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I made my first attempt in April 2021 on a climb that I was first introduced to in Da Cooley Thriller. I had great support, with different friends riding with me for the hardest laps. I was 49 at the time; I can\u2019t remember if I was dreading the approaching decrepitude of my 6th<\/sup> decade but perhaps I was. Roll on 3 years and with 50 well behind me I found myself wondering if I was still able to do these slightly daft challenges. Actually, with NTSR \/ Rossi, I believe that we have been able to achieve a number of cycling goals that we can be quite pleased about \u2013 Malin to Mizen, Lap of the Lough, Height for Hospice, Slieve Martin Slaughter as examples. However, I think it\u2019s important that we keep on pushing ourselves a bit harder and look for new goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe second attempt was just two days ago in proper Irish weather ie cold, windy and wet at the end of April. Same location and the same fantastic support and help from good friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here’s a few thoughts from my 2 attempts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nEveresting is a very accessible and easy cycling challenge. There\u2019s no fixed date, no entry fee, no navigation issues, no time limit. You just need a bike, a GPS device to record, a suitable hill and plenty of time. There are some Rules (see everesting.cc) but it\u2019s all pretty straightforward. Ride up and down the same hill until you have clocked 8848m. Simples.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Weather \u2013 you could wait for the perfect day, but the chance of that happening in Ireland is unlikely. I got completely drenched at the start and the middle of my second go \u2013my weather app had warned me about the first wet spell so I came prepared. Unfortunately, it completely failed to predict the second wetting and I really got very cold and miserable.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Gimme Shelter \u2013 most Irish mountain passes don\u2019t have any. I parked my car near the top of the climb; this meant trying to eat and change into dry clothing in a howling gale with sideways rain. In retrospect, parking at the bottom might have worked better this time. A campervan would have been ideal.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Clothing \u2013 bring plenty and be prepared for anything as it\u2019ll be a long day out. You can never have too many dry pairs of gloves as even supposedly waterproof gloves will get soaked through eventually. I should have sorted my dry layers better in the car \u2013 it\u2019s hard to rummage through an untidy bag of clothes that you have just stuffed into a bag and you\u2019ll never find those black arm warmers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Lights \u2013 thankfully Brian Scullion reminded me to bring my headlight the night before. My great plan of finishing before dark was not to be.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Heart rate monitor \u2013 not essential, but I found this useful to gauge my effort and hold back if going too hard. Interestingly, my heart rate dropped, along with my speed as the laps progressed \u2013 fatigue just meant crawling on to the finish. I\u2019ve never used a power meter but I suppose it would serve the same purpose.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Food \u2013 you\u2019ll be miles away from any shops so bring more than you think you\u2019ll eat or drink. Don\u2019t forget the full fat Coke. I always struggle with eating and drinking on these long rides, especially with reflux and nausea; soup, custard, jellies, tinned pineapple are my foods of last resort. Yazoo chocolate milk (although my 1 litre bottle leaked in my car boot this time, grim). I can\u2019t stomach gels. It\u2019s nice to clean your teeth halfway through \u2013 a bit like washing your face or changing a layer of clothing, you feel much fresher.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Road choice \u2013 I chose one of my favourite climbs in Ireland that I know very well. It\u2019s very quiet and you can see any cars coming up when descending. It\u2019s not perfect \u2013 very long (8km up and down for 350m altitude gain will mean over 200km total distance) and the surface is getting very rough. The sheep are good company but they\u2019ve a habit of lying down on the Tarmac for warmth. When you choose a road remember that you\u2019ll be descending as many times as climbing \u2013 you don\u2019t want a lot of traffic and blind bends when you\u2019re tired.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Bike \u2013 any will do as long as it\u2019s not an Ebike. You could use an MTB with nice low gears and big tyres but I think 200km would have been too much. I was very glad to have my new super-light carbon road bike but wider tyres would have made the rough descent easier. No need for 2 water bottles, leave one at the top.<\/li>\n\n\n\n Support \u2013 having friends to cheer you on, feed you and ride some laps with you made an enormous difference; in fact, I probably wouldn\u2019t have completed either attempt without you.<\/li>\n\n\n\n O solo mio \u2013 that said, Everesting is a very individualistic challenge. NTSR \/ Rossi could certainly do this as a group event but you couldn\u2019t possibly ride the whole thing with a group \u2013 everyone needs to just plug away and do it at their own pace. We all have different ways of coping with long endurance rides \u2013 some people listen to music or podcasts or audiobooks. I\u2019ve never liked earphones when cycling though; I like to think, tell myself stories or pray. However, I often just let my mind go completely blank and ride on auto-pilot \u2013 it\u2019s quite therapeutic. I sometimes sing \u2013 I serenaded the sheep with Harry Belafonte\u2019s rendition of Hava Nageela this time and they seemed to appreciate it. Experienced endurance riders tell us that these events are mostly mental and that we mostly quit in our heads long before our bodies need to stop \u2013 we just need to develop our own different coping strategies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nSo there you are; thanks for reading and I\u2019d be delighted to come along and encourage anyone else who feels inspired to take up the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\nTim 02\/05\/2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Doc Lewis has submitted his. Everest report so that we all migh share some of his pain , I was devastated that I was away on holidays when he did it \ud83d\ude09 . The weather was to say the least not conducive to photo graphs . Here we go….. Everesting Everesting was a big cycling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2697,"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2693\/revisions\/2697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/notthesundayrun.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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