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I’ve been a Today’s Plan user since 2019. Really sad to see it go.
I was really surprised to get the email today. Surely they had enough recurring revenue to just cover costs and keep it running as is. Unless it was really poorly built I would assume it could just “exist” with little to no upkeep.
I was about to sign up for Today’s Plan as OurKollektiv got shut down recently, but it looks like I’m not going there either.
Thanks Ray for the great analysis as always.
Companies like Today’s Plan and Training Peaks focus on helping coaches sell static training plans first and foremost, and the athlete experience is secondary. They are built on the idea that the primary role of coaches is the design and iteration (or not) of training plans for their athletes.
With adaptable AI training plans widely available in the market, coaches and the platforms who sell static plans or only focus on the manual and periodic load adjustment of training plans for their athletes are losing out to AI training plans that are able to infinitely iterate after each session.
Just as every technology shift forces workers to adapt their skills to changing market needs, coaches need to be thinking about how they can deliver services that AI can’t provide – and there are many. These include first and foremost, good communication and hand-holding, but also strategy, nutrition, mental health, sleep, managing overtraining, etc.
Coaches should also be embracing AI training plans that can do the grunt work of athlete scheduling, often with a better integration of the underlying training science (after all, not all coaches are Phd.s in sports science). These tools will allow them to deliver a service that is not done better by AI, charge more for, and scale faster because they are not spending hours each week tweaking training plans.
Athletica.ai is a science-based AI training plan that is athlete-focused but has a platform for coaches to manage and communicate with their athletes. It should be the best of both worlds for coaches and athletes: a platform to deliver AI training plans but allow coaches to monitor and tweak those plans and communicate easily with athletes while providing the value-added services that only a human can provide.
I am truly sorry for all the team at Today’s Plan that worked hard to build a good product.
Mark,
I agree with many of your points. To me the downside of AI however is the enjoyment part. I am the kind of athlete and coach who thrives on variety, and who appreciates workouts that tell a story and helps the athlete immediately connect the interval with a ride or race in a real life scenario. Workouts that are engaging. It’s what has allowed me to train consistently, 5 days/week since I started cycling many many years ago.
I experimented with AI workouts and found them to be dull and repetitive. I am sure there are athletes who don’t mind it and even enjoy those. I, however, am not one of them and would have a hard time prescribing them to my athletes as well.
Hi Theia, I totally agree with you – the most successful athlete will be the one who is able to train consistently and different athletes are motivated in different ways. This is one of the many reasons coaches will remain relevant. But for many athletes, that consistency can come from an AI plan that adapts immediately after each session, whether they nail it perfectly, over perform (not always good) or underperform when life gets in the way.
Your point on the boredom of training plans (not just AI ones but human generated ones as well) is absolutely right as well. That’s why Athletica.ai has developed the Workout Wizard which gives the athlete (and coach) a choice of alternative sessions with a similar load to get them to their goal. This provides variety (and in the case of injury, appropriate alternatives) to keep athletes going with that consistency.
I’m not sure how long ago you tried an AI training plan app, but things have definitely evolved in the past year or so. Many thanks!
My problem with the AI workout platforms is they really provide no real rationale for the choice of workouts. They have some vague metrics, but everything is hidden in the proprietary AI model (don’t want to reveal the secret sauce) and the data set you can not see. With real coaches they always provide some rational explanation for there workouts and long term plans.
Mark it’s funny how it took until later replies for you to note that you are a part of Athletica.ai
Clearly you position on AI and training plans generated by them is very much biased by that. How about declaring that in your replies
Just as a general house-keeping item, I do tend to ask companies that comment on topics related to their businesses (which is always welcome!!), to note somewhere that they’re from said company.
I’ve added some titles throughout the comments section now to help out.
Hi Mark,
from a technically view of point I find AI plans are very very fascinating and by the metrics those generated plans definitely makes sense.
But there is an easy fact, I am missing the human part in those plans. This is so obvious we sometimes forget about it.
