vEveresting Ventoux in France via Zwift: Had the right gearing this time, did not have the right body

Let me repeat the same sentiments I had after doing my first Virtual Everesting on Zwift in 2021, Holy Hell! I should have spoken to my therapist before doing this again. 

Mid summer I had the idea that I wanted to do another virtual Everesting on Zwift, but on a different climb. Having already vEverested Alpe Du'Zwift at the end of 2021, I decided that I wanted to give the biggest climb Zwift has to offer, Ventoux in France. Ventoux is an 11.8 mile climb with an 8% average grade. The grades are unrelenting with long sustained sections of 10-13%. I started testing out the climb to get a feel for it a couple months before I wanted to make my attempt on December 19th. The first thing I noticed was just how choppy the pedal stroke got after the grade hits and surpasses 9% and the difficulty setting set to Max which is the only proper way to vEverest in Zwift if you want it to be approved for the Everesting Hall of Fame. After doing an entire climb with the choppy pedaling I knew something wasn't right. My setup is an AppleTv using Bluetooth as the connection for the Power Source, Power Control, and Cadence. When not at Max difficulty, this setup works great with zero issues, but when Max difficulty is set this set up just doesn't work well. I did some research and discovered there are known issues with power fluctuations specifically using AppleTv and Bluetooth. Understanding that there is no way to get AppleTv to play nice with Ant+, I wiped out my work laptop, installed Zwift, and gave it a go. Much, much better. While the pedaling still gets a little choppy around 13+ percent grade, it is no where near as bad as it was with the AppleTv setup. The biggest concern I have with using a computer running Microsoft Windows as the good ole' BSODs (blue screen of death). No one needs that to happen in the middle of vEveresting (or ever). AppleTv is much more stable of an environment, but that just isn't going to work this time around.

My build up was slow. First weekend I rode a single climb and quickly realized that this is going to take some time to complete. Several times I could not even image trying to Everest on this long climb. My average times were coming in around one hour and 45 - 50 minutes. That's nearly two hours for the climb and I would need to complete six repeats. Ouch. I knew my mental game would need to be very strong and I would need to have a TON of patience. Pedal, pedal, pedal, and find something, anything to occupy my mind. The second weekend I did 1.5 climbs until a day before Thanksgiving when I attempted and completed a Basecamp+. I felt amazingly good for the Basecamp. My nutrition was fairly on point, nearly 200/calories per hour and I was negative splitting each of the three climbs that I completed; 1:45, 1:43:39, and 1:43:00. I beat that stupid virtual shadow partner for second two climbs and then proceeded to push a little more and made it 3300' into the fourth climb just for good measure. I submitted the Basecamp for approval into the Eversting Hall of Fame and it was approved. Cool! That makes one IRL Everesting (2019), 1 vEveresting (2021), and my fourth Basecamp vEveresting. This is beginning to become a habit, or is it?

The date that I would make my attempt on Ventoux was December 19th. A Monday that I took off from work because no one would be home chewing up the internet and because I need mental isolation to do these sorts of things, at least from others asking questions or bothering me. I had been toying with different types of nutrition for a couple months and reviewed my notes from the 2021 vEveresting to throw in some things that worked last time. I had enough food to do a double vEveresting, just no desire or strength to actually go that far. Those folks are NUTS!!! And yes, there is a triple and quadruple Everesting as well. #smh The plan was to start at 4:15am and complete at least one climb before anyone woke up and hopefully complete my second climb by the time they were getting to work, around 8:15am.

Max Difficulty ... this is the Everesting way.

Alarm was set for 2:45am, ooof, and I was in bed by 8pm with the lights out. Man that alarm came quick and I tossed quite a bit all night but managed to get some semblance of sleep. I had slept 8.5 hours the three nights beforehand, so I knew the night before the ride was not nearly as important. Got up, quietly, ate some oats w/ PB, and maple syrup, and a nice mug of Christopher Bean Coffee, my absolutely favorite daily coffee when I need to get up and get moving in the mornings. Stretched for 20-minutes, put on my 2022 Rescue Racing Team  Jakroo race kit, and headed to the pain cave (aka basement) to get this thing rollin. I was ahead of my planned start time, so I quickly adjusted the start time to 3:55am in the Zwift Companion app so I didn't have to sit and spin mindlessly for another 20-minutes. I needed to get moving! I had pre-filled four large bottles and all my food was laid out on the treadmill. With Zwift loaded up, I jumped onto my Specialized Diverge running a big ole'pie plate on the rear with a 38T on the front, and got moving. 

