Rob Peters' Everesting Reddish Knob Event Report 06/27/20
Hi all,
This isn't super organized or well-written, but I wanted to get something down while it is fresh. Please feel free to ask any questions. We won't have the pics and videos back from the photographer my friend brought for a while but that should be sweet (link to his FB page below):
My Strava activity of Everest:
https://www.strava.com/activities/3681439302
My Strava activity of previewing the climb the day before:
https://www.strava.com/activities/3675585994
Some results stats my GF compiled (yes my GF is definitely a stronger climber (and athlete) than I am. I am just happy she keeps hanging out with me ;) ):
Times for full Everest (12.4 laps for nick, Paige and myself): elapsed time (moving time)
Nick DeHaan 17:41 (14:49)
Paige Boldt 18:56 (17:15)
Rob Peters 21:19 (17:38) **0:55 for mechanical
Jon Ornee 20:00 (15:14) **didn’t do extra 1/2 lap)
Segment selection and background: Since October 2019 I’ve been trying to convince my Strava friend and bike segment nemesis/mentor (and local cycling legend) Nick Dehaan to everest with me. He was never interested since he is a bigger guy like me and we don’t climb well (even if his FTP/kg is much higher than mine). He did decide to virtual everest with me in February 2020 (both on dumb trainers). I was going to do a local climb because it is easy to train on, has significance since it is somewhat iconic in local cycling scene and because I did my 21,111 feet of gain day on it in October 2019 and some other big training days. I also wanted to do a local climb, because I knew if I opened the door to “which climb should I do anywhere in US,” that would lead down a rabbit hole of spending a lot of time looking for climbs around eastern US. However, Nick seemed to show a little interest in my upcoming plans to everest and on Strava said he had no interest in doing a local everest, but would have an interest in doing a destination everest. So we did go down the rabbit hole of searching for an ideal segment: good grade (~7-10%), good scenery, has not been everested, limited traffic, driveable and Nick wanted to do not much more than 30 repeats, which meant the climb had to be pretty long. I was ok with this. Luckily, Nick did a ton of searching and analyses and found our final choice (Reddish Knob). I participated, made several suggestions and discussed each climb option with Nick. At one point, we considered picking a great climb that someone else had already done, because we were struggling a bit. The only reason not to do that is you won’t have the pleasure of being a “pioneer” in being the first to everest that climb, adding it to the hall of fame map and you won’t get the “first known ascent” badge. Based on what we could see online (google earth, youtube videos, etc), Reddish knob seemed too good to be true. We found it about 2 weeks prior to our target weekend and worried someone may do it before we did, but luckily, that did not seem to be the case. There was one failed attempt at a half everest on the climb in the past year (Nick found on Strava). It turned out that this climb has a very narrow ~1 lane road for about ⅓ of it. But this was a dead end and cars went slowly. This section of the road did have some monster pot holes that would absolutely cause a crash and eat you up alive. So this was a concern as well. But they were avoidable, especially as you got to know the climb/descent better. The area did have limited traffic, but there were a ton of people who drove up to the scenic parking lot at the top at sunset saturday night (and many of them were likely drunk), so this was a concern and did require us to get off our bikes to let cars pass a lot toward teh end of the challenge. One guy driving up the climb (who was obviously drunk) stopped to warn me about all the drunk drivers “down there.” This was very alarming and I got pretty concerned, but we all kept riding and road more cautiously. Luckily I’m not sure what he meant by “down there,” but after seeing him, I saw very few vehicles (if any) further down the road. This was around lap ~11/12.4. Other features that made reddish great: scenic 360 panorama at the top, long enough to require very few repeats, parking area at the bottom of the segment (by the reservoir) and a popular spot for cyclists. It also turned out that there was some great wild life there too!
