Strategy for a hilly century? Tell me I'm ready!

[fallstoclimb]

I'm registered for the Civil War Century in a month. Here's a description from the website:

"This hilly ride has about 10,816 feet of climbing with four mountain climbs and lots of up and down in between. This is a difficult ride. You must commit to training for this event. It should not be your first century. But, if you do get tired, you can bail out at 65 miles, skipping Gettysburg (and the last mountain climb) in favor of a scenic nine-mile descent back to the start/finish."

I am NERVOUS. I've done one century previously, but it was pretty flat and easy. I'm fitter now than I've ever been and I have been doing lots of hill work, but haven't had as much time as I'd like for long rides so haven't made it past 60 miles yet, and I haven't done anything near 11,000 feet of climbing in a day. I rode 330 miles in July, am hoping for 400 miles in August but since I'll have to start a taper towards the end I'm not sure if I'll hit that or not.

1) Tell me I'm ready for this. They sent out an email yesterday asking people not to do the ride if they aren't prepared LOL. How am I supposed to know I'm prepared?? And boy am I nervous about that 65 mile bail-out.

2) What would you aim for your longest ride to be before a century? For my other century, I think my longest ride was about 70 miles. I do wonder if I should be focused more on climbing than going long though. Pretty confident I could do a flat century today if I had to.

3) What should my day-of strategy be? I have this awful habit of getting competitive and picking riders to chase the whole ride, but my husband tells me I am not allowed to do that and I have to start slow, haha. However I'm more concerned about what my hill strategy should be, because there are a lot of hills -- should I go up them ridiculously easy to save my legs for later? Moderately easy? I also don't want to be out there all day, of course....

4) I'm thinking I'll aim for a very hard ride Sunday August 24th, and then just do my regular commute (11 miles roundtrip, 3 days/week) and the usual Saturday group ride in the two weeks before the ride on September 6th. Good strategy? I might skip some of my commute days that last week...

5) The ride is about an hour from where I live, and the century organizers have created a "practice route" that includes 2 of the major climbs. Should I do this beforehand or no? I can get a little mental about these things, so if I do it and its easy it would be a nice confidence booster, but if I'm really struggling I'll get even more nervous. I'm wondering if its better to not know *exactly* what I'm getting into.