Training for a metric century

[Plainsman]

I'm about to do my second metric century. First was last week, tough, but finished 66 miles and about 4500ft. of climbing.

Here's my question: I'm going to be pretty much restricted to the trainer for the next week, and am wondering how often and how much time to ride it leading up to Saturday. This weekend should give me about 4700 ft. of climbing, and after 66 miles on a double last week I was on empty at the end. Suggestions?

[Az B]

Before a century, I usually taper mileage and intensity the week of the century and take the two days before off.

Everybody is different, but I would err on the side of too much rest.

Az

[operator]

You already did one metric, another should be no problem unless you were really struggling with the first.

[lws]

How much rest you need before a long ride depends a little bit on how old you are and how much riding you have done already this year. If you're in your twenties, one rest day before the long ride should be enough. Otherwise more - though given that you're just riding the trainer perhaps one will be enough in this case. You can't do long, grueling rides on the trainer, it would drive you batty. So you do short, intense workouts. I favor two intense half-hours, one in the morning and one in the early evening. Five minutes warm-up, twenty-minutes high-intensity riding (that is, you should be breathing hard and sweating profusely) and then five minutes cool-down. Do that for five days, then for every day (one or two) until your metric, you just do two low-intensity sessions on the trainer every day. Fifteen minutes each, not pushing it, just enough that you start to feel warm.

[DannoXYZ]

Yeah, it really does depend upon your fitness and previous month of workouts. Beginners may need a week of tapering before a metric century with maybe a sprint and interval days in the week before, but no big miles. A more trained rider with about 1-year of riding under their belts don't need any special prep, they should be doing a metric-century every weekend for training anyway (along with sprints, intervals, hill-intervals, hill-climbs during the week beforehand).

[Plainsman]

Thanks all, sounds like a reasonable workout on the trainer each morning and Friday off will be the ticket for this one. I appreciate the advice!

[deadly downtube]

a race? or just, riding 66mi?