some post-everest words from my friend Nick DeHaan:
”Congrats Rob Peters and my fellow companions! I'm still answering the "would you do it again" question in the negative but I see myself turning that corner at some point (maybe once my sleep-bank balance isn't so deep in the red). One thing I'm certain of though- I never would have even considered doing such a thing had I not met you. I'm no stranger to ultra-endurance but, as you know, "I am not a climber". 😂 Seriously, though- thanks for pushing me past my zone of comfort and putting up with my anxious idiosyncrasies (like insisting we buy 36 gallons of water and 150lbs of ice the night before). I really had a ton of fun planning this, and we were so lucky to stumble upon this awesome climb that somehow had not yet been claimed (despite it's popularity for cycling, having a TT event on it, and being in close proximity to some other renown endurance events). It was a blast to take a road trip with a couple of relative strangers (strava friends who I've just met a couple brief times irl) and it certainly made for some great memories. Plus the descent was pure bliss after dialing in the turns. Still never doing it again, though. 😉”
- Segment we rode for our everest. My understanding is that segments may have inaccurate data based on the quality of the GPS data of the person who created the segment. This shows 2380 ft of elevation difference (which would ignore any additional gain you get from descending during ascent and then “re-climbing” some of the meters you climbed once already). Even though this segment has a flat section at the beginning, we chose this to ride this because an even number of 14 laps would get us 10,000 meters. Nick was initially planning to climb 10,000 meters to get their is a separate hall of fame for this (formerly known as the “High Rouleurs Society.”), and 10,000 meters was my stretch goal. I figured if I planned enough time/energy/pain for 10,000 meters, it would help ensure I could at least everest.
- https://www.strava.com/segments/5904367
- My understanding is that making a route out with Strava will consider the GPS data from all users who have ridden the route making the stats more accurate. Nick made a route of our planned repeat, but it is now hidden. (I will ask him to unhide). We hid as much as possible to keep anyone from everesting this climb before we did.
- https://www.strava.com/routes/28790279
- Based on topo maps, and other analyses, my friend Nick Dehaan said we should plan on 2350 feet of gain per lap to be conservative. Everesting rules are a bit vague about whether or not elevation gain on the descent counts toward your 8848 meters of climbing. It says that it does, but it also says that if you have “kinetic gain,” that should not count. So it is somewhat of a judgement call. Most people on the eversting FB page say to remove the gain on the descent when using the everesting calculator to make sure you do not include kinetic gain. After riding the segment, I can say there is a little kinetic gain on the descent, but there is also a little gain which requires significant pedaling to get over & it should count.
- Longer segment we did not use, but considered (too much flat early on)
- https://strava.app.link/taUy6Ys3k7
More BG:
- I pretty much only know Nick from Strava. We have seen each other at a race and on a ride a couple times. But we interact on Strava a lot over the last two years.
- Paige decided she wanted to everest too, evenghouth she has only really been riding her bike since Easter (when we met). She has a BG as a fairly elite runner, however and does a lot of cross training as well.
- Nick’s friend Jon wanted to join. He and Nick had only hung out on a couple bike rides. They met randomly during Nick’s 350 mile ride back and forth across the state last year. Then Jon invited Nick to be part of his ~5 man team to set an ultracycling record for fastest supported ride across the state (~200 miles at ~24.8 mph including all stops). But I trusted Nick’s judgement in inviting Jon. It turns out that Jon is an incredible endurance athlete (as you would imagine), and has a history of taking on pretty epic challenges. He is currently training to do a 5 man relay swim across lake michigan. He is also an awesome musician (formerly a professional musician in the band “AG Silver.”). Make sure to check out he and his wife’s side project “Lady and Gentleman” on Spotify. They are great! Jon brought the photographer Justice, who he met at a MTB race.
- I also invited anyone on EN to join. @Carl Alleyne and @Allison Lee ended up coming up and it was so awesome to have teammates to share the experience with! They both had terrible gearing for the climb and had not been planning on this challenge for very long, so it was super awesome to see them both successfully complete their half everest. AND Carl even had a (I think?) low speed collision with a car during the ride and he didn’t let that stop him!
- It ended up being a great group. We all got along great and had a great time together.
