How long between longer rides???

I got a newsletter from Activa today and one of the articles was on how long should you wait between Century rides. It rated the type of rider you are, how many century rides you have done, speed etc.
Using their ratings it says I probably need to take 6 -8 weeks between Century rides.

What are your thoughts on this. I know everyone is different but I would appreciate any info on this. I was thinking of trying to do an unsupported double metric before I took off on holidays in the second week of July but I now wonder if this would be too early after reading the Activa article.

Thanks TH:)

hmmmmm i would need a link to the article to be able to comment.... but if i'm supposed to wait 6-8 weeks between centuries... i'm in BIG trouble!

I think it depends more on your base than how fast you are. I'm doing at least one 125 mile ride a month, and during brevet season was riding at least 100 miles once a week! I felt full of energy and in the best condition ever in my life. Now I'm in more of a down season, but I still wouldn't hesitate to do a hundred mile ride once a week if I felt like it. That is what I like to be capable of as my base- going 100 miles and not being sore or exhausted when finished or the next day- and, in that condition, a 200 mile ride would be tiring, but certainly not out of the question.

I really don't understand why, if you're doing longish (60-80) mile rides as regular training, and a century or 200k every month or so, you need more than several days for recovery. What is supposed to happen in six or eight weeks, except you getting really de-conditioned if you're laying around recovering rather than riding???

Nanci

I think it depends on how far you had to stretch to do the century in the first place. I haven't done any organized centuries in a long time, but I used to participate in a ride that was 100 miles on Saturday and 100 miles on Sunday. So, two centuries in a row. I know I took a couple of easy days after that, but I was back up in the 60 to 80 miles ride range fairly quickly.

I just took a quick look through the journal from my cross-country tour to verify my memory. On that trip my daily mileage was usually between 50 and 80 miles - but there were days on end of 75 to 80 mile days. No, those aren't centuries. But I was pretty much riding my bike 50 to 80 miles a day with usually one rest day a week for 2 1/2 months. And that ride was unsupported, so I was hauling all of my gear with me on all of those miles.

I'd love to know what the basis is for saying you should only do a century once every 6 to 8 weeks. (I've seen that in publications too...) It seems to me that your own physical condition should be taken into consideration - as well as care to make sure that you'd nicely recovered from the previous effort with rest and food.

I'd go for it if I were you...

--- Denise

How did you feel after the LRRH? You looked great. For a first timer, I wouldn't do it the next weekend, but a 4 week periodization (take a week off and then build back up) would be fine. Since you aren't used to doing this mileage regularly, you should treat it as a major event but do want to maintain your current fitness.

Since your double will be unsupported, you don't have the time contraints. You don't need to worry about your pace the same way.

What route are you thinking of doing?

Activa? The yogurt? Or Active.com? I should go check my email.

i've done several hilly centuries (and over 100 miles) rides already this "season".... 3 VERY hilly ones in 3 weeks! then a "rest" with a less hilly century... then another hilly one.... etc etc etc!

if you are conditioned (speed means nothing IMO... i'm slow and i still do the harder, longer rides! just takes me longer!) then you can do centuries a week (or day) apart if you want!

I have never heard of a "need" to space centuries that far apart either. we're doing two in a row in August, and 10,000 people are doing the Seattle to Portland bikeride in a few weeks, and that's 2 days of 100 miles each.
and most of them are NOT in that good of a condition!

I'm reading the responses from everyone who rides centuries seemingly every weekend, did you do this when you first started riding these distances?

TrekHawk just rode her first century. She's been building up to the distance. What did you do at the same point in your cycling career?

Or did you start riding centuries every weekend after building up a consistent base over a period of time? Personally? I would have risked an overuse injury if I ramped up the work load that fast.

It takes one level of conditioning to ride one century. It takes another to ride back to back centuries.

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Originally Posted by caligurl

hmmmmm i would need a link to the article to be able to comment.... but if i'm supposed to wait 6-8 weeks between centuries... i'm in BIG trouble!

