I'm just a normal old gal that has done a couple of 24 hour races on a 4 women team. It was great fun! The years that I did these races, I was racing mountain bikes on the local mountain bike series and did these races with others that were used to racing mountain bike races. I wasn't the fittest however cause our 24 hour race comes early in my season. I am training on a trainer cause it snows where I live in northern Arizona and it is perfect riding weather down in Tucson where the race is held.

The race experience really helps especially because there is a lot of passing involved, you passing others and them passing you. The ability levels are quite different.

I'm not the greatest endurance athlete so the challenge for me was to keep my speed up on my 4th laps, and to keep the motivation going at night. I was not ever totally successful at keeping my speed up later in my laps, but you have to realize that if you go out as hard as you can like you would race one lap in a race, you are eventually going to run out of energy for your later races. I'm sure there are some really fine athletes out there that can be real consistent, but you need to tune it down just a bit so that you can be consistent and last all of your laps.

Eating is a real hard thing and something on your first 24 hours that you probably will not have tested completely. I used a replacement drink on the bike along with my water/gus, etc. and always a recovery bottle after I got back from my laps. I would supplement with chicken, bread, peanut butter, canned peaches - things that work for me as what I call sort of easy soft food to digest. This is different for everyone.

Not everyone can sleep, but get off your feet and rest if you can't sleep!

If you are doing this race on a team, make sure going in that most everyone is on the same wavelength. It is no fun to get there and have someone screaming at you that you didn't ride fast enough on a lap! Things happen, flats, body flats, etc. that you can foresee and everyone knows you are doing the best you can do and really that is all you or anyone else can expect. If you can find a good team - with the right attitude, IT IS THE GREATEST EXPERIENCE EVER!

Don't forget to get some SO's or something like that to help you work on your bikes between laps, help feed you, etc. It makes all the difference! My husband was a trouper par excellence!

If you are doing this solo, all the more power to you!