Rob Peters 03/01/2020 virtual everest on dumb trainer Event Report
This is what I wrote on plane ride within 2 weeks of completing the virtual everest. I never polished it up, so I didn’t post it. But here it is. Please feel free to ask any questions you might have.
This was discussed at length in EN podcast:
https://enation.libsyn.com/everesting-and-more-the-rob-peters-interview
Strava activity:
https://www.strava.com/activities/3146871710
Background and event:
I can’t remember where I first heard of “Everesting,” but I definitely remember @Brian Hagan and @Peter Noyes talking about wanting to do it on group me and that was a big part of what got me hooked on the idea. I also read about @tim cronk outdoor Everest, and this really made me treat the idea with great respect.
My first Everest training ride was in mid October 2019. There is a local, short, steep hill that is popular among cyclists (John ball zoo). I imagine it’s popularity is due to a few reasons: it’s steep for Michigan, it is close to downtown, it is the back entrance to a small parking lot for the zoo and a dead end, so it has minimal traffic and vehicle speeds are low, and it has a reasonably nice forested surrounding. There are bathrooms and water fountains near by too. The hill has Strava segments for 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 repeats of the hill. Last spring I had done ~47 repeats for the Strava trophy (less than 10 people have recorded 40 repeats on Strava), so I had familiarity with the hill. I assumed the hill was too steep to be a good hill for me to Everest, but I wanted to see what I could do. So after 2-3 big bike weeks, I rested up for about a week and planned to ride out there and ride repeats all day. The day before I rode out with a bunch of nutrition and hid it in the woods near the hill so I could come and go from the hill on my bike (I hate putting my bike in my car and only live about 5 miles from hill).
I got a full night sleep (I think), got there reasonably early for me, and started off. It went really, really well. I climbed 21,111 feet (something like 175 repeats of the hill). My goal was to be done when sun set, but I climbed a little in the dark to get to 21,111 feet of gain (rode home sooner than 21,111 and then did a couple repeats on a hill by my house to cross that mark. This was an attempt to exercise more caution). Luckily, a local cyclist friend came out and rode for an hour or two with me and refilled my bottles and added Gatorade endurance (he has limited experience with long distance stuff and he didn’t mix it well, but that’s ok). I managed to do the whole ride with just cliff bars, blocks, GE and sodium pills (no real food) and I managed the ~12 hour day with no BMs once I started the repeats at the hill, which is extraordinary for me.
I also pushed pretty hard (way harder than one should push if hoping to ride all day) on the first 30 or so to break into the top 10 on the dirty thirty Strava segment, and I did, just barely. I think I also rode hard to the 50 repeat mark to try and get the best Strava segment time I could. And I rode the last lap up harder than the previous 125 just as a confidence boost to say: I could’ve kept going (granted, when I got home, the tendons in my knees were so tight, i thought: yeah, I definitely want to build bike fitness for a few more weeks before going full Everest).
With that great success after only a month or so (need to check records for exact timing) back to cycling, the fact that I rode the first 30-50 repeats pretty hard, I thought I could definitely Everest. I immediately started thinking about when I could do it ASAP. But winter was approaching and having 15-20 hours with no below freezing temps was becoming unlikely. Decided on Christmas break in Austin & even found a hill.
I had been seriously contemplating buying a good smart trainer just so I could get in the Hells 500 Everesting record books for a virtual Everest. But when I did this, I figured I could everest outdoors and didn’t need a smart trainer to qualify for the “grey stripe kit.”
As preparation for this proposed Christmas outdoor Everest, I decided to virtual Everest over thanksgiving. I would just do it with my power meter even though I wouldn’t be eligible for hells 500 record books, I didn’t mind. I prepared pretty well and rested up. I decided to start in the middle of the night because I wanted to ride several hours past 30,000 feet to better simulate an Everest outdoors (everyone who has done both says outdoors takes much longer than virtual and this is not surprising). As the night approached, I decided to start at 11:11 pm, even though that was earlier than necessary, because....YOLO. And because I always plan too little time for things and I figured this would give me extra time.
