I've noticed that when I try to render a 24p mpeg-2 file it takes considerably longer then 60i video. Is this normal??

sorry for all the questions today guys :)

When you render to any compressed format, it generally takes longer than rendering to a lesser or uncompressed format. There is more being done to/looked at in the frame when you're rendering to highly compressed formats such as MPEG.

It just seems that when I render to mpeg-2 60i it far quicker then 24p

If your source material was 60i, there is still a lot going on to extract the 24 frames from the 60i. If your source material were 24p, you'd see longer 60i renders instead.

But my source is 24p and my output file is 24p and it's taking forever. What do recommend for rendering out to 24p?? I'm choosing HDV 60i and changing the video options to 24 frames per second.... should I not be doing this?

No, you should not be doing what you're doing. If you want 24p, then you should be using one of the 24p templates.