Rambling advice suggests a rambling century
Quote:
Originally Posted by
KillerB
I'm still pretty out of shape, but approached 30 miles on my ride on Saturday. What's an appropriate time for a century? At first I thought it was the cycling equivalent of a marathon, but considering I'm averaging 12 mph, I realized that 100 miles is an 8 hour ride.
I really have no idea how to approach this level of mileage. But my girlfriend is doing a half marathon, and running is too much for my knees. I feel like I need to do something equivalent on the bike, which I really enjoy. But I'd rather not die.
I don't know quite why centuries are compared to marathons. Only top-level cyclists can get underneath 4 hours for a century, whereas around 4 hours is a lower-level amateur time for a marathon. I have heard of top-level marathon runners who simply can't imagine running for as long as 4 hours, since even their full-length training runs take under 3 hours. And yet, having run one marathon, I'd say that it seemed to need more formal preparation and more exertion than a moderate pace century.
It really helps if your first century is an organized ride; they should have arranged food and water stops to help you, and you can even resort to the ignominious shame of a sag wagon. It would also give your training schedule a definite goal. (When riding on your own, you can plan your route so you can duck out early if you want to, although sometimes it feels better not to give yourself that option).
My first century was done in the middle of a weekend of camping when I rode about 40 miles there, did a 60 mile fast ride one day, and the century the next, I think. And the next day after that rode the 40 miles home (with tent and other gear) using a better route learned from the ride routes. I don't think I'd done much more than 50 mile rides prior that year, though occasional 75 mile rides some years moving myself between Toronto and Waterloo. But the particular year of my first century I'd been riding 25 miles, to West Montrose and back, almost every day, at about as fast a pace as I could manage. But I don't recall formal build-up to it, apart from that, so perhaps I was just doing the "week in a day" thing. On the 60 mile ride I'd kept up with club riders on my arbitrary ten-speed, and I thought almost nothing of the fact my elapsed time for the century ended up well under 8 hours, including a restaurant lunch.
If you did 12mph for 30miles, expect to do slower for 100, especially since you will need to stop for a proper food break. My last century, done last October, took 7:30 riding time and 9:05 elapsed, and I tend to ride 15mph or so for distances up to about 30 miles, which would give me less than 7 hours riding.
http://gtxfrefuge.freeforums.org/post71891.html#p71891
http://www.strava.com/activities/89073247 (strava links don't work fully properly for non-strava users right now...)
It was basically a 40mile ride, an hour brunch, then a 60mile ride. I had a couple of snack breaks in the latter part, too. Plus an emergency snack soon before the brunch.
You might want to build up your speed. Traditionally intervals are suggested for this; almost sprinting for a short burst, then going very easy for a recovery period. Over the years I tended to build up speed by picking one section of my rides where I'd ride closer to time trial effort than the rest; about 5 miles seems a good distance for that stretch. Hopefully after a while doing that, your natural easy pace ends up being faster, and your long rides take less time without even really trying.
I'd say you should very soon now (next weekend) plan a 50 mile ride. If you feel all right, perhaps try even 75 the next weekend. But around there you are reaching the distance where you can't ride on one "fuel load". At 12mph, I'd guess you'd get pretty worn out towards the end of 50. And should eat around the 2 hour mark. And fit your bicycle with two water bottles if it isn't already. If you don't already have a bicycling snack preference, you should develop one. Find something healthy which you like and which is easy to carry and keeps well jammed into a pocket. And/or plot your routes around appropriate restaurant stops.
If you can ride both weekend days that might help if you are strong enough. First extend one day, then later extend both. Decide whether you'd rather have a Saturday warmup for a long Sunday, or a Sunday easy ride after the long Saturday. And even one short ride during the middle of the week makes it much easier to do weekend distance riding, but preferably you do a lot of mid-week distance too.
And, as long as you take it easy and eat and drink enough, I'd say you probably could jump from being comfortable with 50 straight to 100, realizing that it might take overall 10 hours or a little more. That might fit in better if you'd have difficulty scheduling a succession of increasing distance rides. The only caveat is that you could get comfortable with riding 50 without eating, and you won't be able to do that for 100. So 50 miles in the moring, a leisurely lunch, then 50 miles in the afternoon, and call it a century.
before I was activated, there were allusions to a blog; if you had blogs enabled, I could have put this post there, and posted a summary with a reference.