Training for 24h-Race

Next year I plan to peak for a 24h-Solo-Race at the end of July (Rad am Ring). I participated there the last two years and now in my offseason I schedule my goals and the training for 2019. The race will be quite hilly (500 km / 10.000 meters of elevation). Which plans should I choose? Traditional Base or Sweat Spot? And for the Specialty Phase the Century or the Hill Climbing Plan? Any other recommendations for this Mini-Ultra would be great.

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Nice Race! I would vote for the SWeet Spot plan and the century. Rad am Ring is a Long one. You don’t need as much Vo2max efforts. It’s a steady effort. I would take some long slow rides just to emulate the length. Maybe 12-16 hours. The rest is a very good trained fat field energy system and mindset. Even the 24h Duisburg MTB race with the Monte Schlacko (-> YouTube) is more a (sub) threshold effort. Viel Spaß und beste Grüße aus dem Pott.

10k m gain in a day will be very good going. Good luck!

@Turtle_Express: Your recommendation sounds like a good and logical choice. That will likely be the plans I’ll choose. This season I had another A-race (Tour Transalp - stage race in the alps). Therefore at the time of the 24h-race I was a bit out of breath. Next year I don’t want to peak to early. In each participation I learned a lot regarding nutrition, pacing, et cetera.

@willball12: Yeah! ‘Rad am Ring’ is a nasty race at the old race track Nürburgring. I did an Everest there in the last two editions.

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Was your this years participation a Solo Ride? I started in DU three or four times. 4 and 8 man Team. We never had a support team. We had just each other. This is a point I would like to improve. And if you take a look at the top teams this is what makes a huge difference.

@Turtle_Express: In 2017 an 2018 I participated as a solo starter. 2016 I started in a team of two (which wasn’t that much easier). In 2017 I rode 441 kilometers - this year 491 kilometers. But with further optimization ans some smart training I should be able to improve myself even more.
My wife was supporting me this year during the race which was highly helful, because she really knows my preferences. Being prepared and having a plan is key. Which food when to take, being prepared for technical problems and different weather conditions.
I hope to hit the 500 kilometer mark next year.

Ich drück die Daumen. Fingers crossed and good luck.

Good luck! And if you hit 10,000m on the single ride make sure you share your upload with Hells 500, that will get you in the HRS hall of fame.

http://highrouleur.cc/the-rules/

And if you do it, you can mention it to everyone more than @Jonathan mentions his Everesting. :wink:

Personally, I don’t recommend long 12-16 hr rides as they will take a while to recover from and therefore make gaps in solid training. I found what works best for me are back to back 5-6 hr rides, theone or two days recovery. This way you can stay focused on hitting intervals consistently while getting adaptions from long rides. (I used this method last year and won a 320 mile mtb race with 35k feet of climbing, 41 hrs of riding, no sleep)

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