The last two years I have completed a virtual Everesting challenge using Zwift, my own bike and my trusty Wahoo KickR Core smart trainer. For this third attempt I was originally planning for and had prepared on the
Zwift Epic KOM (forward). I already completed a basecamp on the
Reverse Epic KOM in 2020 (6-hours and change) and so I thought I would use a different climb altogether. I did not prepare for this third attempt nearly as much as I had in the past. My running really hit its stride this year which means my saddle time has been significantly reduced from the previous two years. The recipe that I continue to follow is to build up to a Basecamp (half of a full Everesting) attempt a few weeks out from Thanksgiving. The weekends leading up to the Basecamp I slowly increase the number of repetitions and be just shy of completing 50% of a full Everest on the selected climb. A day or two before Thanksgiving I would complete a Basecamp. This is a great way to work on your mindset of being in the saddle for a long time, provides you with an idea of how long you may be in the saddle for the full Everesting, allows you to work on your nutrition and test out different options, and if none of that is important to you, then it burns a lot of calories just before that big Thanksgiving meal.
This year I may have ridden the forward Epic KOM climb 2-3 times in total before taking on the Basecamp challenge two days before Thanksgiving. I was either being lazy or perhaps I was confident going into the challenge. I mean, it was only going to be a 6-hour ride and I knew I could easily handle that. Plus the climb takes roughly 35-minutes at an easy pace to complete. No problem! According to the
Everesting.cc calculator, it would take 19 ascents for the full Everesting, so I had it in my head that 10 should be plenty for a Basecamp. Makes sense, right?
I started the Basecamp around 11:30pm after working a half day. Had all my my fluids and food ready to go so all I had to do was start Zwift, jump on the bike, and go for the next 6-hours. Climb after climb and descent after descent I rolled on, feeling good, eating all the foods, and drinking all the drinks. What I was noticing, however, is that my total ride time was looking a tad long. It was over 3-hours and I was not quite to the halfway point. I didn't think too much of it and if I went over 6-hours then no problem, I doubt it would be over 7-hours total. Wrong. What I did not take into account was the time for the descent. The Epic KOM is a bit longer than the Reverse Epic KOM, by about 2-miles, but the average grade was noticeably easier, so why was this taking so much longer? It was the descent. On the descent there are two spots that you need to pedal through in order to get the bike to the turn around point at the bottom of the climb. The descent time on Reverse Epic KOM is about 6-7 minutes on average, but for the Epic KOM it is roughly 12 minutes. Add the additional 5 minutes on the descent with the additional 5-minutes on the ascent and then multiple that by the total number ascents and you wind up with more than 1.5 hours of extra time for this climb. Ouch. Had I prepared better for this Basecamp I am sure I would have come to that realization beforehand. Oh well, live and learn. At the end of the ride I completed 10 ascents in 8-hours. Simple math will tell you that performing a full Everesting had me looking at a 16-hour ride, not including breaks. Oooof. Why was this so much longer than Everesting on Alpe'Du Zwift or even Mt. Ventoux?? The only reason I can think of is that the small parts on the descent of having to pedal through are just eating away at not only the clock, but also my energy level. For Alpe'Du Zwift you can get off the bike as it coasts to the bottom and you save a lot of energy over the span of a Basecamp or full Everesting. Not so with the Epic KOM (or the Reverse Epic KOM). One thing I also neglected to take into consideration is that in the Everesting.cc calculator there is a link to "Remove descent". The only gain that counts towards a Basecamp or Everesting is that on the ascent. Any gain from the descent is not counted. The Epic KOM has 165' of gain on the descent and for whatever reason my dumbass just did not think to take that into consideration. In the end, my Epic KOM was not a valid Basecamp so I did not submit it for the Everesting Hall of Fame. Bummer. I was off by one rep.
