Hey, you know what I just thought of? Is the course somewhere where you can drive it first? (or pre-ride sections in the weeks ahead?)

A while ago I posted an article about Tim Noake's "Central Governor Theory" which is basically, not all your muscle fibers are allowed, by your brain, to work at one time. It's about 30% of them. How your brain doles them out is by a pre-set distance that you plan on going. If you exceed that distance, your brain makes you feel tired even before you actually are, because your brain planned on going, say, 60 miles and you find out, unexpectedly, that you really have to go 65. Because the brain didn't plan, at the beginning, to go 65 miles, it has been letting you use more muscle fibers at a time than if you had planned to go the further distance, so it tries to save your strength by sending a "tired" message. Same thing happens when there is an unexpected obstacle, like a long or steep hill you didn't know about. The brain says "Oh, I didn't budget for this, I will make her feel tired so she goes more slowly, so she will have enough energy to make it to the end." Noakes says that the best thing you can do is pre-drive the course, so there won't be any surprises, so your brain will allow you to use the most muscle fibers at once. This is also why it is possible for runners/cyclists to have a great sprint at the end of a race- the brain "sees" the end in sight, and releases muscle fibers it had been holding in reserve, for an all-out effort.

So- I think you will have a better chance of completing the ride if, optimally, you can pre-drive it, or if you can't do that, gather as exact a description of the course as possible (such as provided by Susan) from others who have ridden it.

Nanci