Life After Your First Century
 

Last season was spent in focus and training for my first Century Ride which was completed (yay) last August. This year I'm wondering if I want to train for going a 125 or maybe even a 150mi ride. Or, since my conditioning is alread 2mos ahead of where I was last year at this time maybe I should stay with the Century and do a faster pace?

Of course, the faster pace will have to be part of the 125 and/or 150 if I hope to finish before dark :D

What did you do after your first Century, did you try for a better time or did you try for more miles?

After my first century, my goal was to do more centuries.

After my first century I worked on hill climbing. Then I descended into the Blue Funk and stopped altogether. Now I'm trying my first metric century in 2 years on Saturday. I'm under the delusion I'll do RAIN but that depends on how my Redbud Ride goes.

More of them:

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/h...eenShot094.jpg

See how many you can do in one month.

Me too, just wanted to do more centuries.

Have you signed up the The RedBud?
I am thinking about riding it.

After my first century, I was satisfied that I could do it and had no more interest in subjecting myself to them. At the 70 mile mark I remember my complete boredom and would have stopped riding then except that completing it was the fastest way back to the car.

Yes, the Green Route.

My first century was a 200K. After that I wanted to do more miles so I trained for a double century.

I've slacked off on my training the last year or so, but I'd like to get to the point where I can ride a century a month.

Just off the top of my training list this year I'd really like to significantly increase my avg speeds over the course of middle distance rides....say, up to the metric century. A fast 100k would really rock.

If you can ride a century, riding a double metric century is something you can do without additional training. There is only a 24 mile difference.

After my 1st Century (vivabikevegas over the new Hoover Dam bypass) I decided to work on going faster. I ended up getting hurt and spent 8 months off the bike. Whatever you choose, stay safe and within your limits. 35 years old was a long time ago. I am improving my speed and C?v again. But at my age can't afford to go backwards.

Define Fast?

This is such a good idea I wish I had thought of it myself. And yet, I did think of it myself.

Check this out: http://www.rusa.org/cgi-bin/clubsearch_PF.pl Edit- this link was supposed to show the Michigan clubs only. Just enter MI in the club search thingy.

There are a gazillion randonneuring clubs in Michigan. Connect up with one and try a few 200K brevets (bruvays for you).

I focused on miles-per-month. This helped me build a better fitness base.

Then I completed a 200k and rode a 144 mile day-trip.

Then I focused on hilly century events, including the Horribly Hilly Hundred and the Dairyland Dare.

Then I worked on speed with the goal of holding 19 mph for 50 miles.

None of this will get me into the Olympics, but I've lost 50 pounds over the last few years and improved my quality-of-life substantially.

That's mighty impressive! A tip of the hat to you.

You expect me to remember? My first century was in 1978 and I have no idea what I wanted back then!

My first double century was in 1984 and after that I wanted to do a triple century, so I did that in 1985.

My first California double was 2003 and after that I wanted to do two more to earn my Triple Crown, which I did (Davis, Grand Tour, Knoxville).

Then I wanted to get into the Thousand Mile Club at the Triple Crown, so I rode five doubles in 2004 (Solvang, Hemet, Davis, Grand Tour, Knoxville).

Then I wanted to get into the Hall of Fame (50 California Doubles), which I did last year. Double Century stats here:
http://www.caltriplecrown.org/Double...rID=729&ClubID=

So now I've gone back to riding centuries with 4 so far this year and my first double of the year (Solvang Spring) coming up March 24th.

Rick / OCRR

For me a century is time to get together with friends and enjoy the day. Couldn't care less about time.

And that's where I left off last year but this year I may want to go beyond the Century. For me, there is zero magic to the metric century and doing two of them may not, either.

Did the "going fast" have something to do with getting hurt? What happened (if you dont mind sharing)?

You can go longer distances than a century. I have done some of those. But for me, it seems that when I have gone 100 miles, I have had all the fun I am going to have on the bike that day.

Like Rick, my first century was in the late 70's also but then, I gave up cycling for several decades starting in the late 80's.

I did my first organized century since then in early Jan although I did a couple of informal 90 to 100 mile rides last year. I also did Ragbrai which averaged about a metric century every day for a week.

At the end of the Jan century, I told my partner that if we were doing a 200-km event that day, I could do it but it would be a struggle. On that century, we did play around a bit chasing each other down, pushing ourselves occasionally and generally lacking discipline around our pace.

From there, we tackled a 300-km brevet and our key was to recognize it as just a long ride with a good friend where our goal was to manage 15 mph while moving. We ended up a little higher than that and finished mid-pack of the other riders. For the most part, on local "training" rides around my part of town, I seek to maintain a 20-mph overall average. For my typical weekend "training" out-and-back of 48 miles, I can usually end up at 20 mph average if the wind isn't too bad. 15 mph for brevets seems like a good compromise for our longer events.

I did a 200-km event without my partner. After a 300, the 200 was relatively easy. I rode with another group and again, we were mid-pack finishers although I did soft-pedal the last 20 miles to maintain a team atmosphere with the group that we were riding with.

From there, we stepped it up to 400-km last weekend. I learned a few lessons around comfort (ie warmth), nutrition and eye care but at no time were we in danger of not finishing the ride. We beat our finishing time goal by 10-minutes at 19:50. We had a fair amount of win but the best part of the ride were the rollers going into Gila Bend where we had the wind at our backs. We were going 25-30 mph for about 10 miles. Fun/fun/fun but I was concerned that we were putting too much effort out entirely too early in the ride.

I'll do another 200-km event on the 24th of this month and then we'll tackle a 600 in April. If all goes well, we may tackle another 600 in June just for the heck of it and we've scheduled for a 1200 in Sept.

So, I suppose there is life after centuries and if I can do it, anyone can. I hate to sound like a heretic but my bicycle makes it relatively easy for me to pull this off.

Some of my first centuries were 5:30 times. Not really slow so working on speed wasn't a concern. I hit up a century with 10,000 ft of climbing for more of a challenge. After the frist run on this century, then I decided to improve my speed on this one since it was a timed event.:D

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2508/3...7aae20fe15.jpg
Bear by gulpxtreme, on Flickr

Yes. All of the above. Or whatever sounds interesting to you. There's no mandatory progression.

I wanted to do a century and not be totally beat at the end of it. Then I wanted to do a harder century (more climbing). Then I wanted to do it faster. Then I wanted to race.

Now I'm to the point where finishing a century is not a big deal- it's not much longer than many of my training rides.