Hi all, looking for a few tips and some advice.

Myself and a friend have entered the Gisburn Dirty Dozen 12 hour race in June as a pair. Its both of our first bike race of this kind so was lokoing for some tips with regards to doing the actual race and training for the next month.

I have been training for the last 6 weeks, trying to get the number of bike miles racked up, doing about 2-3 x 2 hour rides a week and then also a few gym sessions too, run/bike warm up then weights for shoulders, chest, core and legs. How do I want to be structuring this and progressing for leading up to the event?

Also how do people tend to run these races. Its a 7.5 mile lap which I reckon is do-able in just under 45min a lap, so was thinking 2 laps at a time then switch? If were looking at 4 x 1.5 hour sessions over the day each is there any think to do to prepare for this?

Cheers for any tips recieved!

I’d do one lap at a time. Hammock, beanbag, lounger etc for off-lap relaxation.

Be rigorous about food and fluid immediately after each lap.

Carry mobiles or walkie-talkies to avoid cock-ups.

Take all your bike clothing. Being clean and dry makes a big difference.

Prep your bike(s) meticulously!

Don’t try anything you haven’t used before. Don’t fit anything the night before, ie don’t change cables or for a new chain.

Carry mobiles or walkie-talkies to avoid cock-ups.

Personally, just turn up 10 minutes before you reckon your team mate will be in. After a few laps you’ll get to know what pace both of you are running at.

I’d not bother with the gym sessions, and use these as riding days – core work is good, but you have a relatively short period of time to train for June now, so riding is key.

As it’ll be pretty much an 85% effort per lap for pairs, I’d be focussing on intervals, hill repeats, and if possible a couple of rides a day to build up your tolerance to fatigue and simulation of hard activity after hard activity. (Say 4 days a week)

If you can, get out on the road bike, do that – as it will be useful for getting you used to pedalling in the saddle for longer periods of time.

If you want to follow a detailed plan, which will greatly improve your performance for an endurance race check out Chris Eatough’s website, he provides the training plans for our team – he’s a 6 time International 24 solo champion – so knows his stuff 🙂

They’re about £60 a plan, which work over 12 weeks – he will also be able to customise the plan for your lifestyle/event – http://www.chriseatough.com

Cheers

Ricks

Personally, just turn up 10 minutes before you reckon your team mate will be in.

My thinking for pairs is that you only have 30 minutes off at a time (if you’re doing one-on/one-off) and you need to make the most of the rest. And… if your other half has had a mechanical the extra 10 minutes is most welcome.

True, but if you’re only doing a 45 minute lap – strap a tube to your seatpost, a pump to the seattube, tool in your jersey (with tyre levers), and a bottle in your bottle cage.

I’d find carrying a walkie-talkie a PITA, as long as you don’t camp miles from the changeover area, 5/10 minutes waiting in the corrall is good to get you psyched 🙂

The most important thing on race day is not to blow through your energy in the first 3 laps – it’s important to try hard, but don’t ride so hard in the first 2 hours that you can’t enjoy the next 10.

Remember, there will be seasoned and experienced riders racing at the same time, who will be able to sustain a very fast pace for 12 hours, don’t feel de-moralised – and don’t kill yourself trying to keep up.

Ride your own race, overtake when safe, always stating which side you’re going to pass on: ‘on the left’, ‘on the right’, ‘can i pass when safe’…

If you hear someone behind you that wasn’t there 10 seconds earlier, chances are they’re riding faster than you – so let them past, again when safe to do so.

Endurance races are awesome, your first one will be a learning experience – just enjoy it, and do your best.

Oh, and food – if you can get something like High-5 4-in-1 for your liquid, and some Torq energy bars, and some shot blocs. Keep eating and drinking to make sure you dont cramp up.

make sure our training your stomach too.

basically be eating what you will race on in training.

Yes – very good advice, our team captain told me this a while back – as your stomach wont know what to do with the extra carbohydrates if you dont aclimatise yourself to your race food.

Try out different flavours and brands, to find what you like the most. Personally at the moment I’m into Pineapple and Ginger Torq bars (think moist ginger cake), and orange shot blocs (jelly with caffiene), and citrus High-5, 4-in-1.