Climb #1 - 30,000' to go

With the Everesting podcast playing over the speaker, I began making my way up the first climb. Legs felt good and I tried to not push very hard. If I came in at a time near 1:45 then I knew I was pushing harder than I should. Go slow, then go even slower! Eating and drinking the entire climb, all while listening to others Everesting experiences. The first climb was really fairly uneventful except my front hip was achy the entire way. It did not feel painful but just sore. I had the same issue on several other rides including the Basecamp and hoped it would go away overtime like it did during the Basecamp. I hit the top in one hour and 48-mintues. Not bad, felt good, and I had eaten a bunch of mini waffles, a bottle of Skratch Super Fuel and some plain water. Time to get off the bike and let it shoot down the hill. Except, unlike Alp Du'Zwift which gets to the bottom all on its own, the Ventoux has a couple of spots about 2km from the bottom that requires a bit of pedaling. One flat spot that hits 1% grade, just enough to stop the bike completely and soon after a second spot that hits 8% grade. In a way I found this to not be bad at all and after standing up and stretching for about 12-minutes I used those two spots as a way to spin the legs back up and get comfortable on the saddle.

Here is where sh** hit the fan the first time. Usually when I got to the bottom of the climb the Companion App would display the turn around icon which I would hold down on to turn around and head back up the climb. That damn button never showed up. WTH?!?! I had no idea what was going on and my bike continued to motor further down the hill. Son of a Bit**!! Pissed off I stopped pedaling, then started pedaling, then stopped pedaling, you get the idea. This went on for a good 5-7 minutes for about two miles past where I needed to turn around when just before I was about to shut it all down and restart (but not before saving that first climb of course), I quit the meet up I had setup and that stupid turn around icon appeared. Phheww! Crisis averted, but not before dropping a bunch of F*** bombs. I realized that I had set up my custom Zwift Meetup and chose a distance of 150 miles which is about what I knew I had to ride, but what I had not realized is that this meant any 150 miles that would follow what ever route Zwift was going to take you on which means, no turn around arrows. Craptastic. Now two miles away from the bottom of the Ventoux climb, all pissed off, I headed back towards the start of the second climb. In those two miles I gained a couple hundred of extra feet which meant I absolutely needed to surpass the minimum 29,029' of vert because you can only gain the elevation on the actual climb, not in any other way. Now I needed to be damn sure I climbed 29,229 at a minimum. I was fairly certain that six repeats was going to easily clear that amount of elevation, but these small things tend to eat at you.

Climb #2 - 25,000' to go

Now about 20-minute behind my plan, I worked my way up the second climb. Family had started to get up, hopefully not due to my colorful metaphors so I knew I was not going to complete the second climb by 8:15am or so when they were just getting to work. Why was that even a thing in my head? I don't know, I like to think of weird things like this to help me break down long rides. Tried to calm myself down and just focus on the climb in front of me. My front left hip was still achy and not letting up at all. This was getting very frustrating and I tried hard not to let it eat me up and take control of my every thought. I switched over the podcast to some talk radio that I listen to on my weekday morning runs and that kept my mind busy while I listened to the talk show hosts prank calling some poor fellow about how his Christmas lights had been put up too early after Thanksgiving and that the HOA was going to take them down while he was at work. His son has contacted the radio station to do this to his old man and was his dad pissed! Gave me a really good laugh though and got me to the top of the second climb in one hour and 51 minutes. Slower than I had hoped for but still under two hours. At this point I knew I would hit that two hour climb mark at some point. After the bike hit the descent I was off of it, and got up stairs to hit the head. Guess I was doing well on fluids. I had taken in a bottle of orange Skratch, a bottle of water, more mini waffles w/ maple syrup, and a banana. 