Jon Ornee:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/1036092
Nick Dehaan:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/15640539
Paige Boldt (my GF):
https://www.strava.com/athletes/13795809
Justice Oshiyoye (the photographer that Jon brought)
Week leading up to event:
- My bike fitness peaked around May 25th with a bike CTL of ~82. But because of niggles in hips, time constraints, tapering for other events, and working on building run fitness/durability this spring since run was way behind cycling, my bike numbers really dropped off in the weeks between 5/25 and our everest. This worried me a little, but I knew I had a big base and that it would be better to over recover than under recover. Additionally, my FTP is still set a 354 based on 62 min TT in March. I was running less then in March and have steadily been ramping up my run volume 10-13% per week since late March (starting at about zero). (There were ~2 weeks during that time where I dropped run volume or held it steady because of a niggle or just to be careful). So my drop in bike fitness may have been less than numbers suggested if FTP was set too high. But I did do a 200 mile ride on TT bike mostly pulling the whole way on Friday 6/5 (for my GF birthday), and a half everest on a steep local climb (139 repeats w/ a decent portion ~12-16%) with a 12/28 cassette on Sunday 6/14, so I did have some big rides in the weeks leading up to everest taper.
- My run volume was slowly ramping up and I did ramp it up right until 2 weeks prior to the everest week. I knew this would make the everest harder, but rebuilding run fitness was a huge priority and I was willing to try the everest with only 1 week of greatly reduced running (also knowing that bike muscles were very tapered). That being said, early in the week of the everest attempt, my quads did have more fatigue than expected from the prior week’s running (which was my highest run volume week by 18% and had two days with intensity. In retrospect, I should have expected significant fatigue from a run week like that).
- I did my strength training routine on the Sunday prior to everesting weekend to allow sufficient recovery. (ideally it would be more like 10 days, but based on the timing of my strength training cycle, I was pretty sure this was best for injury prevention).
- The week of the event was NOT ideal in terms of recovery (see below).
- I’ve been experimenting with weekly ~24 hour fasts to help with body comp and to get the general health benefits of fasting and caloric restriction. So I did do a ~24 hour fast Monday prior to event with a split long run. I knew this would also stress my body, but I was pretty sure I could handle it. I didn’t sleep well Monday night (which may have related a bit to the fast, but I did eat a pretty big dinner Monday night). However, Friday and Saturday night (1 week prior to event), I slept really long and hard. I didn’t sleep great Tuesday night either, but I can’t remember why. I think it was too hot at Paiges.
- I left too much packing till Wednesday and was stressed about some non-training related deadlines I had been putting off. My traveling partners (Nick and Paige) wanted to leave early enough Thursday “so we could ride” Thursday afternoon in Morgantown, WV. I would’ve rather slept longer and gotten in later, but I was fine going along with their plan. So we woke at 5 am Thursday morning, which is way earlier than my normal wake up time and that made sleep that night insufficient.
- We stayed with one of my long time close friends in Morgantown, WV (Chey). Nick, Paige and I went for a little ride to spin the legs. Nick rode moderately hard for 1.5 hours because he rides 400+ miles a week and had tapered the week before and was really itching to ride. Paige and I rode really easy for ~45 minutes. Paige also ran a few miles. This was the first time I got to test my new 34 cassette and medium length rear derailleur, so this was a good reason for me to ride too. Chey is practically family, so it was so great to catch up. She introduced us to two of her friends who shared the apartment we used. They were all really great. We went out to dinner Thursday night and all told stories and laughed a lot. This was awesome. Chey and I hadn’t spoken with much the last two years, so this was really nice. However, Chey’s apartment was on the third floor and she only had a window AC unit. We asked ahead of time about climate control (Nick and I both can’t sleep well when it is too hot), and she assured us she had AC and it wouldn’t be a problem. However, it was hot and humid in the apartment and Paige and I slept poorly Thursday night as well.
- Friday was not the ideal pre-huge event day I would like. I knew ahead of time that would probably happen because of all we had scheduled to do that day, but I did my best to stay positive, get the work done and get to bed. We had to wake in Morgantown, pack the truck & re-rack the bikes, drive to Reddish Knob (took longer than we expected, ~3 hours). We planned to preview the course with an easy ride. I was considering skipping this preview ride, since I was worried I hadn’t tapered enough. But I was itching to ride and Paige and Nick were too. We also all wanted to see the descent since we would start in the dark. We thought about driving instead, but all wanted to ride.
