I've done this race the last two years, in 2005 I finished both days, in 2006 I finished day 1 (over an hour faster than the year before) and skipped the second day. You're right about acclimating to the altitude, unless you can spend a week up there, it's probably not going to help much. I live at about 30' above sea level and the altitude is pretty harsh on me above 8000'. I try to start training for this in June, I'll start to back off of the crit racing and start ramping up the miles and climbing. For June/July I try to get 15,000' of climbing in per week and keep increasing through August, until I'm at around 20k per week, I try to get in a very big week a couple of weeks before the race with 20-30k of climbing. The training is tough for me, it's hard to get in this kind of volume of climbing where I live (although not nearly as tough as FL ) 'Nother is right about the gearing, both years I've done this with a low gear of 34x27, and there are spots where I could certainly use more. I think it's a great goal, and the feeling after finishing the second day is overwhelming sense of accomplishment.