I am reasonablly fit and have a background of fell runnning and ultra running. Think nothing of running for 6 – 8 hours at a time. Been injured for last 6 months so really backed off the running but biking is fine and been doing a fair bit. I need to get my stupid fix so was thinking of entering a 12 hour race as my first mtb race.

So I have a few questions:

what kind of training should I be looking at?

How many miles are people getting in on the bike to be performing okay at these events? I am currently around 100 on a good week and 40/50 on a bad one.

Any particular sessions I should look at e.g intyervals? Hills? Is the training similar structure to running or not? Currently just riding around trails.

Any words of wisdom on training?

My first thought was just wing it and see, but I thought that maybe, just maybe I could get some good advice from STW?

Depends if you want to just finish, or to be competitive.

It’s pretty much about endurance, not speed, so I wouldn’t do too many intervals, more long steady rides. 100 miles a week is not very much, not being harsh, but unless you’re incredibly fit, you’re not gonna be up there with that level of training. The top boys are probably putting in at least 10 hours a week, many are undoubtedly doing even more.

Hills etc depends on the course, if you do Dusk til Dawn at Thetford hill training is pretty useless!

Training is dull and pointless if your not hoping to podium,its mainly your head that needs to be trained.
Bike set up is vital with the possibility of changing bikes an option,riding against pals is a good incentive to keep going.
Course needs to be interesting the Bristol Bikefest is a good starter option either 12 or 6 hours and it has very chilled vibes.
Just ride yout bike and forget about this training malarky(you will just regret it when the cramps set in 😕

Rich

It’s pretty much about endurance, not speed

True but that doesn’t mean that intervals won’t help. Mtbing tends to be quite an on/off effort – eg sprint up a small hill, accellerate out of corners, etc. If you don’t practice that, you’ll pay for it over a long race…

Anyway, sounds like you’ll be fine for at least mid pack sort of pace on what you’re doing.

The Bristol 12 is a brilliant event but already full for soloists this year (though you can always put a team in)

Intervals will only help if you have a good base fitness to build on. Just randomly starting to do intervals on the back of riding 40-100 miles a week will not get you race fit for a 12 hour race. You may lead off the line, but you’ll pop after an hour!

Partly true njee20 but not entirely.

Nowadays, with a baby, I just don’t have the time to train properly like I used to (ie lots of miles plus interval sessions). Since I have the luxury of plenty of recovery time, I do fairly hard sessions most of the time I go out, almost all of which I do intervals on. I’m finding it quite suprising just how well I am actually going considering the (low) number of hours I’m actually putting in. I don’t expect to be winning anything but I’m not going as badly as I expected and I reckon that I’ll be able to cope with racing pace much better than I would have if I just did steadier rides.

It is first mtb race so not expecting to be up there. I also don’t want a shoddy performance either. Not really sure what to expect either with the standard of rider, speed that people race etc so didn’t want to get blown away.

I know 100 isn’t too much as I was sometimes getting up to that milage when running in a week so would expect it to be at least double on a bike for decent performance.

I do have very good base fitness to build on, and have won two day fell race mountain marathons (like polaris but running over mountains) and often did ultra distance fell runs so endurance isn’t an issue. The main thing is converting running endurance and muscles to biking, hence the thought of intervals.

Hills etc depends on the course, if you do Dusk til Dawn at Thetford hill training is pretty useless!

Hill climbs/intervals are not JUST for courses with hills. If you decided to do Dusk til Dawn, hill intervals would help your speed/fitness.

People can sucsessfully train on less hours than you might think. Quality is often better than quantity. Having said that, to do a 12hr race you will need to do a fair number of longer rides to get your body used to the time in the saddle.