- Preview ride on Friday afternoon: Paige went up moderately fast (55 minutes, ~ her fastest ascent time on day of everest), Nick went up a bit more than moderately fast (44 minutes with higher HR and faster than any of his climbs the day of everest). I went up at a pace just above what I thought would be around my “stretch goal” power and HR for climbing on everest day (Friday was ~58:38, fastest on Everest day was 60:48). I told Nick and Paige I wanted to ride really slowly, but I was the slowest one, we all had a lot to do, and we were all excited. So I had to balance those competing factors. Nick ripped the descent, but called it a “cautious descent.” (He later was descending much faster than that on everest day. He has a lot of experience downhill skiing and mountain biking, so he has great descending skills, and is admittedly willing to take more risks than I am.) I was following him on Friday’s preview, so I knew he would be able to see any approaching cars before I did so I wasn’t as worried about the corners. Friday was my fastest descent of any of them (13:39), but I had a few on Saturday that were close (13:55, 14:03). Fast descents also required some pedaling since there was a little climbing on the descent. I did spike my watts pretty high very briefly on one of these rolling hills while I was chasing nick because of the excitement, but I didn’t think it would be too much stress. The descents on Saturday were really fun until I blew my front tire. We became very familiar with the course and that gave us more confidence and practice on how to descend it better and made Nick and I really enjoy the descents. Paige is new to biking and is pretty terrified of the descents, but she toughed it out and went more slowly. But after blowing my tire, I was really nervous it might happen again and knew it could cause a crash, so I started descending more cautiously. I also was really careful around the turns because of concern over approaching cars. We all descended much more slowly in the dark as well. Also, most of us said our hands got tired of squeezing the brakes on the descent. I was also often down in a fairly aero position (it was more fun that way and my natural response), so my glutes were burning after several descents, so I tried to sit up a bit more later in the day.
- Friday Continued: After the preview ride, we had to drive to AirBnb, check in, unpack, buy ice and water & prep for the ride. Paige cooked spaghetti dinner for us and prepped at the house. Nick and I went to walmart and bought way too much ice and water (150 pounds of ice and probably ~35 gallons of water). But Nick and Paige both react poorly to the heat and were really worried about it. I know I drink a ton too when training, so I wanted plenty of fluids. Plus Jon and Carl had both asked us to get some water and ice for them.
- So all of this, plus charging lights, organizing gear, nutrition and bottles meant Friday was way busier than I wanted and I felt a bit stressed Friday evening. But I tried to stay positive and just get the work done, so I could lay down and relax.
- Friday night we woke at 1:45 am, so we obviously didn’t get much sleep that night (I think I was up till 11 or 12).
Day of event notes:
- We started riding at the bottom at 3:30 am, nick dropped us off & drove to the top to start.
- Our truck stayed at the top.
- I only pooped once at the bottom of the first lap and once again mid day. So that is pretty good for me.
- Jon was a friend who drove down separately, stayed with us and everested. He brought a photographer with a drone & go pro (Justice = photographer). Jon and Justice started later (~6 am) and Justice drove around the course. Jon was thinking he could do the whole event in 14 hours. He underestimated it like all of us (but he could climb really fast when he wanted to. His first climb was ~44 minutes.). It was very helpful to have justice there in event of problem.
- Carl and Allison showed up around 5:30 am to climb as much as possible (half to full everest). They parked 2 cars at the top as well.
- When I got a flat tire on the descent of lap 7, Paige passed me on the way up, told Justice to bring me my spare wheel and he did. My front wheel was a tubular & the tire ripped off completely and the metal rim got pretty scratched up while I tried to stop after the flat (that's why I had to wait for spare wheel). My spare wheel was a clincher. I did lose about 55 minutes waiting on the side of the road for the spare wheel. I was about halfway down the climb when it blew. I had no cell service on the mountain (T-mobile). It was VERY scary to get the flat on the descent. I heard it and immediately realized what it was and that I had to stop. I think I might have briefly tried to steer to the side of the road out of instinct, but quickly felt that I didn’t have traction and realized that I could very easily crash if I wasn’t really careful. There was a moment when I thought I might crash, but I stayed upright. As I came to a stop I saw the tire peeling off the wheel, so I was pretty sure the rim was ruined. I’m really lucky I had just slowed down a bit to go around the curve and that I was in a straight section when it blew. I took off my shoes and decided to start walking up the mountain to a support car (no cell service). But then I realized that would take forever and Paige should be passing me soon. (And I did not want to walk in my bike shoes, so I took them off, but the hot pavement was too intense for my bare feet since I was riding sockless). So I laid in the grass next to my bike and rested. I closed my eyes and thought “Maybe I could nap?” But then immediately remembered: OH NO!! You cannot sleep! That is against everesting rules. So I’m glad I remembered in time.
