Training for First Century
My husband and I are wanting to do a century. I've been doing a little reading and research about training and have a couple of questions.
First, should we be putting on some mileage during the week or is weekend-only training enough? I know that with running, you have to build up base miles plus some intervals during the week to prepare for distance and I'm assuming that a long bike ride like a century requires that as well. We've both done some 50-mile group rides with mostly weekend training rides, but I've noticed that when we've done longer weekend rides, say 65 miles, it gets harder - like some sort of line is crossed.
Second, my husband wants to do some club rides (to build up to the century) that sound a little out of our range of preparation. He says, "It's sagged, so if we can't finish they'll pick us up." I thought the idea of a SAG was that support would be provided (ie., extra water and maybe snacks would be carried and they'd carry things like a tire pump and patches and tools, etc.), but we shouldn't ride unless we were prepared to complete the whole thing. And since SAG support is from volunteers, the amount of support might vary from a lot to zero - and I assume that on an organized century ride there's more likely to be SAG support in place, but we still need to be well prepared for the full ride.
Anyway, just wondered what the experience was on these boards.
Deb
