So... somehow I thought I wanted to Everest on a bike. So I attempted it...
I had done a few things leading up to the decision to do an vEveresting. Back in January, I decided to change up my diet. I went full plant based. The goal was to shed some weight I saw creeping back up over the last year or so but doing it without animal products. I hadn't gained much, but the goal was to knock off 10-15lbs. I was already sticking to a plant based diet 3-4 nights a week, so the transition to all meals, all food, all plants wasn't too hard. My wife has been on a vegan diet for 3 plus years at this point, so it helped as well in the transition.
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| Roasted Tomatoes and Artichoke hearts with a Piccata Sauce |
Eating habits where not hard, and shortly after, I noticed a quick 5-7lbs drop. My FTP power numbers did not budge much at all, in either direction. But the loss of weight did drive my w/kg FTP up a bit. Throughout the year, I realized that weight wasn't budging much past the 10lbs I wanted to drop, power wasn't really moving up, so I decided to go back to tracking micro and macro nutrition. That's when I found my protein intake was extremely low. I started adding a protein shake after every hard workout or ride. This resulted in another quick loss of weight. I had dropped 22lbs total in just over 9 months.
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| Southwest Quinoa Bowl |
Training was the fun part to figure out. I had never really trained for events or endurance rides, but my original goal was to train for a gravel race in April. This race was canceled due to the pandemic, and the training I had started seemed to all be done in vain. There was no racing to follow. No local MTB races, no national endurance rides/races, and even the local sportive rides I wanted to do got nixed. What to do.... what to do?
Last year I had a personal goal of 12 imperial century rides. These would consist of in real life rides and Zwift rides. I hit that goal, barely. I figured to help with the endurance racing and rides I wanted for 2020, I would go from one a month, to one every two weeks. Lock down on group rides, mandated by the state government, I quickly hit 12 before summer. I did start slacking off on this goal in May and June, but picked back up with it in July. At this point, I had already been telling myself that it was time to do a vEveresting. I hit the goal of 26 imperial century rides and kept on going.
In January I started to lay down some base training. I used Trainer Road's predefined Sweet Spot Base and set it up for 3 workouts a week. I was pretty active with other social rides on Zwift at this time, and the occasional IRL ride with the local club. I went through the plan as designed, and finished up with an FTP of about the same as I started. Now this was just base and not a build plan, so I expected little to no gains. I wanted to start a build plan just after the sweet spot base to work toward the April 18th date for the Bootlegger 100 Gravel Race. As I started working through the build phase, the gravel race was postponed, and later canceled.
I took a small hiatus on training over the next few weeks, mainly due to being a little bummed about the cancelation. I was still riding 12-16 hours a week, but no structured training, just miles (virtual mainly). Then in May, the training started again. This time with the hopes we would have our local stage time trial MTB race, King and Queen of the Watershed. I did this event last year with a 4th place finish. Was just hoping to move on up a bit higher. So I started some Sweet Spot Base training on Trainer Road, worked in to a build phase in August. This race would take place in September. As I mentioned above, this was the training I started that ended up helping me in the Everesting attempt.
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| TrainerRoad Training Stress Graph |
I was for sure going to attempt an Everesting now!
Zwift released the France and Paris worlds in conjunction with the Tour de France. In this map... Mount Ventoux. Zwift did a pretty good job capturing these climb, both in appearance and geographically. It wouldn't until a later date, that I actually take a look at this climb and preform a recon ride, but I already knew this was the climb I wanted to do.
This climb was long, but not super punchy and steep. Perfect I thought for an Everesting attempt. Reading about the Zwift version of this iconic climb and reviewing a few other cyclist's efforts on climbing, I saw that this may in fact be the perfect climb for me. I fair well with long climbs and have a good ability to regulate my efforts over long periods. Leading rides for the USMES Zwift Riders during the week, I have to hold a good steady 2.3 w/kg pace, which will be close to what I needed to do to be successful.
In addition to the France world, Zwift also release a new feature called Pace Partners. 4 different classes: A, B, C, D. A bot for each class going around a route, 20plus hours a day. The C bot averages 2.5w/kg. Another great pacing tool!! I would eventually do a few 100 mile rides with the C bot (named CoCo Cadence). Once again, very helpful in controlling power output.
So the route was picked, the training was mapped out, and seemed to fit the vEveresting attempt, even though it was originally chosen for a different reason. Zwift had aligned its stars to match my stars, and thus the idea was birthed! But could I execute it?
The mental game was next. It was like a rollercoaster. There were times where I was super confident, and others where I wasn't sure if I had what it would take. I would think, 8848 meters is a lot, but 10,000 meters wasn't too far around the corner. Then I would tell myself I that I need even more training. I would keep myself up at night thinking out the strategy, convincing myself its all possible. I would even fret over how I would handle the night before... would I just lay in bed wide away and not get the proper rest, or would I sleep too much and just feel sluggish the whole ride? But ultimately I came to realize, this is just a pedal session, 15 hours long, that's all... just turn those pedals over and over and over.
I had done a few things that help mentally. The goal of 26 imperial century rides was one. If I can do long efforts, nonstop over and over, then repeatability will happen. I even threw in a double imperial century ride. 8 hours on the trainer, the longest for me to date. That one was the game changer I think. It showed me how crazy I was, and that this vEveresting was going to be a walk in the park (lol). Next up, three days in a row knocking out imperial centuries (one being an IRL). After that, I felt it was time to recon the climb I chose.
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| My Century Ride Spreadsheet |
One Sunday morning I woke up to rain. No way I was going to do my normal relaxed social ride with a friend. We typically do this every Sunday and discuss the stupid nuances of life and seem to venture deep into politics and philosophy. But this morning, the rain halted that. So I thought, good time to check out the VenTop route on Zwift. With just minimal preparation, I decided to hop on the bike and do the climb.
With just a little over a month before I had chosen the date to do my Everesting attempt, I on the fly decided to do a Base Camp Everesting. 4424 meters later, I had done half an Everesting. Boy ole Boy did that boost my confidence. I knew then, that I had this, I just had to prepare for the day of.
So at this point, nothing to it but to do it!
Roughly a week before the day, I started my carb loading. Mostly pasta and rice dishes where all I had. I packed on roughly 7 pounds overall. It felt so great to eat so many carbs! Spaghetti, Southwest Pasta Salad, Asian Rice Bowls, and Roasted Tomatoes and Artichoke Hearts in a Piccata Sauce!!
I really researched what I needed to do to prepare for that day. What foods and liquids would I need. Everything I read told me one thing... you won't know what you will be in the mood for, so get All the Foods. So I did.
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| All the Foods |
- Rice and Sweet Potatoes
- Peanut Butter Sandwiches
- Bananas
- Veggie Chips
- Oreo (Coconut Caramel)
- Skittles
- Coffee
- Vega Salted Caramel Protein Bar
- Nuun
- Body Armor
- 2 gallon jugs of water
- Pretzels
- Morning Sun Vegan Chicken Patties
- Boca Burgers
- Pickles
- Skratch Gummies
- SiS Gels
- Nature's Bakery Fig Bars and Brownies
- Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
