Virtual Base Camp Everesting - this is seriously legit bro

You have to earn these the hard way.

With my left ankle giving me some grief due to some Medial Ankle Post Tib pain and the possibility of attempting a full vEveresting in late July, if my beloved Burning River 100 is postponed or canceled, I wanted to take a shot at a Base Camp vEveresting (virtual Everesting). This is essentially hitting half the elevation of a full Everesting (29,029 ft) by climbing 14,514 ft of elevation. Easy, right? Oh heck no.

Yes, this is legit bro. Ouch. I had been practicing the climb at 100% trainer difficulty leading up to this event (actually starts at 12 am but I took the day off cuz I want to ride outside on Saturday). I got used to the fact that my gearing is pretty hard on this climb and very hard on the AdZ climb so I stuck to this one. It ha a couple of nice breaks to spin during the climb and while you have a little bit of climbing to do on the way back down, I think for my first attempt it was the right choice.

Here is the #epicfail moment. Last night I checked where my weight was set to in my profile and I had it at 144lbs (normally that's about right) but knowing that I am likely a bit heavier I set it to 148lbs. This morning, just to check and make sure I captured pictures of my actual weight I came in at 147, so cool ... I could drop it by 1lb and besides ... how much will an extra 3lbs in Zwift really chance the difficulty anyway. Well ... let me tell you ... that little 3lb difference makes a real difference. I could tell that my power was up into the 200s way more often than it has been on some of my test climbs leading up to this ride. Along with my HR heading close to Z4 and that is no Bueno for this type of a ride. Well, I just rolled with it (pun intended) and did the best that I could to keep things in check.

Proof of the Trainer Difficulty set at 100%

After the first 5-climbs, I was like ... man, there is no way I can finish this thing. My knees were already starting to complain and my legs ... well, my legs were telling me to shut up. #shutuplegs Ugh. Then, one by one I knocked off a climb, then the next one, then the next one. I had to mentally take each climb and break them down into sections, which I am very familiar with now. Ok, get to bridge and where we turn left to head up, then get to the half-way point, then ok now only 4 switchbacks left, then ... cool ... a bit of a descent to spin my legs, then make the final switchback and I've got a bit of a grind to the bend in the road and finally, I can look ahead to see a couple of pine trees off to the left before the road flattens out and I can turn around at the Epic KOM Gantry.

Climb after climb and finally to where I could tell my self, ok ... 9th climb ... only one more full ascent. Then got the 9th knocked down and could tell myself .. only one more full ascent. Of course, on the back of my mind, I already knew what I was going to do but I felt better thinking that I would only be doing half of a climb to finish off the required elevation of 14,242 (base camp ascent).

I actually hit the required elevation as I was heading down the 10th ascent. However, I had read several posts indicating that I needed to climb 10.2 ascents and also 105 ascents. Well ... to make sure I could submit this into the Everest Hall of Fame I got to the halfway point and was like ... screw it. I made this far, lets just hit 16k of vert and make sure I leave nothing to question. I finished an 11th ascent and descent and on the way down to the bottom, I hit 16k elevation. Cool. Now I can go hit the couch and friggin pass out.

Man oh man ... this one was tough. In many respect, I feel like it was more difficult than Everesting IRL like Carey Lowery and I completed just about 1-year ago in May of 2019. Gearing is key and acclimating to 100% trainer difficulty along with ensuring you have your weight configured correctly ... all key things to work on.

The good thing is that this ride got me to the ever-coveted Pizza Status. Oh, heck yay man. Of course, maybe that's why I have that extra 3lbs I am carrying around. Then again ... I dropped 5.5 lbs so maybe I can drop my Zwift weight down to 142.5 and finish a full Everesting. #nopenopenope

Gear
1- Grey Strip Everesting Kit (well earned)
1-2 globs of Chamois Butt'r (protecting the bits)
Stevens Carbon Team Issue CX Bike
Gearing - way too hard; needs to be easier to just spin
KickrCore - love and hate this trainer #somuchpain

Nutrition was the following:
4-bottles of Infint each @ 230 calories
3.5-bottles of plain water
1-3.5oz banana (eaten after finishing climb #5)
8-pitted dates w/ 1-almond stuffed inside
1-thinly sliced piece of my wife's Lemon Yogurt Cake

The cake, not seen in the photo, was to be eaten after I finished. It did not survive past climb #6. #burp



To be darn sure I hit the required elevation, I completed a full 11 ascents of the Watopia Reverse Epic KOM. If you go this far and deep into the pain cave, then you leave NOTHING to chance to have your submission rejected.

I highly recommend taking LOTS of pictures cuz power failures happen and man ... that would be terrible.