- My toes hurt a TON around lap 4, but I loosened my shoes & they felt fine the rest of the time. I had problems with toe pain a bit in other long rides this spring, even wearing my old shoes. I think my feet swell and I need to remember to loosen up my shoes. For today, my brand new shoes worked well (half size bigger than old shoes): White shimano shoes I got on clearance from Tri-sports.com. I tested them out riding Reddish knob preview on 06/26/20 (I know this was a risk, but I had my old shoes as a back-up).
- Around lap 8, I was trying to clip back into my pedals and I got a momentary spike to over 2300 watts of power. This totally threw off my NP and avg power for the day (disappointing), so I’m not sure how many TSS and stuff I had. Hoping I can edit out that spike, but with the spike in there, I had 660 TSS (using my march FTP from when I wasn’t running much, so that is probably an underestimate). Nick and I both decided to stop at Everest. We all underestimated how hard it would be (and I think many of us rode too hard early in the day.).
- Justice interviewed each of us on video on Sunday. So look forward to those. He got some great drone footage of me and Jon riding too.
- I took a selfie at the top and bottom of each lap and a picture of my computer in case of device failure. I also recorded with phone as a back up. Phone said total elevation gain was 32,170.
- My stretch goal was to climb around 250 watts as long as HR stayed in 120s to low 130s. I knew this might be too ambitious, but decided to give it a shot. I was able to do this for about 5.75 laps. But in the last quarter of my 6th lap, I started slowing. My 7th lap was really, really tough (may have gotten behind on nutrition and fuel a bit).
- Early in the ride, I did have the two “new” (new this spring) niggles in my hips flare up a bit (mostly the one in the right hip). So I started altering my pedal stroke on the bike temporarily to create PT-like exercises I could do while riding. I would tilt my pelvis and crunch my abs, and focus on pulling up hard with right leg first for 12 strokes, then left leg. Then I would do “cat pose” on the bike and contract lower back to stretch front for 12 strokes. Then I tilted pelvis again, contracted abs and did 12 pedal strokes focusing on pulling up. I did this periodically throughout the morning. It kept the niggle away, and even was enough PT so that the niggle was gone the rest of the day without more exercises (mostly) and in the days that followed. I hadn’t done any of my core PT since sunday except 3* 70 second planks on Thursday with Morgantown friends. I had kinda had a chance to experiment with this “on the bike” PT during the East Leonard half everest. These two niggles were event worse going into that event, so i had to come up with a way to keep them at bay then. This is a second example of how I was able to alter my pedal stroke to help correct a niggle and relieve the tension created by a muscle imbalance. Last summer when I had an occasional niggle on the inside of my knee during Al camp and hoff camp I focused on engaging the medial quad with a leg extension type motion during the pedal stroke and that really worked well.
- I think I was hydrating really well most of the day. I was initially drinking 1.5 bottles per lab (each lap was ~75 minutes for the first half of the day, not including break time). I peed at the bottom of each descent, until my 5th or 6th lap when I didn’t have to pee. Then it started getting hotter and I started drinking 2 bottles per lap and drank some at the top during my brake.
- I didn’t put enough chamois cream in the “new spot” that got raw on leonard half everest (spots on my butt cheeks where I have never gotten chafing before. But I put a ton there starting 3rd lap and each subsequent lap. That skin did get a bit raw and scabbed, but not as bad as the east leonard half everest 2 weeks prior to this.
- Toward the end, one of the most painful things was my sit bones and that skin. My hands & wrists also got pretty sore, especially on the descents. My low back got really sore toward the end too, but I kept trying to stretch it on the bike with cat/cow motions (like in yoga class). Normally I have a stronger core from swimming, but pools have been closed because of Covid. And since my front core has had niggles from being too weak, I haven’t been doing much of my normal stuff to strengthen my lower back.
- Paige wrote a ton in her run log, so we’ll have to look there too.
