It’s 430am, the rain is pouring and the wind is howling…and that’s only at the bottom of the 5km hill I’m about to start cycling up…not just once…at least 24 times non-stop for a duration of probably 24 hours. Why? To attain the 8,848 metres that is the iconic height of Everest, in one single ride, on one repeated climb. It’s called “Everesting”, a relatively new concept in endurance cycling.
Nobody in Northern Ireland has done it, male or female. Only a handful of females have done it in Europe , or indeed across the world, solo.
Yes, but why?..i
hear you ask.
Me: Well….why
not?
Urrrmmmm,
because it’s nuts.
Me: Well….it
may be, but I think I can do it.
But you
hate laps.
Me:
Well…this is different.
Yes, but why
would you want to do that? Why?
Me: Well….because
it’s there.
(And if
you have to ask again, you will never understand!)
I love
hills. After all, life is all about hills and mountains – whether in sporty or
non-sporty terms. And to be honest, tackling geographical mountains is so much
easier than figurative and emotional mountains - even though the former also requires
mental “climbing” skills, on top of the physical.
I am a
hill-seeker. I always have been. Friends refer to me as “What hill? Harrower”. Why
avoid hills and seek the flat? What’s so good about flat? Flat tyres, flat
chest (yip!), flat hair, flat atmosphere……there is no life about any of
those….particularly the ultimate flat >>> flat lining !
Life
happens in the hills. Hill climbing (be it cycling, other sports, or general
life struggles) is an opportunity to prove to yourself that you are strong, and
is a reminder that if you put in the effort and commit 100% to tackling obstacles,
then there is the thrill of a whoopy-swoopy descent and reward for the
endeavour of the ascent.
If hill
climbing is viewed as an opportunity, then nothing could throw up a greater chance of
reaching dizzying heights than tackling “Everesting” on my bike. After all - it’s
all about the climb; it’s my domain of endurance sport; it doesn’t cost
anything; it can be done right on my doorstep in a place that’s not just preciously
close to my heart, but is actually part of my heart and soul; and the unique spirit
that is alive there for me means it is do-able – Ain’t No Mountain - even though
I expect it will be my toughest thing ever.
Without
knowing it, I’ve actually been training for it for years. I say that in a
general sense, as there was no specific training for Everesting at all. Indeed,
it was only 12 hours before I actually started the attempt that I decided I was
doing it. That may sound even more bonkers than the whole thing already is, but
to be honest, if I’d spent months … or even weeks….or even days....planning it,
training for it and thinking about it….then I would never have done it! In
hindsight, it was always going to be one of my spur-of-the-moment decisions,
based on a burning last-minute desire and a gut instinct to just go for it.
I first
read about Everesting a few months ago, and it appealed??! from the start. Never
mind the reasons above, it also alluded to a favourite saying, “Everybody has
their own Everest”. Here was a chance to take that figurative quote literally.
My
sensible head??! said there was no point doing it until warmer months and
longer daylight hours, so I put it on the backburner. Then in April after the UK
Having
missed a few weeks of biking our favourite route, Jen and I suddenly
realising during text-chat on Saturday 27th June that it would be a couple more
weeks before we’d bike it again, I got a sudden burning desire for Everesting. Ahem.
The next day!
I had a
clear window with regard to family, friends, commitments etc on Sunday 28th
June and therefore no planning was required for me to be free, and deep down I
knew that without having trained specifically for it, I was stronger and fitter
than I had ever been and that I had the physical strength to attempt Everesting
- so I just had to go out and do it. Oh, and dash out to buy food for it !
Once the
urge took hold, that was it, I was doing it. And if I started, I would finish.
“Do. Or do not. There is no try”…a mantra I used during Ironman…courtesy of one
of my heroes. Yoda !
Saying
that however, 6 hours into my Everesting attempt I seriously began questioning
could I do it. Of all the endurance events I have done since starting 7 years
ago, beginning with Ironman in 2008 and progressing into multiday road bike
events, marathon kayak events, multiday alpine MTB events, and multiday
non-stop Adventure Racing events, Everesting has been the only one that has
taken me to the brink of seriously doubting myself and whether I could achieve it.
The
mental strength required to keep going, when your body is aching and your mind
is tortured by repetition for such a long period of time, is colossal. The mind games used to keep going are
colossal. The degree to which you feel like a total nutter is colossal.
