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I just signed up for Team in Training and my race is in October in Florida. The race is a century, can someone tell me how many miles I will be riding? Any advice on how often I should train and how long? I guess the program will give me some guidlines on my training but Im sure there is someone with first had experience to let me know what I got myself into. :)
Well, Dana, my dear, you have signed yourself up to ride 100 miles in one day. That's what a century means in bicycling terms. There are also half-centuries (50 miles) and metric centuries (approx. 62-65 miles). But a no-kidding century is the full 100 miles.
I must admit that my longest yet is the metric, but loads of people do centuries all the time, so while they're challenging, they're not exactly superhuman.
Get hold of "A Woman's Guide to Cycling" by Susan Weaver--she offers some training schedules for riders preparing to do a century. Most of all, HAVE FUN!
--J
Once you get the century under your belt, you can move up to the Double Centuries (200 miles in one day). We have loads of them out here in California. See www.caltriplecrown.com for more information on Double Centuries.
To train, you should try to increase your weekly and maximum daily mileage by about 10 percent per week. It should take about 7 weeks to double your mileage. Thus it should take about 21 weeks to get from 12.5 miles per day (maximum) to 100 miles per day (maximum), and another 7 weeks to get from a century to a double-century. A good value for the weekly mileage is about 2-1/2 times your maximum daily mileage, although when you get up into the higher numbers, you probably won't have the time to ride 250+ miles per week, so just do the best you can.