My most recent 400 (for which I wasn't in the best shape for) started at 7am and I finished at 9.30am the next morning, pretty much lanterne rouge for the entire ride.
I had a coffee and some pro-plus at 1.30am (the first people finished at 12.30am) before leaving Aberystwyth and heading on up the A44 over Plymlimon.
I did feel a bit dozy (as did my companion) at about 3am coming in to Ponterwyd so we stopped for a short nap on beds made from bread crates at the side of the petrol station (which was closed obviously). That 10 minutes of eyes shut (I'm not sure I got more than a couple of minutes sleep) was enough to see me through to the end without feeling dozy or unsafe at all. I slept well on the train back to London though!
My energy levels increased quite a bit as the sun was coming up as we were blatting along the A44 and A470 to Newtown, then it was back into the lanes to Shrewsbury.
I'm lucky that I don't get affected by sleep deprivation that much at all. I did a very hilly 41 hour 600 on just a 15 minute nap on a bench at 5am last year.
It would certainly be easier if I laid off the pies and beer, did a bit more training and got fast enough to have a few hours proper sleep, but where's the fun in that? The time limits are there to be made use of.
400s are tricky as they're not long enough for the slower riders to build up enough of a time buffer for sleep. My only other calendar 400 I had a 45 minute nap at just after midnight which worked well, still felt very dozy at 5am though but the rising sun helps. The DIY 400 I did started at 6pm (to coincide with the Dun Run) which worked surprisingly well, probably because I was well rested not having to get up at 5am for an early start.
Being comfortable riding through the night on little or no sleep is a useful thing to be able to do, especially if you want to do rides like PBP or LEL. The only alternative is being fast enough to do 4 consecutive days of 350km+ in daylight and chapeau to you if you can do push that hard for so many consecutive days.
For example, you had to be very quick on day 1 of LEL if you had a 2pm start time and wanted to minimise night riding. A 5am sunrise the following morning is 15 hours from 2pm, so you'd need to be (15h*12kph) 180km down the road in the 8 hours of daylight. The problem was that the controls were at 150km (not far enough) or 220km. 220km in 8 hours is hard work, especially if there had been a headwind. If you stopped at the 150km control you'd need to be up before sunrise in order to ride the 70km before you were out of time at 8am.
Anyway, I love night riding, it's great fun being out on the roads at that time. I don't mind doing it alone either, it's lovely having that much time to think to myself. Having company certainly makes the time, and miles, fly by faster.
I did LEL on 10 hours sleep and felt great at the end of it. I got the same 14 AUK points for doing it as the person who finished in 65 hours, or the fast rider who had 8 hours sleep each night and, like me, just finished in time.