If you purchase a plan made by a real coach, you also pay for the coach in terms of human feelings. Your gut feeling is very different for such a plan. You maybe get even a little bit proud: “Ha, I’ve got a plan from her/him! I can tell this my friends.”.
If I tell my friends: “I am following an AI plan”. They maybe answer: “Great, robot!”.
As to say, for some people this might work really well, but for most of us, in the long term, the human part is missing.
I am writing this as the inventor of Tredict, which also could be very technically, but also the human part is still required. :)
This is literally a copy-pasted ad converted into forum-post format. Similar posts have been appearing on slowtwitch recently as well.
I’m all for advancement and for good marketing, but its frankly a bit obnoxious
I was a user of Todays Plan for a couple years. I really enjoyed the platform, as you could create a training plan customized for a specific race that was part of their DB, something that Training Peaks does not have.
It is sad to learn that the company is going away, I can only wish the best for all the the employes.
Bad news, they had great technology.
I hope its not going to be lost to time. But the chances of them open sourcing this so hobbyists can package it up for self hosting is probably 0.
I’m a coach and started using Today’s Plan shortly after it was launched and it’s been a great platform. I am so disappointed it is closing, as are the majority of my athletes.
You make a good point about migration as I’ve been approached by other companies to switch but have always been reluctant to do so because of the legacy I have built on Today’s Plan. As you rightly comment, it’s all those nuances of coaching that are embedded in eight years of work that I will now lose and which makes this announcement just heart breaking.
We’ll cope. Coaches and athletes are resilient – otherwise we wouldn’t be in this game, but it does highlight how people these days are treated as consumers or commodities with little regard for the personal consequences. With coaching, of course, it is the complete opposite.
I started with Today’s Plan after seeing a review of it here on DC Rainmaker. I really liked the ability to integrate the data with my other platforms. But what I’ll really miss is the ability to create a training session to address a certain area I wanted to target and get that to my computer. Plus creating a multi-week plan to target major events was a phenomenal feature. A real disappointment to see it go.
So nothing from Specialized on why they’re closing T’sP?
I always thought it one of the better platforms.
Thanks Ray for the great analysis as always.
Companies like Today’s Plan and Training Peaks focus on helping coaches sell static training plans first and foremost, and the athlete experience is secondary. They are built on the idea that the primary role of coaches is the design and iteration (or not) of training plans for their athletes.
With adaptable AI training plans widely available in the market, coaches and the platforms who sell static plans or only focus on the manual and periodic load adjustment of training plans for their athletes are losing out to AI training plans that are able to infinitely iterate after each session.
Just as every technology shift forces workers to adapt their skills to changing market needs, coaches need to be thinking about how they can deliver services that AI can’t provide – and there are many. These include first and foremost, good communication and hand-holding, but also strategy, nutrition, mental health, sleep, managing overtraining, etc.
Coaches should also be embracing AI training plans that can do the grunt work of athlete scheduling, often with a better integration of the underlying training science (after all, not all coaches are Phd.s in sports science). These tools will allow them to deliver a service that is not done better by AI, charge more for, and scale faster because they are not spending hours each week tweaking training plans.
Athletica.ai is a science-based AI training plan that is athlete-focused but has a platform for coaches to manage and communicate with their athletes. It should be the best of both worlds for coaches and athletes: a platform to deliver AI training plans but allow coaches to monitor and tweak those plans and communicate easily with athletes while providing the value-added services that only a human can provide.
I am truly sorry for all the team at Today’s Plan that worked hard to build a good product
For everybody with a Today’s Plan training plan. Transfer your TP plan to Tredict and hold it save!
I am a Tredict user since some months and absolutely love this platform. It has a direct Today’s Plan integration, still, so it is very easy to bring your purchased training plan over to Tredict. You are able to continue your plan there with a lot of nice adjustment and further planning possibilities. It is also very easy to transfer your training history. I do not miss TP to be honest.
Can you bring a Training Peaks plan over to Tredict?
Should work, if you first bring the Training Peaks plan to Today’s Plan, then to Tredict.
