The Battle of Bunker Hill - Initial Skirmish

As I've written in the past, I'm planning on a longer effort on this hill in a few weeks so this was a rehearsal. My goals for the ride were:

1. Steady effort. I'd say I did very well on this with my segment times ranging from 9:40 to 11:22.
2. Experiment with nutrition. I did a poor job of this. Didn't eat much (a single Gu) on the first 12 laps and was really out of gas on the 12th lap. Did better after that but already had a deficit. Didn't affect my times overmuch but did affect the perceived effort quite a bit.
3. Experiment with fluids. Did a pretty good job of this. I only drink water while riding so really this was more about quantity and I had to urinate 4 times over the course of the 5 hours. I think I could have drank more though and will try to on the next outing.
4. Check out the equipment. Didn't expect any issues and there weren't any. Bike and gearing were fine.
5. Complete at least 5000 feet of climbing. Felt pretty good so reset the goal to 7500 which I accomplished.

Here's the Strava entry for the ride.For those not on Strava, here are some stats:

• Each lap (start, up the hill, descend to start) is 2.16 miles. The Strava segment for the climb is 1.07 miles with an average gradient of 6% and 323 feet of gain
• 23 laps
• 7,520 feet of climbing total
• 5:04:42 moving time
• 50.56 miles

I think for a "real" Everesting attempt, this hill wouldn't be the best choice. Something longer and steeper would work better (Denzer hill?) but for my current level of conditioning, returning from injury, this was just right trading off less elevation and, as a consequence, more time in the saddle against a harder effort was a good tradeoff to make.

Extrapolating to an Everesting though, at this pace it'd take approximately 24 hours. My goal would be somewhere nearer 19. I'm not currently at the level of fitness to do that.

Some notes from the ride:

• met my friend Bob Booth and "mostly" socially distanced. We probably rode closer together than was wise on and off after about lap 6. To be honest, I don't think a riding WITH somebody is necessarily a plus (at least for me) as it causes me to lose focus a bit. It does make the laps pass faster though.
• my goal was to maintain a consistent 180 watts on the climbing segment. I was close but not quite there. The lack of focus mentioned above was a factor plus I only had normalized power (for the whole ride) displayed on the Wahoo, need to have 5 sec avg power so I can see when I'm slacking off.
• were I in better shape, my goal would be an average nearer 200 watts but don't think I'm there right now, especially coming off the injury.
• need to lose weight. I'm 18 lbs heavier than when I finished PBP. I lost 12 of it early this year, got injured and put most of it back on.
• it was raining a bit prior to the start. I'd decided in advance I wasn't going to ride if was raining but it quit before I started and turned into a very nice, almost ideal day. The temperature was perfect.
• they started spreading manure on a field next to the climb on the 17th lap. Yuck. This really made it a lot more difficult.
• got stung a small amount by a bee on about the 14th lap. I'm somewhat allergic (no danger of anaphylactic shock but the sting swells like crazy). Wasn't too bad so only a mild sting

Thinking about the nutrition afterwards. There are a number of factors contributing to why I ate so little in the first 12 laps:

• I typically start a ride or brevet after eating a good breakfast. I generally feel like I can go a couple of hours on what I've eaten. For a regular ride, it's probably OK but for a long ride it's more important to avoid getting behind. A steady intake of 200-300 calories per hour beginning in the first hour would be better.
• My usual ride distance is 40 miles or so and as mentioned above, I generally ride shortly after eating breakfast so I can do that distance without difficulty although I am hungry when I finish and need to eat something almost right away. So the bottom line is riding a couple of hours without eating anything is a well formed habit.
• I don't like to stop but this climb isn't conducive to eating while riding. I have a hard time eating anything while climbing and messing around with trying to open an energy bar or Gu while descending at 35 MPH seems unwise.

 I might try some liquid nutrition. I haven't found any that work for me (and I've tried them all) for several days in a row but it might be that I can tolerate it for a single day. I've got some Infinit powder and am planning on taking a spin on Denzer in a few days so I might give that a try.

