Everest Challenge - Summoning mental toughness, physical strength, and extreme tenacity

Credit to https://everesting.cc/

To set the stage I felt it made sense to simply use the words of the founders of the Everest Challenge. because they said it best in my opinion. This is a challenge for the mind, the body, and the soul. Do not enter it lightly and do not think it will just happen simply because I ride a lot. You will hit a mental wall that at times feels very insurmountable. You will hit a physical wall that feels like your legs cannot turn the pedals one more revolution. You will think that I simply cannot complete this challenge and is it really worth it anyway. This is hill repeats on steroids x200. I think it takes a special kind of crazy to push through all of those limits and destroy them. In fact, the mantra, Find Your Limits and Destroy Them, ran rampant through my head most of the day! (credit to Danny Hill and Todd Poquette for that phrase)

I had heard about this challenge a few years back when a friend of mine, Roy Chaves, completed the challenge himself. As I sat on the couch one fine morning, drinking my coffee, I just shook my head thinking why on earth would anyone want to do that! At the same time, my mind started to churn on the idea. I love a good challenge. I like to do hard things and complete them. A couple years later an Ohio local friend, Jason Hall, talked about the challenge and then completed it. The timing wasn't right for me and I couldn't get my head wrapped around the number of repetitions that would be required due to the shortness of Ohio climbs. You can absolutely get vertical in Ohio, but the downside is that you need to be mentally prepared for 50, 60, 70+ repeats and that feels very daunting. Major props to those that can mentally handle that many repetitions. So when a friend, Carey Lowery, made subtle mention of a May Challenge and had posted it as a part of a hill workout in the Foothills Parkway of the Great Smokey Mountains near Tallassee, TN... I naturally had to ask if she was talking about the Everest Challenge. Yup!! Carey Lowery is a special kind of tough, a special kind of crazy, and at the same time a very warm-hearted, caring, and wonderful human being. When I reached out to her to ask if I could join her, I was not surprised that she was happy to have the company on this adventure. Carey had a hill in mind and had recon'd it on several occasions.

Foothills 5-mile Elevation Profile

I had never seen much less ridden the climb, but thanks to the awesome web-based tools we have these days, such as Velo Viewer, I can virtually recon the climb and have an idea of what I am getting myself into. For me, there was no specific training that I did leading up to the ride. I have been training and racing ultra-endurance events for a number of years and while this would be well beyond anything I have done, I understand what it means to be in the hurt locker and how to suffer. Prior to this ride, significant time-in-saddle events that I completed are:

• Marji Gesick in 2017 @ just over 13-hours (12k+ vertical)
• Marji Gesick in 2018 @ just over 12-hours (12k+ vertical)
• A handful of mountain bike training rides @ 9+ hours (10-13k vertical)
• A double century of my own doing in 2017 on local roads (12k+ vertical)
• A double century of my coach's doing in 2016 (I think) on a fixed gear bike (11k vertical)
• Countless 100-mile mountain bike races ranging from 7.5 to 10.5 hours (7-12k vertical each)
• Most notable running events range from 5-9.5 hours including the Mohican 50-miler in 2018

The first bit of logistics are properly recording the ride. Since I had it in my head that I could be on the bike for 18 to 20 hours, it meant that I needed to have the ability to have a recording device that would have battery life for that amount of time. My solution was to use not only my Garmin Edge 520 but also my iPhone 8 where both devices were hooked up to Anker Battery back up units. I have used these battery backups before so I knew that when fully charged they will last well over 24-hours of constant usage. More than enough for my needs and being in a lipstick form they do not weigh much or take up much space. For both devices, I shut down everything other than simply recording the ride data. The Garmin had all Bluetooth and other extraneous settings shutoff and set the display brightness to 0%. For the iPhone, I only ran Strava, kept the display off, shut down WiFi, Bluetooth, and all other apps were closed. Another key configuration on both devices is to disable auto-pause because the total time, regardless of breaks, must be recorded. As for mounting, I mounted a small-ish top tube bag where my iPhone (sans the cover), and both batteries could be placed and only having to run a single wire to my Garmin that was mounted via a handlebar-based out-in-front mount. Easy peasy and a similar setup that I have run in the past. Check that off the list.

