Once You Ride A Century It All Changes!

[itself]

Ever since I did the Tour de Tucson 109 mile ride, long rides just do not bother me any more. I have not ridden for a month due to I'llness, and went out for a 40 mile ride yesterday. It was glorious! And too boot, I am not sore a bit today.

I think the mental challenge of centuries and brevets is the real challenge.

Anyone experience the same thing?

[pll]

Pain sometimes depends on the ride. Living in Flatlandia, if I do a hilly ride, I will be in some pain and with tight muscles by the end of it. However, there is an important mental component, and knowing you can do it helps a lot.

Same holds true for long flights: once I did a Chicago to Hong Kong direct flight (~16 hours), flights to Europe or South America seem short by contrast. Before, I would start getting really bored and uncomfortable after only 6 hours.

[nscrbug]

I guess I must be "different". I have been routinely doing rides of distances between 40-70 miles since the start of March, but I still find the thought of a 100-mile ride looming in my future, to be very challenging. And mind you...I've ridden well over a dozen century rides since I embarked on this cycling hobby 4 years ago, so I wouldn't exactly consider myself a "newbie" to centuries. I rode 65-miles yesterday, and 67 miles today...yet as of this moment right now, riding 100 seems almost impossible to me. I looked back on my Garmin stats last night, and we rode our 1st 100-miler of the season last year on May 1st. That's like a week away but I don't see myself being ready to ride 100 by then. Which kind of discourages me a bit. But then again, I go through this "mental block" sort of thing at the beginning of every riding season. We get up to riding a certain distance (say 60-70 miles) on a fairly consistent basis (a month or so) and then I feel like I can't get past that distance. Even though I know that I can and will. It's so weird.

Linda

[pll]

Just in case, 100 miles still seems daunting to me. But 100km seem very reasonable (in warmer weather than today!), by contrast. The last couple of years I have not done 100 mile rides: each of my centuries left me too tired, and took me too long.

[Crankin]

I've done one century; something has stopped me from doing one again. In fact, each year, I seem to do less and less longer 50+ mile rides, but yet, I have done more total miles for each year since.
Part of my problem is my refusal to "train" for such events. Most of my riding is pretty hilly and I use that as my training; anything else I know I can suffer through. I also don't want riding to become a chore.
I am thinking, though, that I will do a century again, this year. It's been 6 years.

[Catrin]

My first year cycling was 2010, and I had a goal of doing a 200k brevet at the end of October - in "training" for that I wound up with several over-use injuries that took me off the bike entirely for about 5 months - and the closest I ever got that year was 75 miles.

Last year I refused to "train". The furthest I rode on the road last year was 45 miles at one time and I didn't regret that, but I was also spending a lot of time learning how to mountain bike. This year I would like to do a couple of metrics along with my trail riding, but I've no goals for a longer ride than that - if it happens then it happens

I would LIKE to do a full century - but I've got to learn how to "train" for it without allowing my OCD tendencies to take over. I would like to think I wouldn't do that and would pay attention to my body but I know me. Perhaps if I had someone to do it with I could overcome that, but I don't see that happening unless I get faster - and with my riding position I just don't see that

[Becky]

I agree that a huge part of long rides is mental. For me, the mental game starts somewhere around 80% complete, regardless of ride length. It happens with metric centuries, with imperial centuries....distance doesn't matter, I just want to be DONE.

No centuries last year...maybe I'll do one this year. For me, metrics are the perfect distance- long enough to be a "long ride" and short enough to leave me with energy for the rest of the day.