Another one bites the dust

Got word today that the Hokkaido 1200K scheduled for August has been cancelled. Hiroshi-san had said he'd make a decision by June 10, kudos to him for making it sooner. It appears my goal of doing a brevet in Japan is going to remain unrealized, for now.

2021 is going to be an interesting year. There were already a number of brevets scheduled for 2021 that I was interested in, including one I'm already registered for (London-Edinburgh-London). My plan for next year was to do the LEL-SBS double again as I did in 2017 but with a number of 2020 events being moved to 2021 I'll have some decisions to make. Assuming the Hokkaido is rescheduled for exactly the same period in August 2021 as it was in 2020, it will overlap with LEL so it'll be an either/or choice.

Although flying around the world to do LEL/Hokkaido would be challenging, it'd be nice if the dates at least make it possible to consider.

Certainly in the grand scheme of things there are many more important things to think about, not least what the trajectory of the Covid-19 virus looks like over the next 12 months and what the resulting impacts on the global economy will be.

In the meantime, the most optimistic spin I can put on the rest of 2020 as far as my own riding plan goes is:

• US randonneuring resumes starting 1 July
• a brevet series in July-August
• my 1000K in September
• the Cracker Swamp in October
• The Great Southern in November

I'd planned to take another run at an SR600K in early July and would still like to make that happen. The hard part is going to be getting into shape to do it. That's a big part of the reason for Everesting.

Stay tuned!

Mt. Everest comes to Flatistan

NB I'm reproducing an (edited) email sent to a few friends here for blog readers.

Here's the current state of the world (at least according to me):

• Coronavirus is on the uptick everywhere in the Midwest
• Social distancing is the norm
• The likelihood of brevets happening in May is small
• Without brevets to target, my riding has lacked focus and I'm gaining weight like crazy

So what to do?

You might have heard of The Everest Challenge. The premise is simple: you climb the height of Mt. Everest in a single ride - that's 29,029 feet of climbing. You can take as long as you want but it's got to be a single effort. The complete rules are here.

Well, there's no way I can do that now, but it is something I can aspire to and what's life without a few aspirational goals?

So here's my plan: on Saturday, May 2nd at somewhere around 09:00, I'll start. My goal for this first go would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10K-15k spread over the course of the day.

Some stats

Based on the Everesting calculator (see below) and my Strava data for 25 trips up this climb, here's what the TOTAL Everesting effort would look like:

• 23:40 hours
• 6 MPH average climbing speed. This is the average of all of my previous trips up the hill. My PR is a little over 9 MPH
• 32 MPH descending speed
• 22 rest stops, 8 minutes stopped each time
• 87 laps
• 208 total miles (!!)

So divide everything by three and you get:

• 10K feet of climbing
• ~8 hours total
• 4 hours climbing
• about an hour stopped
• total distance ~69 miles

Sounds horrifying.

The Hill

I've given a bit of thought to the "ideal" hill for Everesting. It seems like the following attributes are important:

• Have enough elevation gain that you're not doing too many repetitions
• Not be too steep. Although it's tempting to throw in that 21% climb, you have to remember you're going to be doing it a BUNCH of times. The ideal gradient seems to me to be in the 6-10% range
• Little to no traffic
• A place to park that's close to the climb. You don't want to have to ride a long way just to take a break or get another water bottle
• Not a must, but it'd be nice if there's a bit of an uphill at the end of the descent, right at the start/finish to you don't have to use the brakes a lot to start the next lap 

I've found a hill locally that meets all those criteria. It'd be nice if it went on a bit longer but it has about 332' of gain so 10K of climbing would be ~30 laps.

Here's the hill in question

Something that's fun to fool around with is the "Everesting calculator". You can plug in the Strava segment for your favorite climb and see how many laps, the total distance and how long it'll take you.

My hope is to do this a few times in May/June, perhaps eventually working up to an "official" Everesting attempt either on this hill or another.

