Originally Posted by
JakiChan
I'm not the OP, but I'll be interested in the answers. In my case, my goal is the Aids LifeCycle next summer. 7 days, 545 miles, some climbing, usually 1 century and 1 near-century. My weekends have been booked lately, but I am trying to get in at least 50 miles a week at the moment. (Got the bike at the end of May.) On the weekends I can ride I'm working up to longer rides - trying a 45 mile ride this weekend, for example. The ALC training season don't really start until January with some pre-season training in September I think and I'm trying to be as ready as I can before that starts.
You're talking 80-miles a day for 7 days. If you want to be comfortable, you're going to need to get in miles more regularly/consistently. To explain this POV, I'm of the belief that regular, consistent riding does more for fitness than long--or even fast--miles. In other words, 200-miles ridden on 3-days throughout the week is not as effective as 200-miles ridden 5-6 days throughout the week.
Basically, replicate in practice what your event calls for. Since your event calls for 80-miles a day, I would aim to be at about 50-60 miles a day, 7 days in a row, about 3-weeks out. Replicate the event a couple times, meaning ride 7-days in a row without missing a day. Then take a day off the bike and don't worry about it for a couple weeks before doing the same effort again. Do that say 3-4 times prior and you should be good. The first one, don't pay attention to mileage/time. It won't matter if your daily mileage is identical. One day could be 40-miles, next 15, etc... Only start trying to replicate the event mileage as you get closer.