This week, like so many April and May weeks over the past few years, is being spent on the beginnings of trying to work myself into “century shape”–the shape I need to be in to ride 100 miles. It’s early in the season, but it needs to happen.

I’m skipping over to week seven of my training program; this week includes a 25 mile “easy” ride on Sunday (midlength), two “brisk” 14 mile rides during the week (short), and a 40 mile (long) ride on Saturday, with a five mile warmup, 25 “brisk” miles, and ten miles of warmdown.

With my schedule, my best riding days are Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday–this week we’ll target Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. Yesterday I was on the bike for an hour and a half, which is, given my usual speed, a rough 25 miles. Today, since I took a vacation day from work, I’ll go ahead and do an hour or two–two doesn’t fall in with the schedule, but I have some extra time, and better (within reason) to do more rather than less, then Thursday morning I’ll try to wake up early to do an hour before my longish ride on Sunday.

What the schedule, even with the descriptions of pace (which are of course vague–what does “brisk” feel like, really?), don’t tell you is terrain, weather, and how the course you’ll end up on in the end–the actual path of the ride–will be. Fortunately, I know this ride, since I’ve done it before, and the course almost never varies, so I will ride at least occasionally along the same course.

The other thing to consider with mileage figures is that 40 miles with hills, in the heat, or into the wind is a lot different than 40 flat, cool miles with no wind. Don’t cheat yourself of the differences in terrain and weather to make your mileage look good. And start writing down your rides or runs–which I’ll talk about next time.