You can’t run a marathon before you run a marathon. It sounds silly, but it’s true. When you’re training for an endurance event, whether running — bicycling, swimming, or hiking – you have to build up to it. If you want to complete a century, a one hundred mile bicycle ride, you just have to start riding consistently. Now, if you’re just starting out and haven’t been riding a lot, don’t kill yourself in the first week. In fact, you should never feel like you’re hurting yourself when you go for a training ride. If your goal is endurance, then all you have to do is rack up some miles, and there are two very good rules to keep in mind while you train.

First of all, they say that what you ride in a week, you can ride in a day. If, on a consistent basis, you ride a hundred miles each week, then you should be in shape to ride a hundred miles in a day. Again, if you’re just starting out, you should build up to this. Start out riding thirty or fifty miles per week for a few weeks. Once that’s comfortable, take it up a notch. Start riding sixty to eighty, then go for a hundred or more.

Keep in mind, as you build mileage, that you will do better, by far, if you go for more frequent, shorter rides. Going for a forty-mile ride on Friday and sixty-mile ride on Sunday, then sitting on the couch all week will hurt you a lot more than it will help you. However, Going for a forty-mile ride on Sunday, taking Monday off, then riding between ten and twenty miles a day the rest of the week will put miles on your training log and build your cardiovascular and muscular strength.

In as few as six to ten weeks, you can be ready to ride a hundred miles in a single day, and, believe it or not, you’ll probably have fun doing it, too!

Tags: cycling, endurance