How to train for a MTB marathon

Me thinks train MTB just for technical skills easy/recovery days and secondly short 15-20 min hard intervalls. One should never study riding technique when quite or very tired. On easy days you can hone your skills and with hard intervalls you can verify to yourself that they work in racing speeds. Short hard intervalls can be very challenging if you do them in pouring rain on technical route or you do them on descending route (overspeed). Point is that you build so supple and relaxed technique that it's automatic even when tired. You get tired but automatic program in your head works. It's known that higher level skills drop back to lower levels when your endurance cracks. I would keep tech and endurance training almost totally separated.

Thanks for the reply.
What I wanted to say with simulating fatigue was rather fatigue for the upper body and whole system than incorrect technical riding.

Ok I see now. Are you usnsure of your upper body? I understand it fully as I've seen guys coming backwards towards me in a marathon race. Upper body endurance has always been strong part for me and here's a reason for it
😎 🙂 😎
[img]patrol.fi13 racing 05 06 web.jpgOpen ↗[/img]

I also did XC skiing in the winter and strength training year round in the gym, so I think I´m prepared well. It´s just caution since I didn´t do long hard MTB rides for some time.

Allright, a skiing is a good waste of time 😄

Yeah, of course you need a sort of checkups to see that you're on a right track. I just prefer combination training vice versa (as marathon typically starts first 1-2 hours 'all out black out' and then kinda settles) like mtb first and then road. You can easily harden road session if you think you have something extra left, just head for the hills and mix in some standing power climbing etc. Point is that typically in combo training you start with part that needs more skills.