Our group is 4 riders. We’re doing primarily indoor workouts with some outdoor rides on the weekends. What weekend rides do you do? Did you decide to do the century or ride with your wife?
I went out again last night with a friend and the guy who challenged me to this in the first place. He’s still flapping his gums. Now he’s saying “I didn’t think you were going to get a team together and draft the whole way. I mean, I’m not going to go back on the deal, but I thought you meant a sub5 on your own, like a real man.” 
whatever. He’s backpedaling because he’s starting to doubt his assertion that I couldn’t do this.
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My wife decided not to do it because it costs $200 to register for the 20 miler! That’s crazy. So I can do the century with you guys if you want.
Weekends I typically go out and do a hard 40-50 or a moderate 70+ outdoors. I’m doing my indoor training during the week. My pace, being alone, and there being more climbing here isn’t sub 5. But I’m holding more power than I did for the 5:45 time I did 2 years ago. As long as we don’t get “surgey” I’m pretty sure I can hold together an effort for sub 5 hours.
Even without a team, there are SO many people out there that you could pretty easily suck wheels for 80% of the ride. It’s just finding people with the right pace. With a team of 5, latching onto a bigger group (which shouldn’t be hard), I think it would be fine.
Let me know if you want me to join… we’ll figure out where to meet that morning. I’ll be coming in just the day before the race.
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Exactly what @Dazed2day said:
I can’t believe that the guy who challenged you didn’t consider this. There are so many packs out there that I bet 80% is low… you could likely be with a pack the whole time, the way the GABA ETT training rides are.
250 FTP off a 20 minute test, crap pack skills. Result… Two 100mile sub 5HRS this yearr: 4hr 54min and 4Hr 49 mins, and World Grand Fondo 93 miles Ave 21mph (extend to 100 miles prob about 4:45 - 4:50.) Nearly all were only pack riding for 25 - 40% of the hundred, the rest TT mode. Okay, a lifetime in endurance sports but I think it is very do-able.
At 80% drafting sub 4:30 is a realist goal on a FTP ~250
Edit: on a Flat Course
Agree. Either get good at Wheelsucking (pack skills, staying in the wheels) or build a FTP to north of 250 so if you can TT it when not in the draft, (still need to draft for about 20% min.) Need good stamina though either way.
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Well… we did it. 4:35 at El Tour de Tucson.
Avg power 167
Max avg power (20 min) 229
Normalized power 200
Last FTP ramp test 233
To answer my own question, TrainerRoad gave me the fitness, and without it, this wouldn’t have been possible. I wore my TR jersey today proudly. But also important were the outdoor rides. How to draft, watching for surges, avoiding problems, watching for other riders fatiguing in the group, getting used to highly variable power needs… all came with riding outside in groups.
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If I ever need a pace estimate I’m going to defer to @julianoliver!
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Really great job out there! I was just going through Strava and seeing all of my friends’ El Tour posts, so I was wondering how it worked out for you. Glad the weather turned out to be good (at least, from what I could tell, it sounded like earlier this week was pretty wet…).
As someone who has only done a small handful of century rides, I’d say the biggest ‘learn’ for me from my first one was the nutrition aspect - I simple didn’t get enough energy in during the first 75 miles and so the last 10 or so were horrendous.
I don’t have the knowledge to advise you what to eat and how often so I defer to those people on here who have already shared their experience and insight.
The fitness was what it was on the day, so I’d also agree with the various comments about making sure you take the opportunity to hone your group riding / drafting skills. I made an effort to do this and it paid off, helping me get around and offsetting my relative lack of fitness.
Fitness wise I can’t advise but the only (possibly helpful) observation I’ll make is that you are using TR ahead of your challenge which puts you on the ‘advantage” step. I’m new to TR (and relatively new to cycling) so hadn’t done any structured training prior to the centuries I’ve done - I found them hard and was overreaching badly the first time around. Wish I’d found TR beforehand - I’d have been a more confident and capable rider, all else being equal.
Good luck on the day and please report back on how you got on. 