Climb #3 - 20,000 to go

This is when the physical and mental sh** hit the fan. I could already feel the wear not only on my body, but my mind. I just never felt nearly as good as I had on the Basecamp one month prior. With the Alpe Du'Huez climb in Zwift it is uch easier to get your head wrapped around an hour climb and there are really nice markings for each section of the climb. Not the case with the Ventoux climb. My front left hip continued to ache and now my right knee was starting to talk to me, and not in the nice sort of way. Jumping out of the saddle my right knee would give me subtle twinges that made me think this could so south really fast if I am not careful. I scooched my butt back on the saddle to try and reduce any stress on the front of my knees which seemed to help. I started to ride even more conservatively by dropping to my pie plate on the rear cassette when the grade would hit 10%, instead of 11% like I had been doing. I started to listen to a Mind Pump podcast but within the first 30-minutes I just wasn't in the mood for talking at this point, so I switched over to a custom playlist to see if that would help. Nope, major struggle bus and I certainly did not expect to be feeling like this nor thinking the thoughts I had this early on. I should have at least been able to make it to the 5th rep before phoning a friend. I was shutting down in all sorts of ways on this climb. I tried to tell myself that it was ok to just bail. My mind was just talking to me so much and I was not even half way done. My mind made sure I knew that. Just get to the top of this damn third rep and then I can get off the bike and stretch and go take a shower, maybe that will put me in a much better head space. During this climb I was downing my second bottle of Skratch Super Fuel, bottles of water, and PB Ritz crackers, the minis. All of the food and drinks tasted good, so at least my stomach was not giving me any issues. Made it to the top with my front left hip aching, my right knee twinging, and my mind giving up. Meh. The third climb took me one hour and 55 minutes, nearly two hours. Finally got off the bike and opened up an Original Cookie (PB and Chocolate Chip) and downed that thing like no tomorrow. I wasn't starving at all, but thought maybe I just need to slam even more calories in. Got upstairs and took a nice cool shower which felt great, had a change of cycling gear, relubed, and was back downstairs with time to spare before the bike hit the flat spots of the descent. I did a few minutes of stretching, like that was going to help, and gingerly and reluctantly climbed back on the bike to get it to the bottom and turn around for the fourth climb.

Climb #4 - 15,000' to go

Ok, half way done with this thing. Now if the third climb was when the sh** hit the fan, then this is the climb when I threw myself down a septic tank. I was fighting this climb every damn inch. I wanted to get off the bike every few minutes. About 1k up I started to text people. First it was my wife. Then my coach. Then my good friend Carey. I don't know what I was expecting or wanting. I needed something to just motivate me a little bit or to give me the courage and strength to stay on this damn bike just a little bit longer. Except my texts were saying that I was quitting, I was done, I will not finish this thing, I literally have no legs today. I was 100% convinced that I was going to get off and be done. It's that little voice in my head though, the one that was telling me "you have never quite anything". Ever. Then my mind would say, it's ok to stop. Only to be rebutted by, you are NOT quitting!! New goal ... get to at least 18,000' which is how much I climbed for my Basecamp. I can at least to that. It was also at this time I reluctantly made the decision to take a couple of IB Profin. I do not like doing this due to the risks, but I had been hydrating really well so I downed two pills. Hoping that it would start to take away some of these aches I had been experiencing for hours on end. The hard part about reaching 18,000' is that I had hit that vert in 7-hours and 35-minutes during the Basecamp but hitting 18,000' this time would take me nearly an hour longer. That was hard to swallow. Why was I hurting so much? Why was my front left hip aching? Why are my knees bugging the crap out of me? Why, why, why, and then I hit 18,000', finally. It was at this point I began to almost feel light headed. Realizing how warm it likely was in the basement even with a large fan blowing on me, I got off the bike, grabbed a second fan and placed it pointing directly at me. I think between the second fan and the IB Profin, I started to come back around to the living. Then it became a game, can I go another 500' and another 500' and another, and so on. When I was within striking distance of completing the fourth ascent I regained my motivation which seemed to always happen when I got close to finishing the climb. Done. This was the slowest climb I had to date at two hours and five minutes. #shootme I had surpassed my previous record by another 2k,  longer and further than I had ever done, so now the easy part. Get off the bike and let it shoot to the bottom for those extra free 11.8 miles tacked onto my total mileage. 

I had continued to eat and drink very well. Cracking open the mini coke and sipping on it in between climbs. Ate another banana, drank another bottle of Orange Skratch and more plain water. The PB Ritz crackers were going down really well and I was also consuming Embark Maple Syrup Salted Carmel for that sugary kick. When does that kick actually kick my butt into gear??

