Starting Point
During the 2011 Cool Breeze Century in Ventura, California, I met a cyclist who signed up for the century ride three months earlier. She was not a cyclist at the time and was a couch potato. She was finishing the 100-mile route with only three months of training. Riding a century ride is an excellent measurement of your health, fitness, and determination. But it is not an impossible task. With proper training and a decent bicycle and gear, riding a century ride with three to two months of training is possible.I will lay out a training plan assuming that you are riding up to 40 to 50 miles per week at this point, with a long ride of 30 miles on the weekend. If you ride a little less than 40 miles per week, there is still time. It will take more determination and work. However, it is possible. If you ride more than 40 miles per week, then you can accelerate the training schedule and perform even better during the century ride. The goal is to complete the century within 4 to 8 hours, which is equivalent to 25 miles per hour to 12.5 miles per hour.
Strength Training
Beyond riding more and more miles, simple exercises will strengthen your core muscles that will help you ride the additional miles. Core training is broader than abdominal training. Training your core includes your abdominal muscles plus your trunk and lower back muscles. A stronger core will stabilize you on your bicycle and help you focus your effort on your legs. A strong core will also contribute to reducing, or eliminate, lower back pain and painful hands.Cyclists frequently focus on working on their leg muscles like quadriceps, hamstrings, and gluteal muscles. Having strong and toned leg muscles are a cycling status symbol. However, a strong core helps the cyclist balance the upper body keeping the bicycle still and the cyclist’s legs and hips. Whether, on the flats or even going uphill, the bike stays still and straight, and the focus of your body’s effort is through the pedals. During the winter when I cannot go bike riding after work due to the time change, I will work on my core at the gym. With abdominal crunches, back extensions and vertical chair knee raises, I strengthened my core and my climbing efforts have become easier over the last two seasons.
Abdominal Crunches
Lie face up on the floor with your knees bent. Place your hands behind your head and then bring your chest toward your knees. Do three sets of ten. A variation of this exercise is the bicycle crunch. The start of the exercise is the same as the abdominal crunches, but you bring one of your knees toward your chest while you bring your opposite elbow forward to touch your knee.Vertical Chair Knee Raises
Over the past two winters, I went to the gym during the week. At the gym, I performed vertical chair knee raises, or captain’s chair leg raises, which has strengthened my hip flexors and lower abdominal muscles. With stronger hip flexors, I can pull up on my pedals better and sometimes I can give my quadriceps a rest and use other leg muscles and hip flexors. To perform these leg raises, I get into the vertical chair and lift my legs together, pulling my knees toward my chest. I will do three sets of 10 leg raises with a 10 to 20-pound dumbbell held between my feet.Back Extensions
Back extensions make your lumbar, or lower, back muscles stronger. Stronger lumbar muscles help support your gluteus muscles that in turn will help you pull the pedals up from the six o’clock position to the eleven o’clock position.Lie face down on the back extension machine with your legs behind the pads at the base of the machine. Lean forward, bending at the waist until your upper torso and legs form a 90-degree angle, then return your upper body to the start position. Perform this movement 10 to 20 times depending on your fitness. You can hold a weight if your back supports it.
As an alternative to the gym, you can do back extensions on the floor. Lie face down on the floor with your hands behind your head. Slowly lift your chest and head off of the floor and then return to the floor. Perform this 10 to 20 times depending on your fitness.
Planks
The plank is one of the more popular core exercises, engaging your abs, legs, and glutes. Start the plank in a modified push-up position, holding your body up with your elbows instead of your hands. Try to hold a flat and level position on your feet and elbows for 30 seconds. Try to increase your plank holding time to 2 minutes, from 30 seconds, in 15 seconds increments per week.Rides
Endurance Ride
The endurance ride is the long ride of the week. Starting at 28 miles and gradually increasing the miles ridden to 70 miles should be enough for many centuries, especially the flatter centuries. I typically will ride up to 65 to 70 miles in the two weeks just prior to a century ride. For century rides with significant hills and steep climbs, the hill climbing rides should be mixed in with the endurance rides to build up your climbing skills.Interval Ride
Cyclists do not love the interval ride. An interval involves riding as hard and fast as you can for a defined period and then slowing to a cruising speed to recover and then repeat. Intervals increase your cardiovascular fitness and leg strength. Two or three interval rides for up to approximately one hour will provide a benefit over the long term. Your heart rate will decrease while you maintain the same speed and your legs will feel stronger, especially climbing hills.Strength Ride
Strength rides are hill climbing rides. If you select a century ride that has a lot of climbing on the route, then you should perform these hill climbing rides as much or more than the endurance rides. Your hill climbing ride could include the hills that are a part of the century ride if the century ride is nearby or include hills that are similar to the ones on the century route. I trained for the Santa Barbara Century by repeatedly going up the big climb of the ride four out of the five weeks prior to the ride. This practice helped me make the big climb of the ride much more manageable.Recovery Ride
The recovery is an easy ride that primarily loosens your stiff legs a day or so after an endurance ride. It is important to keep your effort around 60% of your Functional Threshold Power (FTP). Initially, your muscles will feel sore, but as the recovery ride continues, your muscles will feel better. This ride will help your legs feel better sooner, rather than waiting for your legs feel better on their own.Training Plan
The following plan is a one version of a training plan for you to follow. If you are cycling fewer miles per week than what is listed in the table below than you would want to start a few weeks sooner and then add up the miles. If you are riding more miles than you can either shorten the training period or increase the mileage and perform even better, perhaps reducing your completion time.
Cadence
Working on your cadence is as important as increasing the distance that you ride on a weekly basis. Over the last 20 years, pro cyclists have switched to spinning their pedals at a rate of up to 90 to 100 revolutions per minute. Spinning the pedals at 90 rpms in a lower gear will shift your cycling effort to more of a cardiovascular effort than mashing your pedals with your quadriceps at 70 rpms. The key to increasing your cadence to 90 rpms or above requires that you carefully monitor your bike computer while on your rides. Naturally, hill climbing will impose a lower rpm than riding on the flats.Position
Since completing a century ride will take up to 8 hours, you should focus on your position. First, weeks before riding on the century ride, be sure that your riding position is correct. You do not want to have your arms locked, which would transfer vibrations directly from the front wheels to your upper body. You also need to make sure that only your ‘sit bones’ or Ischial Tuberosity, the bony projections at the bottom of your pelvis are resting on your saddle. Fundamentally, you should have had a professional bike fitting at your local bike shop or schedule one at the beginning of the season if you have not had a professional bike fitting yet. A bike fit will put you in the best position on your bike, adjusting the position of your saddle, handlebar and pedals to an optimum position. An improved position on your bicycle may reduce the amount of pain that you may experience as well.
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