- Nick finished first, followed by Paige, followed by me (~1:15 am), followed by Jon (~3:30 am).
Nutrition/hydration notes:
Hydration stuff prepared night before:
- 6 bottles of 1.5 scoops of tailwind (~150 calories and 450 mg sodium per bottle)
- 7 bottles of water
- ~6 bottles of 1.5 scoops of scratch, 120 calories.
- We had 150 pounds of ice and probably 50 gallons of water in addition to this (we went a bit overkill).
Other related notes:
- I didn’t use two prefilled hydration bottles. Did have to refill about 3 bottles & did drink some water that wasn’t one of my prefilled bike bottles during breaks (it was my nalgene ). I definitely got sick of sweet foods, earlier than I expected & was very happy to have jerkey & sandwiches. Had a bottle of coke around lap 5 (first dose of serious caffeine, aside from half bottle of kombucha around lap 5). Had another bottle of kombucha around end of lap 10 and that helped a TON. Also had a little caffeinated gel at one point. Most other nutrition was not caffeinated (I had a lot of coffee & caffeine morning of event).
- I did take an Alt-red every ~2 hours (beet extract supplement).
- I took ~3 carborocket electrolyte tablets every lap.
- I had a TON of mustard with my sub sandwich for more sodium
- I never vomited or got seriously nauseous, but my stomach did feel slightly off at times and did not feel great about eating sugary stuff.
Gear notes:
I got my training wheels and racing wheels weighed at the bike shop before the climb to see which is lighter. Weights were with 11-28 (or 12-28) cassettes on both rear wheels.
- Training wheels:
- Mavic aksium (~2010 front 2lbs 15 ounces.
- Mavic aksium rear 3lb 13 oz.
- Racing wheels (got them used in ~2010), ~50 mm carbon fairing with aluminum braking surface.
- HED tubular tire front 2lbs 12 ounces.
- HED tubular tire rear 3lb 9 oz.
- Original tires on racing wheels, continental sprinters
- Weight of my entire road bike (Felt from ~2010) with HED wheels and saddlebag (but no pedals on and my P1 powertap pedals are on the heavy side), before switching old dura ace derailleur to 105 derailleur. 18 lbs 9 oz.
- My cat eye light does not turn on when plugged in. Charging my garmin 520+ with battery pack in top tube worked really well. My battery pack was able to top off my garmin twice and top off my cat eye volt 1300 for a while before the battery pack died. I had extra head lights & never had to use my Blackburn 800 lumen. Nick’s light gave him trouble, so I was able to loan him that on lap 1. Did the first few laps with my black and white helmet with my serfas headlight mounted to helmet, then switched to lighter white helmet with no helmet headlight during the day. During the day: Climbed with no headlight, but had my cat eye flashing on handlebar for descents.
- Both Jon and Nick had problems with their garmins at different times.
- Bike: felt 10 speed full carbon. Old HED deep carbon disc wheels with tubular tires (weighed at bike store and they were lighter than my mavic aksiums). With no pedals (power tap), no bottles and lightly loaded saddle bag bike weighed 18 pounds, 9 OZ. Shimano 105 medium cage deraiilure with 11-34 rear cassette, 50-34 in the front. SO THANKFUL for 34-34!!
For future attempts:
Do you have cell service? Bungee cords to secure wheel to your back (like backpack) if you need to carry wheel to someone while riding bike. Have spray paint to mark any pot holes in the road.
Bring spray paint to spray pot holes (we didn’t do this.). We did bring a big broom to sweep gravel off of turns, but we never took time to do this Friday. Pavement was pretty clean.
Below are notes I took on my two half everests in helping me plan pacing for full everest (in google docs, the outlines have indentations and are more organized, but when I paste it into here, the organization from the indentations disappears) :( -
Here it is on the google doc in more organized fashion:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cAE3ApTYlKB9pcEtrUVCpuAk-YYkyWxfoipSTL1fcvQ/edit?usp=sharing
My prep rides:
- JBZ 21,000 feet (174 repeats) 10/14/2019, rested up for it and felt good. Avg. HR 131!
- RPE: I felt good (but only was in bed 6 hours night before. Excitement? Alarm?). Started ride at 8:55 am.