My numbers were really good for the first couple trips (great power, low HR, fast times up AdZ, ~65-70 minutes, much faster than I planned). But things quickly went downhill. I tried to stick to just liquid nutrition for the first several hours as preparation for 140.6 and as experimentation. I also had a bunch of spring gels to try which do have Whole Foods ground up inside (breaking a no first time things on race day rule, I know). Early on, liquid Fuel was cliff blocks with extra sodium, a few bottles of GE, and some extra sodium gels then eventually switched to spring gels and added some bars. When GE ran out, I switched to water to save time. Normally I take 1-3 sodium tablets per hour, but I guess I got way behind on sodium and I got pretty severe hyponatremia. I also felt increasingly awful as the night wore on and this made me very gun shy about any event that went through the night. I eventually vomited a bunch and passed out on the floor multiple times, and one point I even bruised my hip and scratched my shoulder from passing out on the garage floor. This took away all my interest to attempt an everest. (Interestingly, I got to around 20,000 feet, 6/9 needed trips up AdZ).
I didn’t realize initially how bad the Hyponatremia was, and I thought the whole problem was that I was eating too much sugar, not enough solid food and just fatigue. But people on the team (Steve Boer and others) and hindsight helped me recognize it was definitely low sodium, and knowing that part of my difficulty could be prevented is part of what allowed the idea of trying again to creep back into my head. Then @Brian Hagan suggested that an early morning start would be much easier and I agreed.
So once I decided I wanted to do it, I was eager to do it ASAP. But it was the end of the semester, and I didn’t want to rush it, or do it when I wasn’t fully recovered from my epic fail and work is busier then. So i decided to wait until after Christmas. Christmas 2018-2019, I got a ton of training in and really bumped my fitness. But I was busier this Christmas with more family time (I guess?), i prioritized admin time for segment hunting over just getting more training time and I didn’t get as much training as I hoped. My numbers didn’t look too bad, I thought, but When I got back into my normal routine, I didn’t realize what a big hit my endurance took. I also gained some weight over the holiday and I wasn’t in the best place psychologically I could be as this christmas was different than any other and caused me to reflect on some aspects of my life in ways that had me feeling a bit down. Before break, I thought I could go for Everest relatively soon after break. But when I went for my first big hard day on Zwift, I was hitting way less TSS than my big days from fall, riding for shorter time period and getting totally worn out during a shorter ride as opposed to finishing strong. A couple weeks went by and I was getting stronger, but progress was slow. And I now started wondering how long it would take. I had planned mid February, but then after another hard day that didn’t show the endurance I expected, I decided to push it back further. My goal was to get 2-3 pretty big cycling volume weeks, then taper down for 2 weeks and go for it. Spring break was coming and I knew I had travel, so I felt like March 1st weekend was my last chance (before work got crazy, weather got better and I wasn’t sure how much training I would get while away for spring break).
As three weeks out approached, what should be my final huge volume week, I really burned out. I don’t think the training volume was too much under better circumstances, but I think I was sabotaging some sleep with late day caffeine, had extra work stress and I was totally worn out. So instead of the huge, hard week I imagined, I was just getting some easy daily rides in. After a whole week of just easy riding, I was getting some energy back, was two weeks out from my planned Everest attempt, and I felt like it was now or never for one last big hard ride to boost my confidence. I got some power records and got over 400 TSS in about 6.5 hours of riding (did take some breaks, so it was more like 8+ hours elapsed time). That was a great confidence boost, and on top of that, @tim cronk said I was ready to Everest, so I felt ready. ;)
I started tapering down and was happy it was here, cause work was busy and I allowed myself to focus more on that, I also started dating again, so that took away some weekend training time, but I want to prioritize that. I figured I would rather over recover than under recover, and I probably did Over recover, but I was at peace with that.
I did one last hard ride 8 days out, but I kept it relatively short and didn’t go as hard as I might have otherwise.
As the final week approached, I was feeling energized and really couldn’t wait for Sunday 3/1 to come. Friday night, midterm grades were due. I knew I had some grading to finish up, but it ended up being more than I thought. And my uncle called me after we’ve been playing phone tag for months, so I answered and had a great time catching up (even though I knew that meant I would be up past my bedtime). I got to bed about 60-90 minutes later than usual, which was way too late. I slept in, but I was feeling pretty work out. I prioritized rest, a date, preparing for Sunday and grocery shopping (way overdue!) and didn’t get the swim I planned, but I was ok with that.
