Training for RAGBRAI: The view after the ride

I rode a total of about 900 miles on my road bike, along with commuting to work and some riding with my family. This amount of riding was about right. By pacing myself, I was able to finish each day pretty strong, and I even did the century loop (105 miles) on day 5. I felt so good on the last day, I didn't feel like I was on some sort of forced march from hell.

Some other guys in my group were suffering a bit, so a few tips on pacing for RAGBRAI:

1. Of course, training rides sometimes involved pushing myself (especially if the distance or duration of the ride was relatively short, like 20 miles). During RAGBRAI itself, I took it easy -- didn't charge up hills or worry about keeping a pace. The goal was to conserve energy to make the ride the next day easier. In my mind, I wasn't really thinking about RAGBRAI as exercise (it was anyway, of course).
2. I use a heart rate monitor, and I found it to be useful on the ride as well. My anaerobic heart rate zone might be 170 or more, but my goal during the ride was to keep my heart rate low.
3. On hills, I used a combination of standing or sitting in low gear. Generally speaking, if I didn't think I would be able to stand and get to the top, I'd use low gear instead. I wanted to avoid having to "bail out" of standing midway up the hill.
4. I didn't have much luck finding anyone to draft from. Seems like only the peleton-types in the fast lane were concerned with drafting. Didn't experience any horrific headwinds though, thankfully.