Management of effort

What is specific about this event?

Apart from the duration (24 Hours) it is the fact that it is a relay race. The objective is to run as many miles as possible, the relays have to be short in order to allow the racer to give his best. Here is our proposition regarding strategy.

Length of the relay

This is the main question, the one that keeps the debate going. Take for example a team of 4 racers that would go for relays of an hour each. Each one of them should theoretically follow this scheme: 6 x (1 hour of race / 3 hours of rest). But be aware of the level of each contestant. The best should lengthen his relays while the slightly weaker one should shorten his in order to give the team the best chances.

In a 24 Hour race you also have to keep in mind that everyone will be weaker at one time. Even if it’s better to keep the same order during the whole race, the length of the relays will have to change and be adapted. The objective is to keep a constant speed (even if the first four hours will be faster) in an endurance team everyone will agree on saying that it is regularity that will pay.

Management of sleep

No way will you have a cosy bed in the night of 22^nd to 23^rd of August, but everyone has to recover. The difficulty will be to fall asleep with all the excitation of the race (the organism will produce a lot of this well known hormone, adrenalin.) In this case you will have to rest during short periods. During the night and especially at dawn (when tiredness will be the greatest) you will have to manage the race regarding the strength of each of you and of the sleep of each of you. The length of the relays will have to be longer for a few riders and shorter for the others, but without going on a relay of more than 1h30.

The intensity

We vaguely spoke about it in the article about preparation: it is an intensity close to the anaerobic line. Why that?

To be simple, over this line you will go too far in your stock of energy. In that case you might be less and less efficient in the relays. On the first relay keep your heart rate around 85% of your maximum heart rate. At the end of the race, because of the tiredness you will be around 80%.
We can keep this intensity during about an hour, that’s why we are suggesting relays of this length. At the end of the race the muscular tiredness is very important; some of you might be completely exhausted. From this moment, the relays should be shortened.