Climb #5 - 10,000 to go

Ok, I have two climbs left. I told three people that I quite, like two hours ago. Somehow this gave me mental strength. I no longer had anyone virtually rooting for me or people that I would disappoint because I already did that, because they thought I had stopped. Quit. Gave up. This gives me strength. I don't know why. I cannot explain it. It just does. It is a big reason why I tend not to tell many people about these big things I like to do. I prefer the isolation. I don't want to have to explain to anyone why I could not finish something. To me, that is so much harder than the actual event.

So here we go. Starting to take in a second Embark Maple Syrup but this time the Coffee flavor.  Hoping the caffeine will get my butt moving. I started off so slow thinking I had a small bit of a new lease on life with the IB Profin kicking in and giving my body some much needed relief. The fans seemed to be keeping me cooler and I had opened up the prisoner window in the basement (aka a small glass block window that barely does anything). Any grade that hit 10% I was putting my gearing into the big pie plate on the back. Not going to push it at all and if this climb takes me 2+ hours then so be it. I figured each climb would take me another 5-10 minutes longer than the previous climb so I was doing math in my head to figure out my finish time. Crap ... this is turning into a 14-hours ride. I continued to put down PB Ritz crackers, Skratch (had moved onto the caffeinated Raspberry) and bottles of water. Also took down a third banana and finished the Embark Coffee Maple Syrup. 1k down, then another 1k down, and off the bike. I decided to just get off the bike more often to stretch and rest. I was never off more than a few minutes, but I think I just needed the mental break. This is something I had never planned to do, but in the end it helped tremendously. After reaching the 3,000' mark on this climb I knew I was going to finish the fifth climb. My body was just seizing up left and right but somehow my mind had taken a turn for the better and was on board with finishing the ride even though I still had one more full ascent left to do. I reached that magical banner at the top of the climb, spun around to the descent and hopped off the bike. By some miracle I had negative split the climb from the fourth ascent by completing this one in one hour and 20-minutes.

Not forgetting about the pup, I went upstairs to let her out again and give her some treats for being so patient with me today. Sorry pup, no walks today. You're lucky I made it to the top of the stairs again. 

Climb #6 - 4,500' to go

This was it, the last full ascent. Due to that stupid issue I had after the first climb I knew I had to hit over 29,029' of vert, but in my head I only had 4,029' left before seeing that magical number pop up on the screen. I wanted to get this climb over as soon as humanly possible but knew full well that this was going to be a very slow roll. Thinking you have another 2+ hours of riding in the saddle is hard to fathom, but knowing that you are going to complete your goal ... man that is priceless. Up, up, up I went 250' at a time because that is all I could think about. 250' seems to be a good number to focus on because it goes by quickly. Only 50 more feet. Or only 100' left and I will have another 250' down. Breaking it down this way means each 1k had four chunks to it which made it very doable. Getting to the 3,000' mark on the climb, I knew I had this thing in the bag. When I saw that beautiful 29,029' show on my screen it was such a great feeling. Of course, I still wanted to hit 30,000' total elevation but by the top I reached the top I was at 29,624'. This final ascent took me two hours and 7-minutes. Oy vey. After heading back down the descent for the final time I contemplated just stopping there. I'm done, cooked, finito! I hate giving up on goals though, so as much as my body ached and cried and wanted to shut it all down, I sat my carcass on a chair and waited for the bike to shoot to the flat spot on the descent.

The final bit of climbing for the day.

And just a smidge more to top it all off - 340' to go

Once the bike hit the flat spot I reluctantly, and ever so slowly climbed back on and pedaled it the rest of the way to the bottom. I was at 29,640 so I needed to climb only a remaining 360'. I made quick (ish) work of those 360' and noticed that the bike computer was just a few minutes short of 14.5 hours, so I figured what the heck and pedaled to 14:30 and shut'er down.

The final totals were 153 miles with 30,135' in elevation, in fourteen hours and 30-minutes (Strava link). Given that for each descent I could get off the bike for roughly 12-minutes before having to climb back on to get the bike to the bottom of the climb, I estimate that I was off the bike for roughly 80-minutes of that 14.5 hours which means I was in the saddle for thirteen hours and 10-minutes pedaling. #shootme Heartrate data told me I burned 9k calories and the power meter told me that I did 7827 kilojoules of work. 

I can honesty say that this is the last Virtual Eversting that I will ever do ... I mean ... maybe ... if a friend asks ... whose to say for sure that I won't want to go again. BDRs are so addicting and Everesting is just so damn hard.

Post ride fuel ... it's a start. Will need a couple days of calories to refill the tank.