As for nutrition, my plan was going to be different than how I approach races. For races, I prefer a mostly liquid-based fuel plan. Things like Infinit Nutrition and gels are mostly how I race because they are usually shorter events, at least shorter than this event, and I need the fuel to hit my body faster than solid foods can meet that demand. My plan was to have a potpourri of food options as I just did not know how I would feel throughout the day. Eating mostly sugar-based foods for such a long time will eventually give me GI discomfort and I did not want to reach that point. Here is what I had on hand:

• Sea Salt Potato Chips - I learned a year ago that these taste great and the salt is fantastic!
• Mixed Nuts (almonds, pecans, cashews) - I love nuts and the salt is on point
• Pickles & Pickle Juice - great for cramps, I love pickles and have used this during races
• Munk Pack Oatmeal - These are great when traveling as post-ride carbs
• Allen Lim Style Portables - love the rice/egg portables and easy to make
• Russet & Sweet Potato Pancakes - concoction of my own doing, also added maple-syrup
• Infinit Nutrition Custom Mix - used this as my fluid to stay hydrated + bottles of plain water
• Natures Bakery Fig Bars - these are so easy to throw in a jersey pocket and taste great
• Various Gels - I did not eat many gels, but they are still great for a quick hit of nutrition

Pivot Les was my back-up bike.

So, I had a LOT of options on hand and the plan was to simply take in whatever sounded good at the time. I ate the entire bag, albeit a medium-sized bag, of chips, nearly cleaned out the small container of nuts, ate all of the potato pancakes, almost all of the rice cakes, 3-4 gels and around 8-ish bottles of fluid with about 3 of those bottles being just plain water in order to keep from getting over sugared. I did take in a bit of pickle juice when I felt like I "might" have cramps, but I rarely cramp and this was simply a precautionary measure. I NEVER experienced any GI discomfort even when the temps rose to a toasty 85 degrees Fahrenheit. I also should say that I never eat this much during a ride and am usually the exact opposite in that I do not eat enough. Bonking on a ride like this would be disastrous and with all the travel and planning that I put into this, the last thing I wanted was to be stupid with something that could easily be managed, the nutrition. I used a simple, cheap styrofoam cooler packed with ice, thanks to the hotel that I stayed at the night before, to keep things cold. I also used the ice to have cold fluid when needed. I am perfectly fine using warm fluid and I never use ice at home, but I also understand the cooling effect that ice can have on the body and I feel that it was necessary so as to not overheat throughout the day.

For the bike setup I road my Stevens Team Issue CX, Di2 shifting, (I don't own an actual road bike) with 53/39 rings and an 11-34 cassette. I had spoken with Carey quite a bit about gearing selection and landed on this particular configuration to make sure I had very similar gear inches as to what she was planning on running. The 39x34 would give me roughly 31.05 gear inches and that allowed me to spin up the climb at around 75-90 rpms at times. The wheels are stock Mavic Cross wheels with 700x25 Continental Gatorskin tires. The total bike weight, guessing a bit here, was likely around 22-24 lbs. Not the lightest bike by far, but it wouldn't come down to a handful of lbs that would prevent me from completing the challenge anyway. I also ran Vector 2 pedals with new shoes that I had only a few rides on. I was a bit concerned about the new shoes but brought along my older shoes in case I had any issues. Major thanks to Jacob Gordon for getting me all squared away with the bike setup. He worked hard under a very tight timeframe and came through for me!

The Ride - 5/17/2019

Topo of the route.

