Originally Posted by
coldehammer
Not sure how you control adrenaline but if I had to redo the prep over from my first century, I would prep everything 2 nights before the big day. Get all your gear in order, make sure bike is in good standing. Anything bike-related, get it out of the way so that on the night before, you don't have to second guess things.
The day before, make sure you do something physical to aid in an early good night's sleep. The less cycling related decisions you need to make the night before, the better. Since you're doing 70 milers, I think you're in good shape. Just expect to be on the saddle for longer than you're used to. The last 20-30 miles is all mental (and some jello legs).
In my case I had 3 days of golf planned with out of town guests the 3 days immediately before the planned solo century. So it was 3 days off the bike, but at least I was moving around.
The morning of the ride (Sat) came up super cold (by local standards) and I was simply not prepared to start out at temps below 30 degrees. So I put it off a day and rode in somewhat better weather on Sunday.
The success and failure is documented here -
http://www.bikeforums.net/training-n...ng-cramps.html and discussed here -
http://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...my-target.html.
So for me the only thing worth changing (IMHO) is whatever it would take to avoid cramps. Maybe it was backing off more than I did. More likely it is just more time in the saddle. But I was within 5 to 10 miles of exceeding my objectives here (a kind way of saying that I did not exceed or meet my objectives).
dave