[Closed] 24 Hr Solo - Training Tips

You got a heart rate monitor?

I've never done one but I'd personally start with an 80/20 training approach. High volume with 80% in zone 2. 20% hard intervals etc. Then on race day is be at top end of zone 2 for 24 hours (or as much of it as you ride).

I've never done one though, that's a Joe Friel/Matt Fitzgerald type approach.

Borrow a baby for the next few weeks ?

Are you riding to get round or for a placing? If the former, nothing can replicate just getting out there and riding; working out your pacing and nutrition strategy and knowing how you feel after 20 hours of being in the saddle. Make sure you leave lots of recovery time - very easy to over-train. Maybe midweek, do some high-quality / high-intensity intervals. Some gym work can also help in terms of working on core strength and flexibility which will aid injury prevention.

Following this with interest- I’ve entered Mayhem 24 solo after one successful pairs outing at the puffer 2 years ago, and an abject failure at 24/12 pairs the same year.

Currently in the ride as much as possible phase (only doing 12hrs a week!) and starting to introduce some structure to mid week commutes and turbo sessions.

Hoping food isn’t a problem- I’m going to employ a similar strategy to a 10 hour Ironman, but hold off the caffeine gels for an extra 10 hours in the middle of the race!

If you were comfortable on a 12 then extending to 24 will be mostly in your head.

Work on your core and back

I've just come back to 24 after a 10 year break and was flying round at top of Z2 until 14 hrs when my back spasmed and locked up.

It was quite clearly overuse as I didn't get to do my long back to backs in December due to being offshore. Substituted for 200km of running but that was a poor substitute.

https://lwcoaching.com/mtb-training-plans/category/endurance/tag/24h/

Core and contact points.

Do you have a pit bitch and something along the lines of an event tent/gazebo?

I find 12 manageable, can do anything for 12 hours. 24 is double that - gotta be wrong in the head to keep going.

Work on your core and back

Coupdn’t agree more. Work on your whole fitness, not just bike fitness.

Find Zone 2. Ride in it. A lot. Time in saddle is what matters. I've been doing about 14 hours a week, until I became ill recently. This is for road. What I find kills is exertions outside of zone. That must be a killer off-road, but in TT's is not a huge thing. So in my 12 hour TTs, I ride at 195-210 watts and never over about 250. Heart rate will be 140 bpm. Over 155 and I've overdone it. Max is 185. That's basically Zone 2 with the odd excursion. I don't stop though (6 min for a 12hr and about 18 for a 24 hr). YMMV but you'll need a big M 😉

Firstly be prepared to sacrifice family time, social life, clothes fitting, watching tele, probably riding buddies - if you want to do well that is.

As TiRed says, lots and lots of Z2 work. In prep for my two 24hr races last year (European & World Champs) I was commuting up to 65k each way with the morning one being fasted, a couple of times a week with big weekend rides thrown in, this was supplemented by HIT turbo and track sessions on the days when I didn't commute.

Get to learn what HR you can operate at and know your zones. Try and do as many of the longer XC marathon type events as you can - a bit of competing is always good to sharpen you up, and if you can throw in a 10 or a 12 hour race about 6 weeks prior to really see what you can do and get your nutrition sorted. During training work out what you need to eat and drink each hour to maintain the pace you want to set.

Get a pit crew, spend as little time as possible off the bike, have a spare bike, have loads of comfort (to you) food as you do experience wild emotional and mental swings.

It will hurt, you will suffer, but if you achieve your goal it's all worth it.

Just to add to Steve’s advice, if you have a local 45 minutes loop, in the weekends preceding (other than the weekend before) spend your weekend riding around this loop in excess of 7 hrs continuously. You need to get used to the mind numbing boredom / danger of switching off as most of these events are lapped races.

Do not have a nap, it doesn’t work.