The plan was to start the ride around 4:45-5am on Friday 5/17/2019. My drive from the hotel was roughly 40-minutes so I needed to get up and eat breakfast around 3am. Woo nelly that's early, so I needed to get to sleep earlier than my usual 10pm bedtime. After having to deal with a punched tire on my Subaru Forester, which as much as we all hate these types of interruptions worked out rather conveniently since the Discount Tire store was located right next to Olive Garden and they plug tires for free, I had my dinner and hit the sack by 8pm. I rarely sleep well when away from home, however, ever since my wife found some dissolvable Melatonin pills I have been sleeping great no matter where I am. Woke up before the alarm, par for the course, grabbed a coffee (or two), ate breakfast, and hit the road by 3:45am. I arrived at the starting location Carey had sent me, about mid-point on the climb, and Carey was there gearing up.

By 5am we were on the road with our lights blazing, like mobile Christmas trees, to the bottom for our first ascent. We were both nervous and excited to get this deal started and with it being dark and foggy made getting a good bead on the road not exactly easy. Near the bottom Carey hit a stick that had dropped onto the road, she cleared it like a pro and then, of course, I saw it and did not have time to react fast enough to steer out of the way and also ran right over it. We both stayed upright, thank the good Lord for bike handling skills, but that could quite easily have been the shortest Everest Challenge in the history of the event. It had also been storming in the morning so the roads were wet which meant staying off the painted lines. That stuff can be a sheet of ice when wet. There was a threat of more rain and T-storms, mostly in the morning hours, but we had a dry start ... for the first 15-20 minutes. As we started our first ascent it began to sprinkle (at least I think that is when the rain hit), then the sprinkle turned into a good soaking. Meh. The rain did not last long, and while I had contemplated grabbing a light coat when we reached the mid-point (we were both sporting our Rescue Racing team kits with sleeveless jerseys) I was more than warm enough by the time we got there so we just kept it rollin. We did have a second helping of rain an hour or two later that morning, but nothing terrible and the rest of the day was fantastic.

Not my pic, but you get the idea.

The first couple of repetitions we rode together, chatted about various things, but mostly enjoyed the quiet, calming, peacefulness that came with the wee hours of the morning. There were birds waking up chirping, frogs of some sort I believe, the river water flowing alongside the road (I can still hear it in my head), but mostly it was blissfully quiet with the wind gently blowing. Very little traffic and as the sun began to rise I had a rare opportunity to experience the awesome vistas with the mountains in the background and the sun poking through the fog. Absolutely spectacular views!! This brings up a great point about this challenge. If you are one of those people, where this is a one-and-done sort of deal, then pick a climb that has great views or is an area that makes it fun and adventurous. I originally wanted to do this challenge in Ohio, and not that Ohio doesn't have some beautiful areas, but compared to the Great Smokey Mountains ... the mountains will win this guy over every time. You will absolutely appreciate being able to focus on something else other than the madness of going up and down the same climb and the pain that comes with this challenge. Location is an essential part of the process in my humble opinion.

As we began the third ascent I was warmed up and sliding into a comfortable pace. For me, I needed to break the day into chunks and prevent myself from wanting to chuck the bike off the mountain. I did not focus on the total number of ascents or the total distance. It was about taking 1-2 ascents at a time, refueling at the vehicle and then starting the next chunk. For the first 14-ish climbs, I would stop and refuel once every two climbs. One bottle for every two ascents (no need for the added weight of two bottles) and I would grab a Potato Pancake or a Rice cake, swapping every other time I stopped. I would also grab a gel for my jersey pocket so, at the start of the second climb, of two, I would eat the gel for additional fuel. What amazes me about this whole deal is that it was always the case that after two ascents I was hungry for more food. This is definitely not normal for me. I actually craved food every time (sans perhaps the last few repetitions). I would also grab handfuls of the potato chips or mixed nuts, so this was quite a bit of food going in for every 2-ish hours. Crazy I tell ya. Just crazy.

