- 100 miles, a century, it's like the benchmark distance
of our sport and if you've done one before,
I can pretty much guarantee you will remember it well.
Although, weirdly, Emma does maintain that she's never done
100 miles. - Hang on, hang on.
I've done the distance it's just that,
I don't call it 100 miles, I call it 161 kilometers,
because I prefer metric.
- All right, well fair enough, 100 miles, a century,
a ton, 161 kilometers, whatever you wanna call it,
it is a real landmark achievement
and if you've not done it yet, then keep watching
'cause we're gonna tell you exactly how to prepare for
and then do your first 100 miles.
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- So how do you go about that training then?
Well the first thing to do, when getting ready
for any milestone, is to actually choose a date
on which to do it.
And a good tip here would be to get online, do a bit
of research and actually pick a proper, organized event
for your first 100 miles.
That way, you'll get the benefit
of feed stations along the way
and the support of other riders that you'll be doing it with
that can give you a bit of friendly encouragement
and of course help share the pace making.
- The other thing you might want to consider,
when planning your first century,
is what kind of roads you want to be riding on,
I mean, although a mountain epic with thousands of meters
of climbing might seem inviting,
it also might not be the best choice
for your first sportive
I mean it's actually literally easier to ride 100 miles
on the flat than in the mountains,
so you might want to consider choosing a sportive
that's on roads similar to the ones around where you live,
because you're likely to be best adapted to riding
on that kind of terrain.
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- Once you've decided on the date of your 100 mile ride,
you need to work out how much time you've actually got
to prepare before the big day.
The good news is there are lots of different ways
that you can actually do that.
Perhaps the easiest of which we could call
the Fausto Coppi method,
so called after the iconic Italian cyclist of the '50s,
who was once supposed to have said
"Ride your bike, ride your bike, ride your bike."
And he might have had a point.
- And it's true that for the success
and, more importantly, enjoyment of your first 100,
endurance is gonna be a key factor.
So try to ride two to three times during the week,
these can be shorter rides, for example,
commutes or turbo sessions
and that allows you to do some longer rides at the weekends.
- Yeah, and a little tip here could be
to actually join a local cycling club
because you might find that the company
of other riders will mean that the time
ticks by that little bit quicker.
And the other thing is that,
if you're doing your 100 mile ride with a sportive
or a Gran Fondo, that actually getting used to riding
in close proximity to other people would be a real bonus.
Easy tiger.
- As you get closer to the big event,
try to increase the average distance
of your longer training rides.
As a general rule of thumb,
if you can comfortably ride three quarters of the distance,
you'll be fine on the day, what with the excitement
of your first century.
- Yeah, and a great tip actually
is to plan your longest training ride
about 10 days to 2 weeks before the big day.
As well as the training effect, you also wanna use this
as a dry run for the main event.
So you wanna try and find similar roads to ride
and crucially take whatever food and drink
that you plan on taking for your century ride.
'Cause that will allow you to practice
your nutritional strategy,
potentially iron out any creases or wrinkles with your plan.
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- Recovery, oh yeah.
In the week leading up to your 100 miles,
you want all of your training to have been completed
and in the bank, so to speak.
It can be tempting to try and cram in
a load of panic training in the one
or two days leading up to it,
but that is only going to make life harder
for yourself on the big day.
So relax, trust that you have done all the hard work.
'Cause you have done the hard work, haven't you?
Yeah, that's right, but you don't actually want
to stop completely the week before,
maybe one or two gentle rides just to loosen up your legs,
not come to a complete stop.
- [Emma] Then the day before the event,
you can do an easy ride if you want,
for example to check your bike
if you've had to travel to a sportive.
In fact that can be really good idea
because if you've traveled with your bike,
you just might wanna make sure that your gears
and your brakes, everything, still work normally.
But don't do more than about an hour and a half
of easy riding because you wanna save all your energy
for your century.
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- Let's talk logistics shall we?
What you need to do the night before your ride
and indeed the week before.
Well, let's start with the bike,
which does need to be tackled earlier rather than later
because that way, if there any issues with it,
you can then fix it and then test them out
and still give you time to remedy things before the big day.