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Hey cali - with all your experience and miles you would be in a different category to me so your time between longer rides would be less.:)

ok! :)

but last year... when i was still a REAL newbie (less than a year of riding yet!) i did 3 hard rides in a two week period! i was just more saying YOU CAN DO IT! ya know... MOTIVATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Much depends on intensity and your level of experience, but a good guideline is that it takes one day for each one hour of an event to fully recover. This means if you ride a six hour century, it would take six days to recover. If you do a 14 hour ironman, give yourself 14 days to fully recover.

However, recovery doesn't mean sitting around on the couch. Typically, you want to do E-A-S-Y rides of no more than 90 minutes (so you don't stress your glycogen stores). Easy rides will actually speed recovery and help prevent deconditioning.

http://www.active.com/story.cfm?story_id=13162

This is the article the original poster was referring to.

I think Nanci hit the nail on the head... its about your base... as well as how quickly your body recovers.

If I did a metric century - I'd probably be up for another in a couple of weeks... thats because I have not ridden many long rides, my longest being a fortnight ago when I rode 83km.
A imperial century... a few more weeks again I am guessing... either way, my centuries would not be at my race-pace... I just don't have the endurance for that.

However, my son (17) and my partner (44) train 3-4 days on week days (50-90km), then ride a race on Saturday(30-45km), and then on Sunday they join a group of other likely lads (there are two females that join them occasionally) and they set off for a recovery/training ride. By the time they get back to the house Sunday lunch time, they have clocked up anywhere between 90km and 140km. Occasionally my partner has left my son at home and ridden extra on the Sunday to get in 160-190km...

So they would be fine to do one every week... as long as it wasn't at race pace. If it was race pace I think it would be every 2-3 weeks (by race pace I mean my partner would average somewhere between 38-42km at least, depending on hills and wind).

You really need to be aware of what your body has done, and ask it to perform accordingly.

Ah... Velo posted as I was... good advice too, Velo

I've heard velogirl's rule of thumb before, and find that a lot more reasonable.

I haven't been road cycling for a year yet. I had a gradual build up from a long ride of 30 miles, one day a week (with shorter rides the other days) to 375 miles one day/week (actually, that took two days!!) over a period of seven months. Since that longest ride, I have scaled back to much less total mileage, and shorter long rides. I will begin to build up again in January, starting with a base of long ride of 125 miles as my longest ride per month, with about a 200 mile/week total. I don't ever want to fall below being able to ride 100 miles one day/week if I want to.

So, even though I put in a lot of miles/hours- I'm still a newbie in terms of years of road cycling!

The article talks about what percentage of your weekly mileage the 100 mile ride is. If you're putting in 200 miles/week, then, it's not as stressful as if your weekly mileage is 100 miles a week. (But, if you're in the process of training properly for a long ride, hopefully you'd be doing a 70-80 mile ride as your long ride of the week, with three-four days of shorter rides.)

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Originally Posted by SadieKate

How did you feel after the LRRH? You looked great. For a first timer, I wouldn't do it the next weekend, but a 4 week periodization (take a week off and then build back up) would be fine. Since you aren't used to doing this mileage regularly, you should treat it as a major event but do want to maintain your current fitness.

Since your double will be unsupported, you don't have the time contraints. You don't need to worry about your pace the same way.

What route are you thinking of doing?

Activa? The yogurt? Or Active.com? I should go check my email.

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Hey SK - LOL - sorry about the typo yes its definitely active.com not the yoghurt.

Haven't sorted a route yet but it will be something fairly flat. My knees have been feeling pretty good so Im going to increase my hill riding slowly.

Thanks for all the info girls. I really am a beginner at riding this sort of distance so I definitely need a bit of a break between longer rides. Its interesting all the info out there. I have been reading a few different cycling books lately so I could be quoting the wrong one but I think it was The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling where they said you should not even attempt a double century until you have been riding for three years. Now I wasnt thinking of a double anytime soon but now at least I have a good excuse.:)