HR overlayed on Temperature.

Now that I was settled into the rhythm of ascending, descending, eating a gel, ascending, descending, refueling at the vehicles ... rinse & repeat, I had a lot of other things to think about. For instance, I noticed that the ride was never about the mileage. I knew full well that this ride would be over 200-miles and on any other ride that is a double century that would likely be what was running through my head. In this case, the mileage was simply a side-effect of the climbing and descending. As I watched 100-miles tick away, about half-way through, it never even phased me. Weird. Once I got to the 10th repetition, I knew it was going to be more of a mental battle. The 10th repetition meant I was ONLY half-way done. In fact, before I left home I was telling Angie that repetitions 10 through 15 would likely be my biggest battle and that ended up being very true. It was actually a struggle to hold back on the first 10 repetitions because my natural instinct is to get to the half-way point as soon as possible so that I can begin the second half of the ride. This would have certainly been my downfall had I done just that, so I had to force myself to keep an eye on my heart rate, power, and time for each rep. To add to the mental difficulty at this stage, the heat was rising and from roughly 12:30-1pm and 5:30pm the temperatures had risen to a toasty 80+ degrees according to my Garmin. With quite a few sections being in the sun, I was feeling the effects. My heart rate started to climb, I was sweating a LOT more, and I started to go through an entire bottle in a single ascent. I think those were the most difficult hours because I had to really back off as best I could so that I could keep my heart rate out of the higher zones which could have easily led to a bonking issue or getting too dehydrated.

Speaking of keeping things consistent, I love being consistent with my efforts and over the years I have gotten fairly competent in this particular area. For lap races, this generally works well for me because I can apply the same level of effort on the final lap that I can on the first lap. Now, perhaps this also works against me and I should be pushing harder at the start to try and stay closer to the lead racers and not have to try and play catch up. To that, I would say that I have more of a diesel engine rather than a jet engine. Meaning, it takes me a while to warm up, but once I get hauling, get out of my way cuz I'm not stopping or slowing down for anything!

Of course, nearing the end of the final repetitions it is quite easy to see that my times began to slow to a crawl, but that is the nature of the event and to be expected. Certainly the final ascent I was more of the mindset, I've done it so I am going to completely chill on this and enjoy the peacefulness of the evening.

After managing to drill through the toughest repetitions, 10-15, I was able to easily wrap my head around the final 5-climbs. I mean, heck, I was 75% finished and I only had the final 25% to polish off this massive effort. I TOTALLY GOT THIS!! Ascent after ascent I ate away at the final 25% to the point where on my 18th ascent I thought to myself that all I really have is one left because that final climb will be the last one. As I have stated in several of my blog posts, the final part of any event is highly motivating for me because I repeat this over and over in my head: "This is the last time I have to do this part of the route, annnd this is the last time I have to do this part of the route". I don't know why it works for me, but it works and it motivates me.

Here's the thing though, I was dead wrong to think that I only had two more repetitions to go. I met Carey at the top of the climb, finishing off my 18th repetition, and as she is descending she slows up and in an instant makes me recalculate my thought process. What did she tell me? "We are going to have to take down an additional climb for 21 total ascents in order to seal the deal on this and not leave anything to chance". Mind you, I had those thoughts regarding the 19th and 20th reps running through my head for the last few climbs. Now, I am not the best person with my initiation reactions to news that I really don't want to hear (Angie will attest to this) so naturally ... I dropped the F-bomb. We had both endured such a long day, mentally and physically, and certainly, the last thing either of us wanted was to ride more repetitions BUT the worst outcome would have been to put in all the time and effort and to come away with NOT completing the challenge. At this point, we both had to suck it up, push past more limits, and get the job done! I cannot even begin to tell you just how appreciative I am that Carey had a reliable GPS device and was able to see the total elevation gain throughout the ride. Seriously, I owe the true completion of this challenge to nobody else but her. My Garmin Edge 520? Hosed up the first 7-8 reps and finally started to catch on to what was going on around the 9th or 10th rep. This meant that it was showing that I had an elevation gain of roughly 2000' feet after 9 climbs. Talk about messing with your head! I was also running Strava on my iPhone 8 and while that is typically good with tracking elevation, it wouldn't show me that information until I finished the ride and that meant hitting stop and saving the ride. Something I couldn't do until after I was done. So ... I hope that puts things in perspective for just how appreciative I am and always will be.

