What is your goal?
Fastest attempt possible for your fitness?

Are you a spinner or a grinder?

Will you plan a 'base camp' ride as part of your training?

Goal is just to finish (no time goal)

Longest bike ride I've done is an IM bike, but with multiple IM finishes in the 12-13 hr range I think I can manage a 12 hour event
I usually can do AdZ at avg power of 170W in 1:15, so if I keep that up it's 10.5 hours plus the time it takes to go back down (1-2 hours)

So biggest question is how to train to keep up 60% of FTP for 10+ hours

I'm usually spinning about 80 rpms on the climbs; 90-95 on the flats

With 6 weeks left there's not a ton left that you can do other than get used to the length of the effort. It would be worthwhile to change the 5-6h weekend rides to a few 9-10h epics, or at the very least 5-6h on Sat and Sun.

Do you know how long you think it will take? A huge difference between a 10h and 20h attempt. Holding Z2 power for 20hours is not going to be possible unless you're using a different definition of Z2.

Do you know how steep the climb you're targeting is? A 12% Mt. SOB is a lot different than a 6% roller.

How was your nutrition in the IM's? Did you bonk during the run or feel fairly fueled at mile 20? At 3.5w/kg this should be about twice as hard (outdoors)

Are you planning on doing it indoors? IIRC Zwift halves the power req'd at any gradient so that's helpful but also cheating the effort.

Let's just look at the numbers. At 3.5w/kg and a modest 8% gradient 50%FTP=4.0mph and 60%FTP=4.75mph over 68 miles of just climbing. Thats 14-17hours of just climbing not including the descent and stops which will sum to several more hours.


Honestly with 6 weeks left the best thing you can do is buy an MTB cassette with the biggest cog you can find a the smallest chainring you can find. You won't regret having smaller gears to spin when you need to.

Don't forget rest days! Two days per week imo. 4-5 days of leg-battering in a row is not event-specific fatigue, even for everesting. Monday off if sunday long. Wed or Thu overgear as you are.

I haven't done an Everesting attempt, but did do an "Elberting" (Mt. Elbert in CO is >14k elevation) ride a year ago where I climbed 15k' in 108 miles, doing 60 repeats of the same hill for just over 8 hours. There was only 250' of ascent on each climb, but the road was a dead end at the bottom with very little traffic, wooded and pretty, and a really good road surface.

As far as preparations go, I think you need some longer hill repeat sessions. To prepare for doing 8 hours of repeats, I felt like I need to do 3-4 hours of dedicated hill repeats and/or 5-6 hours of very hilly riding (not necessarily the same hill). I also chose to do repeats on steeper pitches than what I was going to do my "Elberting" ride so that I would feel like I was spinning more on the lower gradient.

On the day of the big ride, I drove my car to the top of the hill (small parking lot right there) with a cooler full of water bottles already mixed up, electrolyte tabs, Cokes chilling, energy bars, fig newtons, a couple of Snickers, fruit, gels, and some salty snacks. I also had an empty bucket in the car to pee in and a second kit to change into if needed along with extra chamois cream if needed (I didn't need the extra kit and didn't need to chamois cream). If/when I do another >8 hour ride like this, I will also bring a chair to sit in next time. If I were to consider a more serious ride involving >20k' of climbing, I would chose a longer climb with more vertical ascent because it would be less of a mental challenge than all those repeats.

Good luck. Have fun!!

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Tad

It took awhile, but I finally discovered that its not the destination that's important, but rather the journey.

So, I did mine at ~70% FTP.
We practiced doing the Alpe x 2 several times 6 weeks prior then did basecamp one month prior.

The hardest thing for me was pedaling so slowly-it killed my knees as I'm a true spinner not a grinder.
I bought a mt bike cassette 10/42 and got an extender-much much better!!

It's almost more about the mental fortitude rather than leg fatigue/weakness.
It is always wise to get off and stretch, eat, shower, change clothes or whatever needed during the coast down-which takes ?10 minutes or so (*I can't even remember-I've blocked it out of my mind...ha)

Have everything planned. Get friends to join you on the last 2 or 3 climbs.

It is a long day-we started at 4:30 am


Good luck!

Looking to do AdZ if I can get my hands on a direct drive trainer before the attempt; otherwise I'll do the Epic KOM climb

I'm looking at 12-14 hours for my attempt

All my IM rides have gone well, I'm able to consume 80-100g of carb/hr on those rides and felt good on the run.

I'll try to fit in some 5-6 hour training rides; it's pretty tough to get a hall pass to train on both weekend days for that long since I've already shot my wad on the Ironmans this year.

12-14h is a reasonable estimate for a Zwift attempt. Keep in mind that Zwift default is 50% resistance on gradients, so it's effectively a half-Everesting. If you go for it outside you'll need to roughly double that duration.

Doing it indoors will make the carb consumption easier as well, I'd make sure to stay at 100g+ through the first several hours.

Consultri-
Remember, the trainer difficulty setting MUST be set to 100% for it to count.

I agree with mathematics that indoors is a much easier attempt and eating enough carbs is critically important. I'd also suggest some solid food in the afternoon as it does help settle the stomach with all the needed fluids. I had buttered noodles with salt which was delicious! I also had salty chicken noodle soup late into the effort.

*(and a steak when I was done...)

Do short hill reps once a week. As hard as you can go without blowing up. 25-30 mins total of quality hard climbing. Works wonders for leg strength and improving fatigue resistance and will boost up your vo2max a bit. This was my main workout for my everesting ( no long climb nearby) and I never really noticeably fatigued during the attempt - climbing at 70-80% of threshold and watching my HR.

I also recommend changing bibs once or twice and don't worry about nutrition strategy - you have plenty of time to eat, so just eat and drink plenty at will. Pickle juice and salty food will help towards the end.

Instead of doing super long easy rides what I did was to do a race then do 2-3x the Alp at the climbing pace so I was tired from the race before doing the Alp rides.
The main thing is the nutrition if you pick the right intensity for you.
I have done a few long challenges on Zwift and the vEveresting is only hard if you trying to really go as fast as possible.

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Tiago
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