As far as I know Training Peaks does not accept any 3rd-parties on their API anymore, so Tredict has currently no chance to get it directly. Hopefully Training Peaks will open the API access again.
Do you know if it carries comments over too (from Todays Plan) ?
Hi Chris,
comments are currently not carried over for the structured workouts, sorry for that. Title, description and workout number are. If there are not too many comments, you could do it manually though.
I’m coached via Today’s Plan and currently looking for an alternative. My experience trying to migrate over the weekend to Trainingpeaks for example has been challenging, even though I’m technical enough to write code and build a custom pipeline from one API to another.
For trainingpeaks: Garmin Connect sync only got me <20% of all my activities since 2020 and since I chose to have Today's Plan as my single source of truth, I had to spend about 6 hours "cleaning" my Garmin Connect environment, making sure that I have at least 99% of workouts in.
WIth that, it strikes me in general that there are huge limitations for users and hardly any access to easily migrate – for instance:
1. API access oddly enough is treated as something special, for instance Trainingpeaks has a business only preapproval process, instead of just sharing an API key.
2. There are huge limitations for users: data labelling and metadata as something one would want to migrate seems to be ignored by most platforms it seems: RPE scores, comments/notes and more importantly corrections to data channels (overwriting erroneous power or HR data for instance after one finds out one didn't push 1900W for a few seconds OR more common: power data from an incorrectly calibrated power meter).
When writing Trainingpeaks, I posted a sync functionality to make it easier to migrate to their platform, if one so desires, upvote: link to peaksware.uservoice.com
Was really gutted to receive this news. Have had a break from personal coaching since July, but was using the history on interval sessions I’d built up over the last 2.5 years to set my own plan. So really annoying that I’ll lose the ability to just look back in the calendar and copy across the workouts, whether to then appear on Zwift or on the Garmin for outdoors.
Hi Stephen. I hear what you’re saying about black boxes and walled gardens.
Athletica is based substantially on the published work of founder, Dr. Paul Laursen, scientist, author and Olympic coach, as well other leaders in the field of sports science. We’re also very open about the methodologies that underpin our AI training plans. Many of the players in AI training field don’t have sports scientists on staff, and that is part of the assurance that Athletica provides for both athetes and coaches. Please reach out on hello@athletica.ai if you’re interested in learning more.
Great read and I’d love you to write some on AI training and the different platforms out there. As you alluded too “And to be clear – I think there’s absolutely a need for human-driven coaching in some aspects of sports training. At the same time, there’s not always a need for it either. But that’s an entirely different post for an entirely different day.”
Right, Inwen through the comments. Also, a while ago, Scientific Triathlon made a podcast episode on training Platform comparison. But I would like to hear from you about a comparative analysis of today’s training platform. I’m a light user of Training peaks, tried Tridot but not seriously should give it another try. I’m focus on Triathlon. What do you recommend? I also saw in the comments some platform I was not aware of lie athletica.
I would very much appreciate your I put!
Regards!
I read through*
Hi Kevin,
let me introduce you to Tredict. It’s a training planning, publishing and analysis platform for triathletes, runner, cyclist, swimmers, obviously. :)
It highlights the intensity distribution in your training both while planning and after execution of your workouts. So it is very easy _not_ to over-train and follow your plan along your planned intensities and efforts.
It also has the concept of date-based zone revisions for power, heart rate, pace and cadence. For example you can define custom power based zones (f.e., easy, moderate, threshold and so on..) with a given date, so these zones only apply for a specific date range and not for all of your trainings you did 5 years back. Zone revisions avoid skewing your older intensity distribution and efforts.
Tredict is developed in Germany. So it applies to European and German privacy laws. This is for your good and sometimes for our worse. :-D
It automatically synchronizes your planned structured workouts to Garmin, Coros, icTrainer, etc. and has further integrations with Wahoo, Polar, Suunto, Adidas Running, Today’s Plan (!), Oura, Withings, etc.. for your workout and health data sync.
If you have friends or you coach other athletes it is easy to connect to their profile, either in read-only or in write mode.
You can create, publish and distribute training plans via Tredict and create a free coach profile.