I decided to lay down for 5 hours instead of 4 or less because I figured I would rather feel good and succeed in Everest than cut the sleep too much planning on more than Everest and not get there because I am too tired. I laid down at 12:30 am, which was normal bed time lately. I didn’t laid awake longer than usual due to excitement and nerves and I also took this as a positive sign. When the alarm went off at 5:30 am, I shot out of bed. This was more common in my teens and twenties, but in my mid thirties, I often find myself wanting to relax in bed for a while before having the energy to get up. I took this as a good sign.
I weighed in and sadly, but not surprisingly, I was ~91.7 kg. The heaviest I’ve ever ridden in Zwift was 90 kg. Normally, I round to the nearest whole kg and use the lightest weight I’ve had in the past week. But for today, I didn’t want to take any short cuts, so I immediately made my weight 92 kg in Zwift. This was disappointing, but I framed it positively in that it would require me to put out more watts for a longer period and I wanted a challenge. I always weigh significantly more at night (or the middle of the night) than after a full night sleep because I haven’t urinated as many times or “sat down.” And I had gained more weight during the 2 weeks of taper.
I chose Alpe du Zwift (AdZ) because it is an epic climb and because you get a 10 minute break while your avatar coasts down the mountain.
Happily, I got on the bike within 50 minutes of my alarm, which is really fast for me. I planned to eat a quick breakfast and figured I could always eat a bigger meal after completing a couple trips up AdZ. Based on past rides, I was hoping to ride ~250 watts with HR under 130 bpm, and have this be conservative. Almost immediately I was disappointed. After all that rest, my watts were low, my HR was high and I felt kinda crappy. But it was early, and I was hoping that later in the day, my body would wake-up a bit more. I also expected my HR to be on the high side, since I I had rested so much. As I and other have noted, a period of prolonged rest makes us “hummingbird” more than usual. Tim cronk’s most recent piece of advice was to “start easy.” Those words were in my head, but I really wanted to try and keep close to my target watts, and I figured my HR would settle down after a while. Eventually I did ease up and my HR came down. My first trip up was 10 minutes slower than in November, my HR was way higher and I felt kinda crappy. I was worried, but I didn’t let it get to me much, because I knew it was a long day. During my 2nd trip up, I got on discord with @Scott Giljum and the Sunday CnC crew and that was nice. I did feel pretty decent on that trip, but my numbers were still disappointing. I felt relatively tired and crappy for trips 3, 4 and 5. This was starting to make me worry a bit about reaching my goal (stretch goals were 11 trips up AdZ, and maybe even 41,111 feet of gain). @Carl Alleyne joined me for trip #6 and I pushed a little closer to my original target watts (which should’ve been easy, Z1 HR, but wasn’t). It was my 2nd fastest trip and felt pretty good. But I paid the price, my times really took a nose dive on trips 7 and 8. But I was starting to feel good that I had been mentally preparing for a lot more climbing, so deciding to make Everest my goal because I felt so much worse than I hoped brought a lot of relief. Brian Hagan also jumped on and rode a lot with me and @Steve boer and others were really cheering me on through discord and group me. I felt like I could feel good about pushing through a lot of difficulty and I would hit the 8848 meters of climbing and get the badge even if I didn’t hit some of the other goals I had. I rode the 8th lap so slowly, that I actually started feeling a bit better (and probably got a mental boost from knowing I would hit the Everest mark). I thought that maybe I could get to 10,000 meters and still get to bed at a reasonable time. Nick Dehaan and I finished together at 8848 m, which was cool (he slowed down a ton to do the last half lap with me). I ended up riding to get 10,000 meters. Jeremy Behler jumped on really late and rode with me some between 8848 m and 10,000 m. That was awesome.
Other notes:
My local cycling “segment nemesis,” (a friend I made through segment hunting in Strava, Nick Dehaan) decided to Everest with me that day. He started a couple hours behind me, but passed me.
I got an adaptor to have a hard wire connection. I bought a spare bike chain and spare cleats to have as a back-up. Obviously had spare PM batteries ready to go.