Everything about Everesting is colossal. But then it is called Everesting, not
Wycheproof ! (the smallest registered mountain in the world). In the same way
that Ironman is called Ironman, not Tinman !
So, off I
go at 430am to “just do it”. The mind games had already begun. I had little
hair bands as lap counters in my pocket, to place one at the top every time I
reached it, expecting a psychological boost by seeing a visible increase in the
number of hair bands at the top, and decrease in the number of hair bands in my
pocket. I had also decided that for the first 10 reps I would not use music, so
then I’d have my i-shuffle to look forward to and pick-me-up…when I envisaged
that somewhere between lap 10 and 20 I would feel absolutely horrendous and
want to quit. Unfortunately that feeling got a grip of me at lap 8 !
The devil
/ angel syndrome kicked in early, around 6 hours in (1030am).
One is
sitting on one shoulder repeating:
“What am
I doing? Why am I doing this? What is wrong with me?”
The other
is sitting on the other shoulder repeating:
“You are
doing what you love. Because you can. Nothing, I am normal, it’s everybody else
that isn’t normal !”
My
wrists, elbows, neck and feet had started aching. Oddly, my back was fine.
Having discovered Bikram yoga 8 months before, I was very conscious of spinal
compression as each Everesting lap went on, and so on every descent I was
stretching backwards as best as I could. Call it “cycling cobra” pose! I dread
to think what shape I would have been in if I hadn’t learnt so much about my
body position through Bikram, which in a short space of time had become a
“must-have” in my life. I love it. And surely yogis have an affinity for all
things Asian?! Ie Everest?!
So, I was
aching in many parts of my body, apart from my back. And my legs were ok. “As
long as my legs are ok, there’s no reason not to keep going. Some people don’t
even have legs. Some people would love to have the strength to do 1 rep of this
climb, and I’ve the strength to even contemplate attempting 24 reps. Suck it up
buttercup. Count yourself lucky”. These are the kind of thoughts running
through my mind.
To be
honest, Everesting opens up a whole new world of time and place to think. Some
prolonged thoughts. Some abbreviated thoughts. Some thoughts flipping from
positive, to negative, in the blink of an eye. Like watching the Garmin’s
ascent total tick over to 4,424 metres. My knee-jerk thought was “Yay! Halfway!”….instantly
followed by “Shit! Only halfway? I can’t do this”.
Good
stuff. Bad stuff. I thought it all. Some of them uplifting, some of them
depressing, some of them amusing, some of them irritating. But the downside
ones were ultimately motivating, as I forced myself to channel the negative
thoughts/feelings and use them as a positive grrrrrrrrrr factor to power??! me
up another rep.
“Pedal
and don’t lose power”, that was a mantra I used often during Everesting. It had
a nice cadence rhythm to it for ascending, and was a mantra suggested to me by Jen
during the Race Around Ireland road bike endurance event in 2009. I hadn’t
thought about it for years, but all of a sudden it popped into my head about
halfway through Everesting and it stuck on and off for the rest of the attempt.
It’s her add-on to Isaiah 40:31, which ends “..run and not grow weary, walk and
not be faint”.
Faint?
No, I didn’t feel faint. I felt sick a few times from about 15 hours in (730pm)
and shivery a few times. Getting body temperature right was a nightmare. The first
4 hours of the attempt was so wet and windy. It then dried up, but the wind
remained strong and affected the actual temperatures I was feeling. I was sweating
on the long ascent, even when there was no sun, but freezing on the fast
descent. And I began feeling colder as exertion kicked in.
Exertion?
I’d read for years about RPE (rate of perceived exertion) and while I had
experience of it in my early years of athletics training, Everesting gave me a
total, unmatched insight into it. My perception of how I was performing was so
flawed. I felt like I was working harder, but slowing with every lap, whereas
in fact my times were consistent per lap.
Knowing
that my perception was flawed, by registering each lap time every single lap
and seeing in black & white that I wasn’t slowing down, helped at times
when I felt I was going snail’s pace.
