[cheo]

My club is running a century road ride in 2 weeks. I'd like to do it because I've never done one before and it'd be a nice club experience. But I just upgraded to expert and I planned on doing an XC race that weekend. I figure the training effects from an XC race is better for me than a 100 mile road ride. Am I correct in assuming this?
I am in my second base period of the season looking to peak again in early September.
So maybe the long miles wouldn't be so bad. Has anyone else mixed in century rides into their XC training?

 

[Poncharelli]

This year I did the MS150, which is a charity ride for Multiple Sclerosis. It was 100 miles on Saturday, then 75 miles on Sunday. It was great fun and quite a challenge. For me it was a great tool for gauging my endurance; thinking about entering the Park City 100 now; my endurance is really good this year. Also, I’ve done 10 races so far this year, and this was the most fun I had all year.

I went ahead and put this ride in after the end of the transition week after my first race period. Since my peaks are close together, this gave me some endurance work prior to building for the second race period in mid-August.

As far as a substitute for a race, don’t know. It depends on the group your riding with. If you go with a bunch of Cat2-3 roadies, it could be harder than an expert class race. You may expend as many or more Kilojoules of energy. But if you’re a contender in the series point race (top three), then you should race.

 

[douglas]

depends on what your season goals are, but I'd think the xc race is better training

I would also say I'd recomend doing a century (3 for me so far this year)