- This followed long break from broken collarbone.
- https://www.strava.com/activities/2789700743/segments/69527641864
- Strava segment says ~116 feet per climb. 174 repeats = 20,184 ft total gain (seems consistent w/ garmin at the time)
- 21,000/11.25 hr (including breaks)= 1866.66 ft/hour → 30,000 ft/1866.66 ft/hr = 16 hours to everest. (see below for math)
- Started around 46 minutes into the ride (6.4 miles), finished repeats ~12hr into ride (total time) (total distance 109.3 miles, so distance of repeats = 109.3-6.4 = 102.9), so 11hr15min to do 174 repeats w/ breaks (Luke filled water bottle for me, no BMs).
- 20,184 ft/102.9 miles = 196.15 ft/mile
- I did push hard for the first 2hr50 min (50 repeats) for segment trophy (avg HR 137, avg power 213! Average cadence 69)
- NP for the day = 229
- Context stats:
- Body weight that week ~194.6-196.2 lbs
- Run volume was 4-10 miles per week around that time
- I lifted legs on the Wednesday before (5 days before)
- For the ~174 repeats on TP (traced):
- 10:17 moving time, 11:03 total time
- NP 234
- HR 133
- Cadence 63
- Average power 200 (max 554)
- Cool temperatures!
- PMC numbers (but FTP was off, because my everest was 706 TSS, so clearly FTP was too low)
- CTL = 81
- TSB = -47
- ATL = 119
- Randomly selected “John Ball climbs” toward the end:
- I COULD ONLY FIND ABOUT 3-4 climbs with avg power over 300 AND they were not much over 300!
- Hardest one I could find early on (at least 15 climbs in)
- Duration 1:58
- Avg power 319 (max 436 w)
- Avg HR 135 (max 142)
- Cadence 64
- 3 min (toward the end)
- 223 w avg (325 max)
- 120 bpm avg (138 bpm max)
- 61 cadence
- 2:39 (closer to the end)
- 218 w avg (322 max)
- 117 bpm avg (123 bpm max)
- 56 cadence
E. Leonard 06/14/2020 half everest
- RPE: I felt really tired morning of event
- Got a late start, because we spent the morning w/ Paige’s family.
- https://www.strava.com/activities/3616705968
- Strava says between 109-112 ft per climb
- My count = 139 repeats (Hells 500 counted 139 repeats too)
- 8:21 moving time, 8:48 total time (seriously! Paige helped me have so little break time. We were also racing sunset.)
- 139*109 = 15,151
- 15,000 ft/8.833 hr = 1698.17 ft/hr → 30,000 ft/1698 ft/hr = 17.67 hr to everest (including short breaks)
- No BMs
- Bottles all pre-filled
- Short breaks
- 15,000 ft/90 miles = 166.66 ft/mile. SO WE HAD A LOT MORE FLAT HERE than JBZ.
- I pushed really hard for first 10-15 repeats for trophy & to catch paige. But I felt like I kept pushing pretty hard to keep up w/ Paige for the first 3 hours or so, then we pushed hard again when Paige’s friends showed up, then we pushed hard again when Nick D showed up).
- First 2hr46 min
- NP254
- HR 118 (max 146), probably low because I was tired.
- Avg power: 196 (max 514)
- Cadene 64
- First 31 min (for trophy on 10x repeats):
- NP272
- HR 114 (max 141), probably low because I was tired.
- Avg power: 209 (max 505)
- Cadence 68
- From TP for the day & all repeats:
- 8hr20min moving time, 8:48 total time
- NP 244
- Avg HR 118
- Avg cadence 62 (but more flat miles here than JBZ)
- Avg power 187
- PMC numbers (FTP probably set too high, 354 from March when I wasn’t running)
- ATL 116
- CTL 120
- TSB 10
- Context
- Weighing 199.6-202.8 that week
- Run volume ~30 miles w/ intensity two weeks prior
- Yoga on Friday before
- All out 42 minute TT the day before (purposely to fatigue myself)
- A couple hours of bending over & weeding the day before; yard work at Paiges.
- Did not sleep super well some nights leading up to this.
- Randomly selected repeats
- Hardest one early on
- Duration 1:38
- Avg power 347 - TOO HARD, but I did this somewhat intentionally to make it harder to better be prepared for full everest.
