Bicycling Magazine's Century Training Program by Marla Streb

Author:Marla Streb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale
Published: 2005-05-14T04:00:00+00:00

Perkiness doesn’t come naturally to me. Dave’s plan called for a 50-mile ride today. We didn’t have that much farther to go, but to get over this hump, our ride needed a jolt of something. So I put on a sort of perky, “You’re more than halfway through your 100-Day Century Ride Training Plan!”

“I’m aware of that. I was the one who spreadsheeted it, remember?”

“Yesss,” I shusshed back, “I know. Doesn’t do me any good. I can’t open them up on my iBook.” Today I had nothing in my legs. Just full of cement. Could have whacked my kneecaps with a hammer and felt nothing.

“Macs are for kids. Grow up.”

Right now I wasn’t feeling so chipper. So for that last crack of his, I just decided to drop him for a while. At least for a good 5 minutes. Maybe 10. I shifted all the way down on my cog set so that I was in my biggest gear. My legs had no zip, but I can always count on my ability to grind and mash beyond the point of sensible sensation.

I love my iBook. On it I can watch DVDs. Do all my business. I log all my music into it, which makes it easy to keep my iPod fresh. True, I get some files from e-mails that I can’t open with my iBook. Nobody can read the stuff that I send them, because the indents are all off, the boldface missing, and the punctuation screwed up. Forget about photos. Dave is right in a way. It’s tough living in a Windows world.

Dave is supposed to ride the 50 miles today the way he expects to ride during his Century … warm up during the first few miles and then slip into zone 2 for the long stretch. Be able to respond well during the climbs. If he’s feeling good, bring it home the last half of the ride in zone 3 with bursts of zone 4 if he thinks he can win some draft beer primes. Dave should be able to comfortably and confidently ride the second half of today’s 50 miles at a faster clip than the first. That’s a negative split. He should be finishing strong, feeling like he could do it all over again after just refilling his water bottle with some Gatorade and grabbing a Clif Bar.

The reality of my ride today was more like 100 miles and change, when the commute back to the city is added in. The 50 miles in the middle was just supposed to be saddle time. I planned on pulling Dave most of the way. Pulling him along was part of my workout. Zones 3 and 4. I know, not a very scientific training technique, but sometimes you have to concede bike riding is very elemental. Training to ride for long distances requires that you sometimes ride for long distances. After the meat of the ride, I could handle a cooldown the length of Charles Street all the way to the harbor and home.

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