Carry a damn chain tool and quick link. The number of people I saw at Enduro 6 that had snapped a chain and didn’t have one or the other was mind boggling.

Take nice real food (including nice water) as well as energy gunk – I’ve found that I don’t really feel like it after a few hours. Gels are the easiest way to stay on top of energy requirements, but chilli noodles are nicer to eat.

Travel light on the laps – camelbaks full of gear really aren’t needed, in a pair you won’t drink more than a small bottle on the course. remember to compensate for this after each lap.

Make sure your bike works before you pack to travel. Astonishing how many people turn up with something wrong. Take a spare between you if at all possible.

As well as the physical aspect I’ve found the mental side probably harder to cope with.

Be prepared for the fact that at some point it’s likely that you will want to stop and not do another lap, you’ll make excuses as to why you can’t\shouldn’t do another.

It will feel like you’ve no energy, you hurt too much etc but once you get on the bike you’ll get back into it and be fine (assuming you have been eating/drinking). Just set off at a leisurely pace and see how you get on.

I try and eat something as soon as I finish a lap and drink as much as I can, mainly water. Take some emergency food with you, I’ve only ever needed some once but it’s a nice thought that you have it there.

I’d be tempted to consider double laps – if you do singles you’re tempted to give it full beans, then you knacker yourself out and don’t have enough time to recover. If you do doubles you have to be a bit more moderate plus you get enough time between stints to get food down/fettle bike/change into fresh shorts/relax/heckle. Maybe do a single “sighting” lap each first to get an idea of pace, it may take longer than you think…

Tools to carry:
Multitool (inc chain tool), tyre levers, gas *2 or pump, tube, quicklink
Fuel for lap:
Bottle, gel if you are doing 2 laps
Fuel for rest:
Whatever high carb stuff you like, coffee
Strategy:
If you can, do 2 laps stints. This gives the other rider enough time to recover/eat between efforts.
Stuff to take:
If you can, take a clean set of kit for each stint, Chamois cream, Bike tools and spares, spare bikes, pen and paper for writing down lap times, warm clothes to put on between laps.

Thanks for all the information so guys. A lot to think about so far.

Will try get as many miles under my belt as possible in the coming weeks. Might think about swapping the gym sessions for spinning, would that be a good idea?

Thanks for all the food and stratergy advice, thats the bit im really unsure of. I was thinking just taking water bottle with nuun tablet in for riding and then eat properly between stints. Guess it will be a good idea to have some extra energy on me in the latter stages incase i start to bonk. I have tried sis gels and those powershot things and they didnt really sit well with me, things like nutrigrain bars I find much easier, is there anything similar to them I should look at or will 1 of them do?

Cheers

Try Buzz bars (in Waitrose, not seen them elsewhere) and Frusili – not a million miles from pricey bar energy content, fair bit cheaper.

I would persevere with gels though, Torq are the most palatable, but all can be just swallowed with water – very condensed energy, sometimes it’s the best and quickest way to keep going.

Only you’ll know (when you race) what works best strategy wise – I prefer double laps or even triple as I’m better at grinding out distance than sprinting, you may be the reverse. It also depends on your partner too.

Torq bars are lovely to eat, easy on the stomach and taste really nice. If you can buy a few different flavours to see what you like, the key is to have something that is moist – as it’s far easier to eat when you’re not really thinking about eating.

Nuun tablets are good – but I’d really recommend an energy drink, which has electroltyes in it – i.e. the High5 stuff.

If you want to go a bit more advanced, and not eat – check out infinit nutrition. The idea is that you drink 600ml per hour, which contains all you need to ride – carbs, calories, electrolytes etc… all based on you body’s osmolaty (how fast you can absorb food).

It’s worth thinking about, but you want to make sure you’re happy with what you’re eating pretty soon – so you can get used to it, and stock up.

Personally, I find it hard to eat when racing, so energy drink and shotblocs are brilliant for me – you need to have a trial of different food to find what works best for you – too much fat or sugar at one time will be detrimental, so little and often is key 🙂