Pacing your first century ride—or any 100-mile ride that you do!—can be tough. How hard should you pedal, how tired should you feel, how hungry is too hungry at mile 75?
Here, we asked cycling coaches, nutrition experts, and even a mental performance coach for their best tips on how to pace a century ride, so you don’t burn out halfway through. Heed their advice and check off those three-digit miles feeling strong.
Outline Your Pacing Strategy
As every coach we talked to said over and over, when it comes to riding 100 miles, consistency is key. Your goal is to start at a comfortable, conversational pace and hold it steady.
If your first 100-miler is in a fondo or race setting, don’t feel like you need to hang on someone’s wheel if they’re holding a pace that’s making you gasp for air, says Savvy Bike coach Lorri Lee Lown. You need to ride at your own pace.
If you’re heading out solo, base your pace/projected finish time on your prior longest solo rides, and give yourself a bit of extra buffer time to account for longer stops, headwinds, flats, and fatigue.
Think About Fueling Before You Start
Starting with your gas tank on empty is no way to begin a road trip. “Focus on nutrition and hydration before you get on the bike,” says Lown. “Make sure you start the ride well-fueled and well-hydrated. And make sure to prioritize eating plenty of carbohydrates and having electrolytes in the couple of days prior to your event.” This is key to pacing as it actually allows you to maintain your effort.
Even if you’re not hungry before heading out the door for your ride, try to put something in your system. For example, many cyclists swear by the meal replacement shake Ensure Plus as an easy way to take down 350 calories. A homemade smoothie or something simple like toast and peanut butter will also do.
Force Yourself to Stay Chill at the Start
Those early miles will feel great, and if you’re doing your first century, you’ll likely have a lot of nervous energy ready to expend. But try to stay calm as that’s key to pacing a century.
“Early in the ride, be prepared to rein in your excitement,” says gravel racing therapist and mental skills coach Pat Spencer of Getting Your Mind in Gear. “Don’t put energy in your pedals that you will need later. I see a lot of riders go out too hard and fade through the day!”
Focus on keeping your power and/or heart rate firmly in a comfortable zone 1 or 2, especially as you warm up for the first 30 to 60 minutes. (Don’t have a monitor? Use the talk test—even if you’re riding solo, keep checking that you can comfortably speak in full sentences.)
Focus on Consistency
Newer cyclists may want to focus on holding a certain speed on a ride like this, but your better pacing strategy is to focus on keeping your power, heart rate, or perceived exertion (how you feel) consistent throughout the day. Ideally, most of your time should be spent in zone 2, dipping into zone 1 and zone 3 occasionally—and this is true whether you’re focusing on power or heart rate zones.
“I think the most important thing is to make sure you have consistent effort without too many spikes,” says cycling coach Jakub Novak. “The highest energy expenditure happens when you go above your threshold zone, so try to avoid going above it if your aim is to conserve energy.” Heart rate threshold—zone 4—for most people is about above 90 percent of maximum heart rate. And the same is true of power.
If you’re basing your effort on your perceived exertion, come back to the talk test. If you’re struggling to string together a sentence without gasping for breath, you’re going too hard. You should always be able to get at least a full sentence out without trouble.
Be Prepared for Mental Highs and Lows
Expect to experience a wide range of emotions while you’re out there. “Riding 100 miles is hard. You will be challenged physically, but it is the mind that often quits before the body,” says Spencer. “On these long rides you will face so many emotions. Anxiety before your first pedal stroke. Hope and excitement early in the ride, self doubt in the middle and joy at the end. All of those and other feelings are normal. Knowing this allows you to plan ahead for the changing moods. It’s important to have tools ready to go to cope with the emotional ride.”
The mental tools used to get you through a century ride might include recognizing how your body and brain are feeling, making sure you’re fueling adequately so low blood sugar isn’t to blame for the low moments, and having some positive self-talk prepared. Even having a go-to pump-up playlist at the ready, just in case, can be helpful to get through those low points in the middle.
Don’t Let Yourself Get Hangry
Perhaps most importantly to the mental side: eat and drink! Spencer notes that often, we think of food as fuel for our physical bodies, but our brains need it just as much. “Our mood, focus, and concentration are greatly impacted by what we put in our bodies,” she adds. “An underfueled athlete is not just a slow athlete, they are also a grumpy athlete.”
Plus, your pace is in large part dictated by your fueling, and unfortunately, if you wait until hour three to start eating and drinking, you’re likely too late and you’ll be feeling the bonk. Eat and drink early and often, says Frank Overton of FasCat Coaching. “Remember to eat and drink every 30 minutes, starting at the first 30 minutes into the ride,” he says.
Ideally, stick to foods and beverages you know work well for you—test them on shorter rides first! No one wants to interrupt their century ride at mile 70 with a sprint for the nearest public restroom. (You can pick favorite snacks here: Cookies are absolutely acceptable sources of fuel, says Overton. In a century, snacks should feel fun!)
Minimize Stopping Points
Your pacing over 100 miles can easily get thrown off by hours if you stop often, or fail to hustle when you do stop. A seven-hour century ride quickly turns into a nine-hour excursion if you’re stopping almost hourly for a few minutes at a time.
Efficiency is key: Try to do everything at once whenever you do take a break. “Keep your off-the-bike time to a minimum, especially early in the ride,” says Lown. “When stopping at rest stops, fill bottles, grab a snack, use the porta-potty, and go.” (Don’t feel like you have to pee when you stop to refill bottles? As you’d tell your 3-year-old on a road trip, just try.)
Ride Familiar Roads in the Second Half
If you’re doing your first-ever century, it’s a good idea to set a route that will be familiar in the final half. This way, as you get more and more fatigued, you’re riding on roads that won’t require you to pay close attention to the map on your cycling computer, and you’re less likely to end up unpleasantly surprised by a long climb you didn’t anticipate at mile 97.
Prepare a Positive Affirmation
“In the middle of the ride when self-doubt charges in, recognize it,” says Spencer. “Allow it in and to move through you. Have motivational self-talk ready to go.”
You may even want to write out a couple of reminders to yoursel—“you’ve got this!” is a popular one—on a piece of masking tape and stick it to your top tube.
Stay Present
“In the last few miles, don’t get lost focusing on the finish line,” says Spencer. “Keep your attention to the here and now. When you cross that finish line, embrace the joy and celebrate your accomplishment.”
This is also a safety issue: In skiing, they have the curse of the “last run,” where inevitably, it ends not so pleasantly. Don’t let your “last mile” be the one where you steer into a ditch!
