Two "Big" Rides, One Day - Chupacabra 200 - Hotter'n Hell Hundred

Hello all, I’m sure this has been addressed somewhere, but finding the correct search terms to find specifically what I’m asking has proved to be a challenge. Every [non-COVID] year, my wife and I typically pack up and head out to Wichita Falls, Texas for the Hotter’n Hell Hundred endurance ride. It’s typically my “A” event and is designated as such on my calendar and in my training plan. 100 miles in the heat of North Texas on August 28th this year.

In 2019, they started adding gravel events to the weekend’s festivities. Nowadays, I ride exclusively gravel, but for HHH I would ride the road ride as the roads and the atmosphere is more than safe enough for an endurance ride. That said, they’ve created an event called the “Chupacabra 200” where you ride the 100-mile road ride at 7:00 A.M. then turn around and ride the 100k gravel ride in the evening at around 7:00 P.M.

It’s probably too late this year to acclimate and train or a 160-plus mile day, but what would y’all recommend for training for a double day like that? Not necessarily looking for nutrition advice or anything along those lines, but strictly training and acclimating for a double day. I typically build out my training plans starting around December to peak for the ride in August. I’m a low-volume rider as I typically add a couple of days of strength training and two to three sessions of basketball each week. This week is a recovery week and next week starts my century plan specialty block in TR.

I understand that increasing volume is a likely necessity, but also adapting to riding twice per day seems to be something that would need to be incorporated. i.e. – doing a TR workout on, say, Saturday morning outdoors and an easier long-ish ride in the evenings as well.

Just wondering what others have done to train and work up to this type of riding day.

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I rode this event 2 years ago and am signed up for it again this year. I followed a modified mid volume sustained power build then the century specialty plan. I subbed most of the weekend workouts for longer outdoor rides of 4-5 hrs on Saturday and 3-4 hr on Sunday. I did double up on a couple weekend rides but didn’t do it every weekend. On those weekends, I did a road ride in the morning then rode gravel in the evening mainly to be ready for the heat in Wichita Falls (it’ll still be hot at 7 pm for the gravel portion). It worked well for me.

Personally, I still think you have time to get some solid training in and ride well. The road century is pretty much flat as it can be. The gravel ride has more elevation than the road ride does. The gravel is pretty good, only a couple sections loose reclaimed asphalt. Fun course and may have you dodging cattle, coyotes and a few wild hogs.

Im signed up but still undecided if I’ll make it to Wichita Falls this year. Im training for it but Im not sure I’m feeling it this year. The Gravel Locos GL150 was my A event this year and it was pretty epic. I guess I’m still pretty satisfied with that and just enjoying riding my bike.

Good Luck my friend

Don’t have much to add but I wanted to say good luck!!! That sounds like an awesome day on the bike.

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Thanks for the response! I like the idea of doing back-to-back weekend rides. I almost never do my scheduled TR workout on Saturdays… Just go out for a long ride.

I’ve done the 100-mile endurance ride 3 or 4 times. Last did it in 2019 and PR’d (who didn’t with that weather!). I also did GL150, but the 100k version. I live in Stephenville just up the road. Great event!

If you’re ever in Stephenville, hit me up. There’s some great gravel out here west of town towards the wind farms that hardly anyone knows about or rides.