The day after the Basecamp I wanted to try out the Reverse Epic KOM as a comparison. So I jumped on the bike, still feeling a bit tired after the Basecamp, and completed 2 full repetitions in 1-hour and 15 minutes. That means I could most likely complete 3 reps in under 2-hours. I was liking these numbers much better. I changed my mind and decided that I would Everest the Reverse Epic KOM climb instead. With the decreased climb and descent time I was sure that I could complete the full Everesting in 12-13 hours. Now, I have been dealing with some aches in the right side of my rib cage for months, since the beginning of August. I am told that it may be my Gallbladder, but my symptoms and the tests I have been going through do not confirm that with 100% certainty. I do feel the achiness on runs and rides, so I was really hoping that I would not have to bail on this long indoor adventure due to not being able to tolerate it for hours on end.
Finally the day arrived, December 18th. I decided to do this on a day when no one was home, which is how I usually like to do a long indoor ride. Completely by myself at home with no distractions. I did reach out to a few friends to gauge their interest in joining me for a a climb or two. I was fortunate to have my good friend Paul White tap in a couple times and I am so darn grateful for his help! Instead of starting at an insanely early hour of 4am, like when I started the last two full Everestings, I decided to get my normal sleep and begin around 6am. This would have me finishing roughly around dinner time, provided everything went to plan. I woke up before the alarm, grabbed my must-have cup of
Christopher Bean coffee, stretched, filled up my water bottles, changed and was on the bike by 5:51am. Feeling good I made the ten minute spin to the base of the climb nice and easy and started up the first ascent and knocked that out in less than 30-minutes all while listening to a local radio talk show for some good laughs along the way. By the time I started the third ascent my wife said goodbye before heading off to work. All by myself now, time to put in some work. I had started to fuel during the climb but packed off from that and began to fuel on the descents. I was drinking
LMNT, which is salty AF, and eating Honey Stringer Waffles to start off. The descents took more spinning than any previous Everesting due to the 121' of gain. Fortunately that gain came soon after the turn around point which meant that I could choose to dismount the bike for a few minutes before the bike would reach the base of the climb. To get over the hump on the descent from the turn around took around 3-4 minutes which meant I only had 3-4 minutes at most before the bike would reach the bottom. For the first 5-6 climbs I stayed on the bike spinning to the bottom and quickly turning around and heading back up. After a while I decided to start taking those few minutes of freedom to refill my bottles, grab more food, and throw out empty food wrappers. Around the 3-hour mark Paul joined me for a couple of climbs. I think I was around the 7th ascent, sort of a no-mans land before getting to the half way point so his company, while virtual, was extremely helpful and so very much appreciated.
Even though I was in a good groove I decided after the eleventh ascent (the half way point) that I would take a longer break to grab a shower, refill my water pitcher, and cook some ramen and a bagel to fuel the remaining repeats. The Everesting calculator told me I had 20.1 ascents, but I had not figured in the descent gain so my thought is that I would go a couple more repetitions and finish it with 22 repetitions, that would surely be plenty. I later confirmed that 22 reps was in fact the correct number of climbs to complete the Everesting challenge but it is always a good idea to go beyond that, just to be sure. Ready to get into the back half of the challenge and for some odd reason feeling quite good not only physically but surprisingly good mentally, I remounted my trusty stead and began the 12th ascent. At this point I changed up my music selection from the local radio station to some classic rock. I rarely listen to classic rock but this is my go-to for long adventures and it never disappoints. I figured at some point I will change it to a podcast or some angry heavy metal music, but that never happened. The classic rock channel on Apple music fit the bill perfectly for the rest of the time. Paul joined me for a second time when I was on the 14th or 15th ascent and again he was welcome company! Cannot thank him enough for taking the time out of his busy day to help me along this journey.
