Endurance training

[Saint George]

I was just wondering what everybody does for their enduro training i.e.
riding time and length per a ride,
food and liquid intake while riding,
how many sessions on road and of road,
weights, pretty much anything to get you out there longer and further down the trail.
At the momment l am doing two 40km rides on the mountain bike per a week. Four 50km rides on the road sometimes in a bunch and one afternoon per a week on weights. Over the next few months l am planing to spend a bit more time on the mountain bike during the weekends. My goal in the long run is to paticipate in a few 12 hour then 24 hour races in solo class.
Has anybody else competed in solo class for any enduro races?.
It would be great to see how a few others train.

 

[DEVLIN]

In the lead up to last years Lab Gear 12 hour I was doing between 15 to 20 hours a week. I didn't do weights as all the strength I needed I gained from on the bike training. Think of endurance racing as exactly that. In your pacing for a long race, ideally you should have only a very small percentage of your total race time in the anerobic state. Therefore you need to bias your training towards that if you want to race 12 and 24 solo. Obviously you need to included some intensity into your training to cope with all the little efforts in a lap. I would keep doing what your doing and start increasing your total week hours by 5% a week. Every 4th week back it off a bit, down to about 50-60% of your weekly hours, lets the body catch up. Once you get your base up to doing at least 3-4 x 3 or 4 hour rides a week. Then you can start introducing intervals and sprints into your regime(sp?). If you go to www.trainingbible.com and sign up there you can enter in a ton of stats and specifics, races you want to do etc. and it will spit out a training diary for you. The big secret with this sought thing and your training is to be honest about what you can do and set out you priorties in order. Good luck.

 

[Saint George]

Thanks for the advice Devlin, every bit of info helps.
The only reason why l do a bit of weight training is due to the lack of upper body strength.
When l am on the road bike l devide that time into the different heart rate zones. Like ride for half an hour in 65-70 % MHR then do fifteen minutes in 80-85 % MHR.