Training for longer races is a bit tricky. Basically you need to build hours on the bike. I had only decided in July that i would do this race, so i hadn't trained a long time for it. I did 3 hour plus mountain bike rides, hill repeats and on days i didnt have a lot of time, basically like a one hour time trial (as hard as i can go for the hour plus warm up and cool down). I am hoping to have this a bit better organized for the next year. it was a bit experimental.

i think longer rides are best done on the road, just to save the body a bit. It isn't very realistic for me to do super long rides on a regular basis, but i will be doing shorter races and enduros to make up for that (like other 8 hour races, or 100 km mtb enduro races). One a month starting in April until the big day in August (that is when i HOPE to do the 24 hour solo).