- HR avg 130 (max 141)
- Cadence 76
- Mid way easy one (hard to find anything below 250 W avg)
- Duration 2:27
- HR avg 122 (max 128)
- Avg power 229 (max 355)
- Cadence 53 - this was a major problem
- Easy one toward the end
- Duration 2:39
- HR avg 118 (128 max)
- Avg power 225 (max 334)
- Cadence 5? (fifty something)
- Climbs over 300 w avg power:
- 306
- 347
- 311
- 330
- 319
- 340
- 302
- 301
- 306
- 304
Comments
Unbelievable detail in your report and your pre-ride preparation lead to a huge day of success. I am sure it was great to ride with friends. Congrats on another huge accomplishment.
Thanks a million @Dave Legg !! When I read other race plans/reports, I am often struck by the detail. So i was trying to bring the same attention to detail in this report. And I know from my years in the laboratory that what seems obvious or unimportant at the time, can sometimes be the key piece of information you really want months or years later.
@Larry Peters Amazing accomplishment and fantastic write-up. Between this and your vEveresting podcast you've provided a really good road map for the team.
I'm not sure either an indoor or outdoor everesting is my near future, but I know where to turn to if I start to contemplate the challenge.
I look forward to what you might have coming next!
Thanks a million for the encouragement and kind words @Jeff Phillips !! We are stronger together! Yes, please do contact me if you contemplate this challenge! If you want to get some motivation, join the everesting FB group. It's pretty cool.
this was exhausting to read, but I made it through the whole thing in a few sessions.. huge effort! sounds like a great group of people and a fun day for all.
I think there is a certain level of gear prep one should go through for success. Tires/ tubes - should have been brand new and ridden for one test ride prior. Were chains checked? I do this for every ironman. Do you really want tubulars? can't change em or fix em roadside. I feel like that one blowout you had would have been solved in 10-15 mins if you had a spare tube and inflator in your seat pack, had you been running clinchers.
can't wait to see what's next as you take your epic shizz to another level!
@Larry Peters I finally got around to reading this. Kudo's to you and the crew that got this done. So impressed!
@Larry Peters, there is an unbelievable level of detail in your report which shows what it really takes to be successful in an IRL Everest attempt. I still can't comprehend how one can ride hills for 17+ hours, this is really impressive. Congratulations my friend, and this must have been ever better doing this crazy stuff with friends and GF. Now enjoy some rest.
Thanks a million for the kind words and support @scott dinhofer , @tim cronk , and @Vincent Sivirine !! And thanks for taking the time to check out my report! Sorry if it was a lot of work. ;) sometimes you don't know which details you will really be interested in months or years later, so I just tried to include as many as I could. ;).
@scott dinhofer , the wheels I used were my nicest and lightest wheels. I got my two wheel sets weighed at the bike shop to check before the event. The tubulars were not something I "wanted," but they came with the used road bike I bought a while ago. They have been really reliable and perform really well. I've had them since 2010 and never gotten a flat. I've heard others say tubulars are less prone to flats than clinchers too. I knew using the tubulars was a risk because they can be difficult to repair. But I've always carried one of those CO2 w/ sealant since that is what bike shops have recommended. I've never had a chance to use it. Honestly, I was always hoping I'd get a flat on them at some point when I had an alternative (like my other wheel set), so I could see how well the CO2 with sealant worked. Unfortunately, since I was going so fast downhill and the rim was so hot from breaking (and it was hot out in peak heat of the day), the whole tire melted off the wheel and was unusable (as I mentioned above).
I asked multiple bike stores about getting new tires on those tubulars, but since the tires are glued on, they were always uninterested in doing it. They typically told me to keep running the tires until they needed to be replaced because trying to take off the glued-on tired would be a pain. I had my other wheel set ready to go as a back-up.
I did not check the chain, but it was fairly new and I did take a back-up chain.
FYI, I got a really good deal on new racing wheels that are tubeless ready (should arrive in the next month). So I shouldn't have to race with these old tubulars anymore.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree it is important to check gear before a big event. My bike was in the bike store multiple times for tune ups and check-ups in the months leading up to the big event.