TrainingPeaks Powers New Rock ‘n’ Roll Training Plans

Donavon Guyot explains what makes the plans special at Running USA Conference

At the 2009 Running USA Conference, TrainingPeaks CEO Donavon Guyot met with Competitor Group new media staff to discuss a partnership that would make TrainingPeaks-powered training logs and plans available to Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series participants. A year later, that vision is a reality.

Participants in Rock ‘n’ Roll events may now purchase a half-marathon or marathon training plan that is appropriate to their experience and ability level via an easy follow-up step to the online registration process. By selecting a training plan end date that corresponds with the date of their chosen Rock ‘n’ Roll event, users get a workout schedule that ensures they are ready to perform their best on race day. All of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon and Marathon plans were designed by training expert Matt Fitzgerald, author of The Runner’s Diary and numerous other books.

Each runner who purchases a Rock ‘n’ Roll training plan receives access to a personal training log, where the plan appears in an easy-to-follow calendar format. Runners are also able to log the actual training they do as they go. The TrainingPeaks-powered training log offers a host of useful features, including daily emails describing tomorrow’s workout, food journaling capability, compatibility with speed and distance devices such as the Garmin Forerunner, and discussion forums. A training plan purchase is not necessary for access to a basic training log.

Matt Fitzgerald sat down with Donavon Guyot Monday afternoon at the Running USA Conference to celebrate the partnership between Competitor Group and TrainingPeaks that was first envisioned one year ago. Guyot spoke about what makes the Rock ‘n’ Roll plans different from other training plans available online.

“There is a lot of great free stuff available both on the training logs side and the training plans side,” said Guyot. “We’ve always tried to go above and beyond that for our customers. We know that when people pay money for something, they expect a lot of value, so we work with the best coaches, we work directly with the event organizers to make plans that are relevant to the events their customers are doing, and it’s all delivered through our online training system, which we’ve worked really hard over the past 10 years to make sure is the best of the best.”

While TrainingPeaks provides the technology behind a number of different online training plan offerings available on the internet, Guyot insists that this does not make all of these offerings the same. “We call it the Intel Inside approach,” Guyot said. “There’s an Intel chip inside a Mac and there’s an Intel chip inside a PC, and it’s a totally different experience. No better, no worse, just different. We believe that by partnering directly with Competitor Group for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series, we can tailor the content that’s delivered on the platform to deliver a totally unique experience. So we’ve worked hard to make make the login seamless with the place you’re already going to get your news and information about these events.”

Learn more about the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series training plans here.