is particularly intuitive. 

Lastly, I’m not sure if it’s a lost-in-translation thing with Coros in particular, or if it’s the same with other GPS technologies (my coach seems to think it’s a Coros issue since he hasn’t seen this with his clients who use Garmin), but sometimes the real-time data would get corrupted or thrown off course when displayed in the analyze tool. For instance, I would hit certain paces perfectly during my workout splits (which would show up in my Coros app), but that data in TrainingPeaks would be misaligned.

I think part of this problem was due to pausing during a workout. If there’s any stoppage, the whole thing gets thrown off course and the data doesn’t match up in the analysis interface. For instance, there were certain cases where I was doing a hill workout but I had yet to arrive at my designated hill for workouts, so I’d pause my watch at the end of my warmup until I got to the hill. Instead of filtering out that pause, TrainingPeaks keeps it in, so then when it overlays with the scheduled workout, the data is misaligned. Would love to see a way to correct this or toggle between a view with the pauses filtered out.

Final Thoughts on TrainingPeaks

Overall, I think TrainingPeaks is an invaluable tool in the coach to client relationship. It really provides a seamless bridge between both parties, simplifying each others’ lives and providing some really in-depth insights into training. The only downside, of course, is that it’s a bit like learning a new language. Not just the metrics and analysis of the workout, but the opening of hidden doors and drawers to find everything you need. 

While TrainingPeaks does offer basic plans that are optimized for your training and race goals, if you really want to take it to the next level, then you should consider working with a coach.

Without a doubt, using TrainingPeaks has helped optimize my training, especially after being matched up with Coach Greg. I’ve felt stronger than ever and my running is on track. Now, it didn’t result in a PR at both the HAT 50K and Boston, but that was largely due to unforeseen circumstances. On race day, the HAT 50K had torrential downpours that turned the trails into actual rivers, forcing us to reroute the sections that spanned the local creek, as it had risen to unsafe conditions during the first half of the race. That was a long slog, but I felt fantastic from beginning to end. 

Three weeks later, I ran the Boston Marathon, but ran into high temps that day (70 degrees Fahrenheit) and zero shade on the course, this after training through the winter months in cold temperatures. I still finished the race strong and felt fit, but six months of no heat training hung me out to dry. 

Currently, I’ve been using TrainingPeaks with my coach to train for the Berlin Marathon, which is about a month away. Despite my insane travel schedule and family commitments at home, I’ve managed to stay in relatively good shape. Will I be able to PR? Who knows, who cares. I’ll finish the race, I’ll feel strong, and I’ll check another major off the list. Right now, that’s where I’m at with running, and as long as I’m improving– even if it’s just incrementally– I’m happy with that. 

So while I don’t think TrainingPeaks is the perfect platform, it’s mostly due to its limiting design and wonky data translation (largely dependent on your GPS watch). Overall, it’s an invaluable tool, especially on the coaching side and especially if you’re looking for something to simplify your training schedule.

To learn more about TrainingPeaks or to get matched with a coach and start your own training journey, you can visit TrainingPeaks.com, which will allow you to view the different pricing tiers and coaching levels to suit your needs.

Final Notes from Coach Greg

Working with Robbe has been awesome. He might not be a huge training data nerd, but he’s a world-class running shoe nerd. I always look forward to our weekly coaching calls so that I can get his input on the new running shoe that came out that week, while checking in about our training goals for the week. 

Much of our work together has been about finding the balance. With a busy job full of travel and a family, let’s see what we can do if we just put our focus into an achievable, consistent training routine.