There is a lot more of course. But enough for today.
Thanks for reading.
Felix
Oddly enough, if I wasn’t a DCR subscriber I wouldn’t have known about this. I use Today’s Plan because it’s a free service that I get with my Outside Magazine Plus (Outside+) subscription. I didn’t get an email, my app didn’t notify me, and it’s not even on Today’s website or news area until you try to login. Thanks for keeping me informed DCR!
Interesting – the Zone5 Website is also down: link to zone5ventures.com
Glad that we did not choose the VC-path. For every business, it’s a pity when there’s need for closing.
Not sure about your ‘losing competitors in this space sucks’ though, as you also say there are ‘far too many’ platforms, but I can’t say a lot about Today’s Plan cause I’ve never used it.
Of course, it’s a big issue for coaches. Athletes can easily switch to another platform usually. There are good standards for storing structured workouts but it’s still a long way for them to be easily transferable – not speaking of full plans at all.
For Tredict it is very easy to transfer plans from Today’s Plan to Tredict, because Tredict has an integration and Today’s Plan had a good API for this purpose and they expose the workouts in the good document .fit-format. But generally you’re right, there is no ‘standard’ for transferring a complete plan between platforms.
For all the start-ups in the comment section, why wouldn’t one of you try to acquire Today’s Plan? Surly value of the customer list alone is enough to make it worthwhile. Money isn’t cheap right now but I can’t imagine Today’s Plan would be asking for a lot when the alternative is nothing.
Oh, you’ve heard of VeloPro. You’ve just ignored it for 8 years.
Not sure if you’re affiliated with them or not, but if you are, not exactly the best foot forward.
All that said – if they’ve been around 8 years, when I click on the website, there’s absolutely nothing (less than nothing, frankly) that indicates what *exactly* VeloPro is. I don’t see a single screenshot, a single anything. There’s some blog posts from 3 years ago, but even those still somehow don’t explain what the heck it is. Is it a consumer platform, a coaching platform, an industry platform?
Even the ‘How it Works’ page is basically just a word milkshake.
Sorry to be the mean person here – but the platform may be incredible – but there’s zero incentive for me to keep that tab open more than a few seconds, as nothing draws me.
I’ve been using them for a few years now and found it really useful. The built-in training plans were a great item that TraningPeaks doesn’t have, I don’t want to pay a coach.. I’m not good enough for that!
Hey thanks for the article! Would be great if you could include us in the list of alternatives. https://trainingtilt.com we’ve been offering coaches our all all in one platform since 2014, I think still the only platform that focus on the needs of coaches and don’t offer any services to athletes.
Alan, co-founder of Xhale here. It seems about 10 years ago a bunch of us simultaneously thought the training diary field needed some more competition. That includes ourselves at Xhale and it looks like Today’s Plan started around the same time too. So despite losing an option and the short time frame you have to make a move, you do at least have some choices.
It’s a pain to change platforms, but if you decide to take a look at us, we will help you import any content you’ve exported from Today’s Plan as best we can. Just send us an email (support@trainxhale.com). We are a lean company so you will probably get an answer from me if you are after any techie help.
There’s always been an algorithm led element of these platforms and for the most part we’ve tried to keep a little clear of that because we are skeptics. AI is perhaps a different story and I’m sure we will embrace some of it. But we have always said that, for the most part, training is not as complicated as it is made out to be. Once you’ve got a solid start, the hard part is getting out there day after day and putting the effort in with some very specific key advice every now and then.
So we have a bit more of a coach focus for athletes who need a push in the right direction and a kick out of bed, we avoid a lot of the distracting gimmicks, try to be on hand to sort issues people have and focus on helping people get the basics right and getting out there training day after day and having fun.
I’m in charge of the technology side. The other co-founder, Mark, also records the Brick Session podcast, so if you want to get to know someone behind the team here, it’s a good listen for your next run (he’s got strong opinions!). Or if you are on the bike trainer, look up the Brick Session documentaries on YouTube. Maybe it will inspire your next adventure! link to youtube.com
Cam here again from Training Tilt, my second comment of the thread. I’ll try to keep it short as the comments are starting to get filled up by competitors pitching their own platforms, which is understandable given the situation.