For both of my regular readers, you might be saying to yourself "I thought he was injured". Well, firstly you shouldn't talk to yourself so much, people are beginning to wonder about you. But you're right, I am recovering from a severe Soleus strain. Given that, this sort of effort seems borderline foolhardy.

But here's how I'm rationalizing it:

• I'm taking it slow. My plan between now and early May is to start off with a small number of reps and gradually increase it. I've gone out to Bunker Hill twice. The first time I did 4 repetitions, the second time I did 6. Next time, I'll do 8 (I'm seeing a trend here...).
• TBH, my real motivation is to give myself a bit of focus. The brevet season is shot to hell, all the events I've been looking forward to have either been cancelled or were unwise (the Murray 1200K in March) due to injury, etc.
• No big deal if I don't make 10K feet or even half that
• The real goal is to have a target to aim for.

The plan

Well, other than going up the hill a bunch, it seems like a good idea to have a plan for how to go about it. Here are my thoughts so far:

• the Everesting calculator says each lap will take 14 minutes
• I am going to do 4 laps (~56 minutes) then take a break
• this would give me 1328 feet per block
• I'll do 4 blocks (about 4 hours) then take a long break with about 5200' done
• Assuming I feel OK, I'll continue in similar fashion

Now to lose a pound or two!

Stay tuned!

Coronavirus in the sticks

...
No human contact
And if you interact, your life is on contract
Your best bet is to stay away mother f***er
"Break stuff" Limp Bizkit

Who knew Limp Bizkit had written the anthem for the Coronavirus?

I was talking (via email) to a friend who said I was lucky to live in a rural area since exposure is much less likely. There is a lot of truth to that, my rides lately have been on quiet roads made even moreso by people staying at home. I've got a ton of chores to do on the farmette to keep me occupied (more on that anon) so I'm not a city dweller locked into an apartment for which I'm grateful.

As I write this, there have been 3 cases of Coronavirus in Richland County. I pass the residence of two of the cases on just about every bike ride, an elderly (mid-70's) couple that didn't appear to be in the best of health even before contracting Coronavirus. I wish them well and hope that with good care they'll both make a full recovery.

Social distancing is more a way of life for Marcia and I rather than a short term event. My rides are 100% solo, we rarely eat in restaurants and are content and happy with each other for company.

One of the downsides to living near a small town is there's only one grocery store, one hardware store, etc., so if someone is contagious while asymptomatic,  they've got lots of opportunity to spread it around.

We're strictly limiting our trips into town and one or the other of us goes (not both) and whomever goes takes rubber gloves, mask, etc., avoids all contact, sanitizes when they get back into the car and then showers when they get home. Hope that's enough.

As I write this, my April brevets have been cancelled, May will be cancelled pretty soon and it's likely that June will follow. What this means for the brevet season isn't clear. The ACP has indicated they're willing to reschedule brevets or schedule new ones. Typically, I submit events for the ACP calendar in September of the previous year and once submitted they're set in stone and can neither be deleted or augmented with additional events.

This year is different. It appears we're going to get the opportunity to submit new events so simplistically I could e.g., move my April events to July, May to August, etc., and still have a full ACP series with a "traditional" ramp up. Certainly one implication of this is that it will be hotter and a second is that the late season brevets will have shorter days so more nighttime riding.

One of the chores I've been working at here on the farmette is clearing some downed trees. We had 5 pretty big trees fall at the end of our driveway in the last year. I used the tractor to drag them out of the way but they're pretty unsightly as weeds have grown up around them. I got an estimate to have them cut up and taken away - $2500! No thanks. I've got a tractor and a chain saw.

So a few days ago, we had the "Wisconsin Chainsaw Massacre"

I got all of the trees cut up into more manageable pieces and dragged those pieces to an area where I can burn them. They still need to be cut into smaller pieces as I only cut them up enough to permit me to move them so that's still on the todo list.

And then we're going to have one hell of a bonfire!