Which
reminds me, early on in my attempt, like about the start of rep 3, I noticed a
snail on the road just about 15 metres into the start of my climb. Every time I
passed it at the start of subsequent laps, I would giggle. That snail’s Everest
(“everybody has their own Everest”!) was getting to the far side of the road. I
felt like I was moving at snail’s pace, but boy oh boy did repeatedly passing
this snail every 45-50 minutes show me how slow snails actually go! In the time
that I had been pedalling for 12 hours, the snail seemed to have moved about
10cm. Then, by the time I had been going 16 hours, it had been squished on the
road. Its very own “death zone” !
I’d been going for 16 hours? Blimey. It was the boys bedtime, so I stop for bedtime hugs and kisses. Wishing it was my bedtime too.
Then 18
hours? Blimey. It was now 1030pm and all I’d been doing was cycling up and down
this hill, and eating on the descent of every rep. I was suffering in every way,
apart from the actual cadence of my legs. Everything else hurt. And mentally I
felt fragile. Everything was irritating me. Particularly “everything is
awesome” from the Lego Movie playing on my i-shuffle! Everything is awesome? No
it’s not. Everything is gruesome! So I started making up new words from the song
in a bid to distract myself, amuse myself and drag myself up out of a very dark
place. Everest is synonymous with the “death zone” near the end. Was this my
death zone?
I had
been going for hours, and I still had a few hours to go. It all started to feel
very surreal. I had started at 430am, which was a good few hours before anyone
I know (apart from Jo!) had got up and had breakfast. Then they had all set
about a nice relaxing Sunday morning. Then lunch. Then nice relaxing
afternoons. Then dinner. Then TV. And about now they were all going to bed
again. Compounding the surreal, what about my BFF?, who had done the getting
up, breakfast, motivational texting me, getting across to Heathrow,
motivational texting me, lunch, motivational texting me, and then mid-afternoon
had got on a flight to the other side of the world, and was just arriving in
Bermuda 1030pm - and in all that time, I was stillllllllllllll cycling. And
stillllllllll I was hours from bed.
I thought
about the people I had seen during my 18 hours so far. Jo had been at “base
camp” (halfway up the ascent) for the entire time since 430am, she was the
exception to the rule that everybody else was getting about with their relaxing
Sundays! My two boys and husband had been up a few times on and off shouting
words of encouragement, bringing extra food, and writing motivational messages
up the tarmac. My sister and a Belle friend and her boyfriend had cycled a rep
and a half with me late afternoon, distracting me with chat, and telling me I
could do it. One of my boys’ school teachers, who lives beyond the top of the
climb, had driven past me around lunchtime, then again tea-time, and shouted
out her car window, “What on earth are you doing?”. And a group of family
friends had spent a couple of hours mucking about “base camp”, adding to the
motivational tarmac graffiti…and enjoying seeing me suffer for the first time
in their lives!
Then
there were the people out on the hill for a Sunday afternoon stroll. I was
amazed at the number of people. I’m usually up there very early Sunday morning,
or on week days, when nobody is around at all. On Sunday afternoon it was
heaving, relatively speaking! They were a good distraction, and provided mild amusement,
given comments like “I can’t believe you’re cycling up this. You must be a
glutton for punishment”…and that was when they thought I was cycling up it just
the once! The third such comment I felt like replying that I was to cycle up it
at least 24 times, but I thought better of it. How do you explain that? How would
anybody understand? And anyway, time taken to explain it would be time on my
lap!
Time. How
long had it been now? Just over 20 hours. It was pitch black and I was at the
top for the 24th time. The ascent total was at 8,867 metres. I HAD
EVERESTED! What was I feeling? Nothing. I knew I had to do at least another ½
lap, just to make sure. The warnings about incorrect data readings are stressed
in the Everesting guidelines on its website.
So….against
everything that my body and mind, particularly my mind, wanted to do….off I
went again to the bottom of the hill. It was now just after 01:00am Monday
morning. The bottom of the hill, up to “base camp” at halfway would be another
80 metres ascent or so.
That
final half lap felt like forever. I was all over the place. I couldn’t keep the
bike straight. I felt like things were jumping out of hedges at me. I just
wanted to stop.
And then
I did. And fell off my bike. Back at “base camp” for the last time. Ever ! I
had climbed 9,053 metres, in 20 hours 50 minutes, covering almost 248 km on a
mountain bike, over poor surfacing and in inclement weather.
Ain’t No
Mountain?! You better believe it.
