knitmeapie

Long story short: I was diagnosed with MS in May this year and my dad signed up to ride the MS Waves to Wine century (San Fran to Napa). I needed something to distract me from being depressed about the diagnosis so I bought my first road bike and decided to sign up as well. We're both complete cycling newbs, but in really good shape (I've been lifting and doing high intensity cardio for over a year now).

The ride is on September 26th. I've been training for the last few months doing at least one long ride a week with some good hills. Yesterday, I hit my new personal record of 72 miles and I feel pretty good afterwards. Tired, but not totally zonked. For distance rides, I can average around 13.5 MPH, 17 MPH for shorter (20 miles or so) rides. So I thought I was in decent shape for being a month out....until I looked at the details of the ride.

I didn't realize that this century climbs 8000 feet! I'm more than a little scared that I won't make it. I'm planning on some really intense hill rides within the next few weeks to continue preparing, and we're going to drive through the actual century route this week to scope it out and make sure we're clear about directions.

So, experienced riders: am I out of my head? Is this really dumb? I've come so far in the last few months. In May, 20 miles was a huge deal for me, and now 50 feels like a jaunt in the park. But I don't want to feel like a failure when I need to call the SAG car on the big day. Any advice is welcome!

unterhausen

I think you'll be fine.

Possum Roadkill

Don't feel bad if you have to call on SAG, that's what they are there for. If you haven't trained in some hills, it's a possibility. You should still do the ride though, you may surprise yourself. The distance you are doing now is far enough that you should finish, but you're right about the climb being a bit of an unknown complication. Some things I don't know is how much climbing you've been doing on your rides, and how severely spread out the 8000 feet of climb is.

StephenH

Make it a point to ride all the hills you reasonably can in the meantime and don't worry about it.
Yeah, you may get slower going over the umpteenth hill, but that doesn't mean you have to stop, either.