A
Al Kubeluis
Guest
Hi Bikers, When riding a century, I tend to go out too fast and suffer in the last 20 or 30 miles.
It's really hard to let upright pace lines go by. So today I did a 48 mile non-stop training ride at
a steady even pace avoiding the temptation to ride hard in the first half especially. Not looking at
speedometer mph except occasionally helped. (I plan to tape over the mph so as to not get caught up
in trying to keep up a certain mph.) Heart rate monitor really helps in guaging effort.
Out-and-back course was constant throughout (flat, little wind, but rain last hour). Following
statistics show that my performance did degrade in only 48 miles even though riding rather
comfortably. For 100 miles, the degradation would be large.
interval interval interval interval time avg hr avg mph perceived effort
1:00 131=74% 18.5 comfortable
2:00 143=81% 18.1 comfortable for 0:30 :39 151=85% 17.1 slightly hard
Although I've been doing interval training at higher speed and hr levels and rides up to 113
miles since February, I still have a long way to get in century shape, especially for a
hilly century.
Getting to a level of conditioning is half the equation. Riding the right pace for a
conditioning level and a ride is the other half of the equation for optimum performance.
--
~~~al.kubeluis..md.usa.earth.sun.milkyway.virgo.universe..corsa~~~
It's really hard to let upright pace lines go by. So today I did a 48 mile non-stop training ride at
a steady even pace avoiding the temptation to ride hard in the first half especially. Not looking at
speedometer mph except occasionally helped. (I plan to tape over the mph so as to not get caught up
in trying to keep up a certain mph.) Heart rate monitor really helps in guaging effort.
Out-and-back course was constant throughout (flat, little wind, but rain last hour). Following
statistics show that my performance did degrade in only 48 miles even though riding rather
comfortably. For 100 miles, the degradation would be large.
interval interval interval interval time avg hr avg mph perceived effort
1:00 131=74% 18.5 comfortable
2:00 143=81% 18.1 comfortable for 0:30 :39 151=85% 17.1 slightly hard
Although I've been doing interval training at higher speed and hr levels and rides up to 113
miles since February, I still have a long way to get in century shape, especially for a
hilly century.
Getting to a level of conditioning is half the equation. Riding the right pace for a
conditioning level and a ride is the other half of the equation for optimum performance.
--
~~~al.kubeluis..md.usa.earth.sun.milkyway.virgo.universe..corsa~~~