For my final ascent, Carey and I managed to meet up and ride together. By this time it was dark, the roads were finally quiet from all the hustle and bustle of various exotic cars, street-race style cars running in packs, and a TON of various motorcycles from the crotch rocket speedsters leaning into corners like they were participating in the Man of Isle TT, to the Harley Davidson cruisers blaring their radios. The peepers were back out, the gentle breeze was blowing across the mountain, and the moon was shining brightly. It was a fantastic way to end the ride and the topper was to have a chance to ride with Carey as that is how the whole day started. We were both on fumes but managed to chat a bit about how the day went along with enjoying the quiet peacefulness of the evening and this sense of calmness at the end of an extremely long day. When I finally made it back to the car, I quite literally did not know what to do with myself. I must have stood around trying to get some sort of straight thought into my thick skull for over 10-minutes. I was cooked, torched, totally knackered, a hot mess. Eventually, I started to piece together what I had to do and began to move, quite slowly, to clean up the back of the car, find my change of clothes, wash down, pack the bike, and at some point take a picture of the bike with the moonlight in the background.

When Carey finished and was packed up, we both spent a few minutes figuring out how to formulate complete sentences, talked for a bit, gave each other a congratulatory hug, took a selfie (wearing our matching Do Hard Things shirts ... totally unplanned ... so that was just funny), and we headed out. Mind you it was 11:30pm at this point. In case I did not mention it, I was tired. Just a bit. Still, I drove home ... yes ... all the way home. I did stop three times; once for fuel, once for a small bag of cheese combos and chocolate milk, and once to take a 45-minute catnap at a rest stop when I entered the state of Kentucky. I arrived home at 8:50am, showered, brushed my fuzzy teeth (yup ... sounds disgusting ... it was), and laid down on the couch like a slug. Done and dusted. Kaput. Finito.

I would be remiss to leave this posting at just that. To say that Carey helped me figure out logistics, think through a plan of attack, and countless other details would be to leave out the best parts. Carey is such a talent, such a wonderfully personable human being, such a warm-hearted individual, and the reason I was able to complete the Everest Challenge. Not only did she say yes when I asked if she would like some company on this crazy adventure, but taking on this type of a challenge where I was able to see a familiar face, going through the same challenges that I was going through on every single hill rep when we passed each other, well it was beyond motivating and inspiring. I'd like to think that we pushed each other to find more limits and fed off each other throughout the day to never give up and never surrender. Thank you Carey!!

I would also be a complete moron if I did not give many, many, thanks to Jacob Gordon who is a stellar mechanic at my favorite LBS, Eddy's Bike Shop, for stupid fast service for the bike setup. I made some significant changes to my bike in preparation for this ride and Jacob was all over it. He worked tirelessly getting everything squared away, making sure everything worked flawlessly, and frankly had a smile on his face the whole time. Well ... I am only assuming he had a smile cuz I really wasn't around him when he was figuring out the puzzle that I handed him.  You are a man of much patience, many skills, and an artist!! Thanks Jake!!

Lastly, since I managed to complete the Everest Challenge I was able to submit my ride to the committee for approval into the Everest Challenge Hall of Fame. It was certainly never the reason I wanted to take on the challenge, but it's pretty nifty nonetheless. The turn around for approval was amazingly quick and I am proud to say that both Carey and I were approved. Awesome sauce. Mission Accomplished!!

Happy trails y'all.