Going stupidly into a century on crap mileage - doable?

[limewave]

Zoom--I do a lunch time ride on Thursdays if you want to meet up. It's only about 25 miles, because I have to get back to work. Let me know if you are interested and I'll send you the details. I'm also hoping to do about a 2 hour ride on Sunday morning/early afternoon.

DH and I have a hard time balancing our schedules too. We both feel like this 100 XC race is pushing us over the edge. Both of us are feeling guilty about taking time away from the kids, each other, the house . . . It's a difficult balancing act.

Hang in there! And I think 6 weeks is plenty of time to train for a century (at least it better be because I'm hoping 4 weeks is enough time for me ). You have a solid base of endurance and strength from your half marathon training. I find that transfers pretty well over to the bike.

[Jiffer]

As for the century, you can certainly do it, but you may be in pain and you probably won't be as strong throughout as you'd like to be. Cardiovascularly you'd probably be fine because of your running, though. I say train for it and see how you feel as you get closer. Look for other centuries that are after this one and if you don't feel ready for this one, then do one of those. Is there a half or metric option for this first one?

As for riding alone, I have a few thoughts. One is to talk to your husband about giving you at least one day a week, preferably on your long riding day. You might remind him that this is about more than exercise and training. It's also about your marriage and doing things together. Whether its cycling or something else, you really should have something you share together. You might have to both compromise to figure out when you can do that one long ride a week, since the day you want to do it might be on a day he typically does a long mountain bike ride with his buddies. Try to be flexible and hopefully he will too. Also, try not to be irritated during the conversation. Be sweet and tell him you miss riding with him and would love it if he would do this for you.

Another option, of course, is to find another riding buddy. I have both my husband and a good friend of mine who have been riding buddies. My husband is so much stronger than me that I can't do every ride with him. There are some rides he'll do all the pulling on the flats and wait for me at the top of hills. He can stay in his big ring and get a better workout at a slower pace. Sometimes he'll do a lot of standing. And I can do his recovery rides with him, but when he wants to go all out, there's no point. And he's not going to want to ride my pace every time (though for a while there I was at a level where it wasn't such a vast difference.) But we do enjoy riding with each other for certain rides and having that "thing" we share. We have done a lot of events together where we didn't really "ride" together on the event, but we prepared for it the day before, went and ate our pre-event meal, loaded the truck and traveled there and back together, and shared our ride stories.

However, the person I rode the most with was my friend Dawn. (I say "rode" because between my health issues and her new job, we haven't really ridden together in a year . . . but that's about to change drastically!) Anyway, we rode 3 to 5 times a week together for a couple of years, sometimes with our husbands, but mostly just the two of us. We were great training partners and motivated each other to get out on days one of us didn't really feel up to it. I'm the one who got her into cycling. She had been a runner, but after some nagging I convinced her to give cycling a try and she's so glad she did. Maybe you have a friend you could "suck in" to cycling?

If not, I also have a cycling club I ride with. Do you have a cycling club in your area? Mine is all levels. They regroup at the top of climbs, etc. They offer various ride options. On Sundays they have a women's only ride. While the majority of the rides are during typical "non-work" hours (Sat/Sun morning and Tue/Thur evening), a small group formed to start doing rides on Wednesday mornings. I have done those a few times, but since I had my riding buddy, we often just did our own thing. If I didn't have her, I would have certainly done those rides more and may start doing them soon since my buddy now has an 8-5 job (which SUCKS!). Also, I got hooked up with a women's only group that rode on Wednesday nights, different from my cycling club.

There are people out there to ride with. You just have to find them. Search the internet and/or start asking around at your local bike shops. Your husband found people to ride with. So can you!!!

[Jiffer]

By the way, I also ditto the comment on riding close to home if you have to ride alone and don't feel comfortable getting too far away. Do loops close to your house. If you can do that a couple of times a week and one long ride with your husband further from home, that might be a reasonable compromise. But I still say you should work to find a good riding buddy and/or group, club, etc.

[zoom-zoom]

Zoom--I do a lunch time ride on Thursdays if you want to meet up. It's only about 25 miles, because I have to get back to work. Let me know if you are interested and I'll send you the details. I'm also hoping to do about a 2 hour ride on Sunday morning/early afternoon.

Funny...those are actually the 2 days/week when I am guaranteed mileage. Thurs. nights a friend of ours south of GH does an organized ride from his house and Sundays are JDRF team training days.

[zoom-zoom]

However, the person I rode the most with was my friend Dawn. (I say "rode" because between my health issues and her new job, we haven't really ridden together in a year . . . but that's about to change drastically!) Anyway, we rode 3 to 5 times a week together for a couple of years, sometimes with our husbands, but mostly just the two of us. We were great training partners and motivated each other to get out on days one of us didn't really feel up to it. I'm the one who got her into cycling. She had been a runner, but after some nagging I convinced her to give cycling a try and she's so glad she did. Maybe you have a friend you could "suck in" to cycling?

If not, I also have a cycling club I ride with. Do you have a cycling club in your area?

We do have a Tues. night women's ride that meets 20 or so minutes from my house, I've just not been able to fit it into the schedule yet this year. It always seems like there's some conflict on Tues. nights.

I have a friend like Dawn. She desperately wants to start mountain biking, since her boyfriend enjoys it and she wants something to do other than just run (we met through running). She's really struggling to come up with the cash for a decent bike, though. I wish I could buy her one and just tell her to pay me back when she can. It would help if her ex would actually pay his child support...her car needs brake work and she's not been able to have it done, thanks to that doofus.

Thanks again for all of your great support and advice, ladies. It's reassuring just knowing that so many of us deal with similar frustrations.

[Catrin]

Whatever you decide to do Zoom-Zoom, I know you will be awesome and have a great time.

I have to ride by myself if I want to ride - trail or road. I am just too slow and I've ridden by myself so long now that I am uncomfortable riding with others. There is no other choice so I just learned to do it. I can certainly understand not wanting to do it if you have a choice in the matter, and I am sure you can work something out with your DH when he understands how important it is to you.

I am trying to change that for myself this summer, trying to make myself get over the shyness and go to group rides, and to at least ask friends who happen to be cyclists if they would like to go on an occasional ride. Part of me hates to ask since my speed is so slow (<14mph) but it would be nice sometimes