Pages

Friday, July 6, 2012

my first century ride

Last friday I completed my first century ride – my training plan was to execute an IronMan race rehearsal with 6hrs or 112 miles of riding followed by 1hr or 6 miles of running – whichever comes first for each.

Since there is a fair amount of climbing – I mapped out a course that would be around 100 miles, and have over 9,000 feet of climbing. 

Here’ is the route I took.

1st-century-map

and the elevation profile – both courtesy of Strava – complete detail here

1st-century-elevation

My approach was to ride this as close as I can to an IronMan paced effort.  Based on recent FTP tests,  and targeting 70% of that – my goal was to be around 205-220 watts.  I also broke the ride down into 30 minute segments, this way you closely watch you average/normalized power for a 30 minute window (or box) and don’t worry too much about what has already happened, or what is coming.  This  really helps to stay in the moment and not dwell on how long the ride really is.

I deliberately kept the first segment/30 minutes easy, then stayed steady from there, even during the hilly segments, I tried to keep it within my ranges.  Here’s how it unfolded.

Entire workout:

  Avg Max
Total miles   102.9
Total Time   6:02
Avgerage Power 206 511
Normalized Power 211  
Vi 1.7  
Cadence 85 121
Elevation Gain 8,747  
Speed 17.1 44.7
Temperature 84.6 102.2

With the temperature and humidity, the last 2 hours of the ride was really tough.  As I descended into Sperryville, the temperature went from 85 – 100 within 30 minutes and stayed there for the last 90 minutes.

Overall it was a great ride, it managed/conserved my energy well and executed my fueling well too.  I consumed the following. 

Total calories – 1,900 (316/hr)
                          20oz EFS Liquid Shot + 3 scoops EFS frruit punch in 26oz water
                          6x Hammer enduralytes 
                          approximately 150oz water (filled up twice during the ride)

The other thing to note about this ride was that I went into it with a fair amount of fatigue.  In the 3 days prior to this ride I had done the following:-

  • tuesday – hard swim
  • wednesday – bike FTP test
  • thursday – 2:30 long run – 18 miles

I think with the heat and accumulated fatigue, I managed to have a great long ride, one that sets me up well with 3 more weeks to go before Lake Placid.