So, all you wanna do with your bike the night before
is to make sure that it is clean,
that your tires are inflated to the right pressure
and that you've got lubrication on your chain.
Now, particularly if you're doing an organized sportive,
that might well constitute an early start.
'Cause if you're running around tryin' to stuff things
into your kit bag at stupid o'clock in the morning,
well that's just a sure fire recipe
for forgetting something.
- That's why it can be a good idea to write a list
of all your kit so that on the morning you don't forget it,
for example, could fill your bottles the night before,
put them in the fridge, but write them down on a list
'cause forgetting your bottles is a classic mistake
that none of us wants to do.
Fill up your kit bag with all the kit you'll need
and your food so it's all ready to go.
And speaking of food, don't panic
about carbo loading the night before.
In fact, if you just eat a normal, balanced meal
with perhaps a little bit more carbohydrate than normal,
that will stand you in good stead.
Whereas if you eat a huge plate of pasta,
that's likely to make you feel extremely sluggish
in the morning.
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- It can be very tempting to start out too fast.
With all the nerves and excitement, you might try
and hang on to riders who are actually a bit faster than you
and whilst that does give you a good advantage on the flat
where you can draft,
if you've got some chunky climbs in your event,
there's a chance you'll blow your own doors off.
So try to start out slower than you think you can ride,
and whilst that might feel frustrating
for the first hour or two, you will be laughing later on
when you get stronger through the event.
And in fact, those riders who ride away from you,
you might overtake them again toward the end.
- Now we touched on it a little bit earlier on,
but what about your nutritional strategy.
It's incredibly important because, if you forget to fuel
when you're riding, no matter how much training you've done,
you will come dramatically unstuck.
So the general rule is to eat little and often.
About every 40 minutes or so would be a good rule of thumb
but you should always err on the side of caution.
And then, in terms of what you take with you,
sports nutrition is great, it is easily digestible,
easily portable but if you're out
on your bike for a long time,
you might find that it ends up being a little bit sickly
and it might not settle too well on your stomach.
So take some real food as well,
so perhaps, little jam and peanut butter sandwiches,
or some flapjack,
but whatever you do make sure that you practice
your nutritional strategy before the day itself
because actually you do need to train your body
to be able to absorb food and digest it
whilst you're on the move.
- Yeah, and it's crucial that when it comes to the day,
you don't forget your nutritional strategy
and that with all the nerves and excitement,
you don't just forget to eat for the first couple of hours
because that's happened to most people.
- [Simon] I am guilty of that.
- And once you get hungry, it's often too late,
so remember to try to eat little and often
to avoid getting hungry.
On the other hand, don't stop every twenty minutes
and spend ten minutes eating,
which is what I did on my first sportive,
in fact I ate so much flapjack that I felt really sick
by the end of the event. (laughs)
- Too fair, but, eatin' flapjack every 20 minutes
is pretty much how I get through most days.
- You must have a high metabolism.
- Yeah, and anyway, there we go.
Now, the other thing is that after all this preparation,
all this planning and all this strategy,
you can't lose sight of the fact that doing 100 miles is,
firstly a fantastic achievement, and secondly,
something that you can either enjoy during the event itself
or, perhaps more importantly, look back on
and enjoy with the benefit of hindsight.
Can you actually remember your first 100 miles?
- Yeah, I think it was the Polkadot Challenge
and, yeah, I was disastrous,
I really did eat a horrific amount of flapjack.
It took me, I think I spent two hours
at aid station eating flapjack and I felt wretched.
I must have eaten more calories than I burned in the thing.
- Really?
So, my first one was actually in a race
and it did not go terribly well, you know, I did 100 miles
but unfortunately the race was 117 miles
and I had to stop after 111 miles 'cause I blew my doors
so badly, yeah. - Really, six miles.
You couldn't do six miles?
- Well it was finishing circuits,
- Oh
- And I'd got dropped so badly,
I literally went from the front group,
to having to stop with six miles to go.
Now if you did enjoy this video,
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and if you want a little bit more information
about the nutritional strategy,
'cause it can be quite complicated, can't it?
And there's an awful lot more that you can learn,
click that video just down there.