Just wanted to introduce our platform Training Tilt (https://trainingtilt.com). In 2024 we will celebrate a decade of serving the endurance coaching industry!
Our platform is really only relevant to coaches looking for a new home for their coaching group, and their athletes as we don’t offer any services directly to athletes. I think we might still be one of the only, if not the only platform who put all their energy into serving the specific needs of coaches.
We’ve been working with Today’s Plan as they build out their import tools specifically for their coaches so we can match up new import tools to those specific formats. It’s early days but hoping that we can make it as smooth as possible for possible for coaches who choose Training Tilt as their new home for their coaching team, and their athletes.
You can learn more about that here, if you are an interested coach please leave your details and we’ll keep you up to date on our progress.
link to trainingtilt.com
Sorry I mean to say as Today’s Plan build out their “Export” tools, we will build specific “Import” tools to match. I got it the wrong way round the first time
Interesting that there wasn’t MBO. Or maybe it was on the table but not advanced for whatever reason.
Hi, my coach is using TrainingPeaks but from my point of the user experience is very bad. I never used today plan, but sad that such platforms moved away after they bought by a company.
Would be interested what happened in the backround..
You can add the platform mats.coach as alternative. Quite new but it‘s going into the right direction.
Best
Seb
I’m very happy with the German mats.coach, too. Just the analysis I want, all-mobile and very clear design.
It’s sad to see such a good app close. TrainerPlan could be added to the alternate list: https://trainerplan.co
All the people shilling their competing platforms in the comments doesn’t sit well with me. Am I just being cantankerous?
“Am I just being cantankerous?”
A bit. ;)
In this specific case, I’m good with companies throwing their hat in the ring. There are obviously countless companies in this space, many I’ve never heard of. Think of this one page as being ‘allowed’ for self-promotion.
Think so, I mean, most “companies” presenting themselves here are 1-3 persons companies, hardly getting some good revenue. They sacrifice a lot of free time and sometimes also savings. And it is very hard to present the own platform in a meaningful way, if you do not have the resources behind you.
It is ok, if you throw small and bigger companies in the mixer, but please stir, do not shake, thanks.
Maybe a little, but it’s understandable to feel that way though, a lot of people do.
I would have felt that way before I started my own business, but over the years of running it I’ve figured out that the best business is when two parties exchange value and it’s win win for both. So in this example, we’ve been talking to a lot of coaches who are anxious and worried about keeping their businesses running and finding a new home for their athletes before the deadline in March. Learning about new options I think in this case is good, as they might find something they would not have otherwise that could lead to a good partnership over the long term. I’m a reluctant salesman but as my business coach always says “Sell or else”, because if you don’t sell you don’t have a business. I try to find balance, but it’s challenging.
Today’s Plan replied to me saying they are working on an easy migration to Trainingpeaks. Pending the latter’s approval release is planned for mid-Jan. Comments will be there, RPE won’t and with a bit of luck historical compliance (how well did athlete comply with prescribed workout metrics? Red/yellow/green) will be visible.
An alternative is also perfectpace.com
I think it’s a cool platform. You should check it out.
I am NOT a pro at all, however was a paid Today’s Plan user a few years ago and then switched to TrainingPeaks and have been happy with that although it is less detailed than Today’s Plan.
I am not affiliated with them, but have found 8020 Endurance to have for me a cool offering. You buy a subscription from them and essentially get a TrainingPeaks account as well as unlimited access to their training plans in the platform. Just putting it out there as an alternative for the amateurs out there. I used it for my century ride over the summer and find value there.
Just thought I’d share my positive experience in case it benefits other coaches. I transferred ALL my workout templates (all 2,800 of them) and libraries from Todays Plan to Final Surge. Everything transferred quickly and seamlessly- including intervals, tags, etc. I am very impressed. I have also found the platform easy to use and even easier to manage group calendars than Todays Plan. They have done a fantastic job.