As for how much time that ended up being, well ... I hit my goal and completed the Everest challenge after the 22nd ascent. My mind was still good, my legs still had energy, and I have always wanted to be in this position to be able to mentally and physically continue on to try and complete the 10k challenge. The 10k Club is when you climb 10,000m which is 1,152 meters beyond the required 8,848 meters for a full Everesting. Knowing that I wanted to get in at least a half of a climb more to put the nail in the coffin so to speak on the full Everesting, I had it in my head that one more climb would likely get me into the 10k Club. At this point I was well into the evening, my wife and step-son were home, eating the pizza that she picked up for dinner by my request, and I felt bad that I was till in the basement grinding away at this thing. I stopped upstairs and told them I have on climb left and then would be done. They were watching Seinfeld, were happy to let me be, so I trotted back downstairs for that "final ascent". Just before I began the 23rd ascent I made a post on the Zwift Everesting Facebook page asking how many ascents were necessary for the 10k Club on my choose climb. I was hoping that within the 30-minutes it would take me to get to the top, some good hearted person would see my request and answer it by saying, 23. Up, up, and up I went. My time getting slower and slower, but I didn't care about the total time at this point. I had always wanted to complete the 10k challenge and I was in a good position to do it. I reached the top in roughly 30-31 minutes, turned around, and checked Facebook. Hmmm .. no response. Dang it. If I stop now and miss it by one repetition, I am going to be a very unhappy camper. I walked upstairs only to see my wife and step-son both fast asleep on the couch with that wonderful looking pizza siting on the counter, getting colder by the minute. Meh. I went to the office, opened up the laptop and checked out the Everest calculator which has a selection for the 10k Club. DRAT!! I needed 24.9 ascents. I have to do this two more times??? What the actual ... whelp ... no time like the present. I really do not want to go through this again. While I really wanted to be showering and eating pizza and drinking a beer (ok, lets be honest ... a hard apple cider), I wanted more so to get this done for good.
Back downstairs I went with the family still sleeping, I remounted the bike and carried on back up for the 24th ascent. It wasn't horrible and I told myself that I would be done by 10:30pm. Yeah, that's right we went from being done with the Everesting before 7pm to being done around 10:30pm (it ended up being 10:45pm - ish). That escalated quickly or rather quite slowly. I continued to eat and drink the entire time. My stomach did give me a brief bit of grief along the way in the second half of the ride, but a bottle of Skratch Vegan Recovery drink did the trick and fixed any stomach woes rather quickly. In fact, I had two bottles of that magic elixir and it was so darn tasty! I even use it during my runs! Thanks to the most awesome Julie Shobe of Ultra.Running.Nutrition for teaching me the way! Also blessed that I had no aches from the Gallbladder and that was huge for me getting through this ride.
With the 24th ascent out of the way I descended one last time. Still feeling mentally motivated and my legs still had some push left in them, I reached the bottom, turn around one final time and started the 25 ascent. My wife was heading to bed and told me she put the food in the fridge but that there was plenty for me to eat after I finished this insanity. She wasn't upset with me at all, just amazed I was still going. To be honest, I was just as amazed. The great thing about doing that final ascent is that I can tell myself all the way up ... this is the last time for this section, and this is the last time for THIS section, and so on and so on. It helps keep me engaged and knowing that I am truly nearing completion. Once at the time I turned around and decided that I would head back down to the bottom. I mean, why not. On the way down I took notice of my total mileage. I would be at 197.5 miles once I reached the bottom. Yeesh, that's a ton of miles on an indoor trainer. The next thought would be .. I am so darn close to a double century. How can I possibly just stop at 197.5 miles and not ride out that last 2.5 miles?? I thought for a second that I should just turn around and finish those 2.5 miles going up the climb but that thought quickly faded when I realized that the climb is only 3.9 miles so I would be climbing over half way back up that stupid climb. Nope, nope, nope. I picked the flattest route that I could in Zwift and spun easy until I reached 200.1 miles.
Done and so damn dusted!!
Total Mileage: 200.28 (the bike coasted a bit after I got off)
Total Elevation: 36,450'
Total Ride Time: 15 hours and 56 minutes
Total Time: 16 hours 55 minutes and 10 seconds (Garmin had me at 17 hours and 1 minute)
Total Calories Burned: 10,234
Total Hours of Mental Therapy Afterwards: It's pointless, why try.
I have submitted the ride to the official Everesting Hall of Fame and am hopeful that I will not only achieve my third virtual Everesting but also that wonderful 10k Club badge. Here's hoping I do NOT have to do this ever again. That said ... I'm starting to look into what it will take to earn the Roam badge.
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