And do your thing. Do not turn up and change strategy, pace, food, plans based on what you see or what other riders do.

when i did my first 24hr, i had maybe done ten 12hour races before with some reasonable results. i didn't change a huge amount of volume, but i did go to the gym regularly, it was convenient as my work had one on site, found that i was strong throughout despite riding hardtail, i also used to do a road chaingang once a week and a few long back to back days, including erlstoke 6hr saturday, 100mile graveldash sunday. seemed to work for me as i won, came back in 2017 but didn't do as much gym work and training felt more of chore as i was coached, which took the love away, but managed 4th in national 24hr, not sure i'll do another, maybe when i'm tougher

^him up there is rather good, sage advice indeed.

Watching this with interest as, although not a timed race, am likely to have a go at the South Downs Double this summer. I've done in in one direction and found it reasonably tough.

My training (off the bike) will consist of gym work and tri training - with a few bike marathons and longer days in the saddle to supplement my usual 2 or 3 rides per week as I move towards the event. With family and work I don't get masses of free training time so any pointers for best use of the time I do have are very welcome!

Additionally - we won't have a pit. Last time I think I ate a hell of a lot of pork pies and bananas on the way around, with a few salmon sandwiches. It worked for 100 but should I be considering a more structured eating plan for the 24?

Thanks

I’m also planning a SDW double this year. I think the biggest difference is that with a 24hr race it’s not ‘point to point’ so you can stop in between laps if you need to for furlong, tests, kit swaps etc and don’t need to carry everything with you.
To alleviate some of that I plan to do my double stating and finishing at QECP doing Winchester and back first. That way I get my first few hours out of the way and can always stop at car to swap kit out, refuel etc.
Sorry for the read derailment btw, probably worth a separate one.

In my experience structured eating for a 24h potentially goes out the window after 12. Your brain starts wanting all kinds of shit you don’t have, and you get sick of energy drinks and gels. You need to have a strong mentality or put some crap on the table.

I once put a Gingsters pasty on my table and ate that at 2am. At the time it felt like the best food ever and certainly cheered me up until sunrise.

My content would be different flavour drinks, gels and bars, jelly babies,fig rolls, a mental treat as about, plain water. I have a deliberate “evening meal” of pasta/tuna/peppers which I have at lights on time so have some considerable food based on my usual day meal times whilst adding the lights to my bikes.

Mentally: go out riding late at night, for ages. Get used to riding when you don't want to - helps to develop the ability to sit there and think 'this too shall pass'. There's a mental imperative to go inside and get safe and warm at around bedtime, you need to push through that whilst staying upbeat and focused. That will make the riding feel much easier.

Re food, you definitely need savoury real food. My then coach chastised me for eating sausages during my 24 hour solo effort, but I think my body really needed the salt, the minerals, whatever. For me it's meat based goods. I also had chicken and peppers made up and I had small tortillas for mini fajitas. The spicy delicious taste really helped.

As others have said, get out and do the hours. Something I found when doing ITTs was that a bike position that was comfortable for rides up to say eight hours suddenly instigated problems like hand numbness when I got to twelve or sixteen hours. There's no way to find this out other than by riding for that length of time.

Food: your taste buds change during the course of an event, even stuff you'd normally have to have prised from your dead hand will on occasion be unpalatable. Also you will just crave 'something' whether that's a pork pie or a tin of soup or whatever. So pack a wide range of foods, particularly moist savoury foods since the sweet stuff just tends to become too much.

Spicy peanuts too. High fat and not what the textbook says you should be eating but they must contain something you need on long rides cos they go down really really well.

a mate training for 24hour solo would pick a route about 12-16 hours (setting off friday evening was a favourite) meeting up with one of us at different sections to help break the monotony / make sure he was still alive.....

a mate training for 24hour solo would pick a route about 12-16 hours

Sounds crap to me, absolutely no chance you'd catch me doing that. How did they get on?

can't remember his exact placings but they were reasonably good, he did mix it up with other more targeted sessions, the through the night routes were to get him used to riding on lack of sleep as well as getting some miles in