It’s the final countdown ?

Well, it’s New Year’s Eve. The end to one of the wildest years we’ve had in a long time. So I thought I’d do my own little wrap up here of some top 2020 moments, along with a couple thoughts about 2021.

The 500,000ft challenge:

Well, seems easiest to start here. At the beginning of the year Paul and I started a challenge to do 500,000ft of human powered elevation gain before today. More HERE. At the time, it felt quite ambitious – especially given that I was planning 5-6 weeks of travel during the year. However, given that … Continue reading

November ?

November was a little like April – it started slow and then sped up rapidly.

The countdown to the election felt like slow motion at times. I knew we wouldn’t have answers on election night, but that didn’t stop me from refreshing the coverage regularly on my phone.To help, I added in a planned Zwift Academy ride to keep me distracted from 7:30-9PM. But even still, it felt like a long night. The week after was long too. Biden won, and won again, and won again. Certainly more heartening than 2016, but also both unsurprising and still frustrating to see … Continue reading

Paul goes again.

At one point, Paul had talked about maybe trying his Everest attempt the weekend after mine. I thought that was a fine idea, until I actually went on some rides after my attempt. As I mentioned previously, even rides that I’d used as relatively easy recovery spins felt really hard that first week. And I was tired. The thought of waking up in the middle of the night again was not so appealing.

For better or worse, the weather window actually turned out to be almost exactly two weeks after my attempt. That allowed me to take a couple … Continue reading

Everesting: COMPLETE! ⛰💪🏻😍 Part 2!

This continues my Everesting story from Part 1 – HERE!

We left off with me spinning my way along towards the half way point of the journey. At around 9:15AM I realized I’d just hit 11,200ft of climbing – the height of Mount Hood (tallest mountain in Oregon which I’d climbed a few times). That was a fun feeling! I spent a lot of time thinking about how lucky I was to get to spend a whole day just riding my bike, especially given the state of the world.

11,200ft done!

I kept cruising through my laps. Around lap … Continue reading

Everesting: COMPLETE! ✅ Part 1!

Warning: Long entry ahead! See this Instagram post for a quick recap instead!

I’ve mentioned how I learned about Everesting previously. Again, the concept is simple — ride your bike (or run ?) up and down the same hill in one activity until you reach 29,029ft (the height of Everest/Sagarmatha/Chomolungma). But as I’ve always been a casual multi-sport athlete, I’d never doubled down to train up for something like this.

After I completed my half in June I felt like I still had life in my legs, (which was great), but it was still nearly impossible to imagine doing … Continue reading

It’s the final countdown!

Well, the time has come. Last week I saw that the forecast was calling for the smoke to clear and the temperatures to drop (at least for a couple days). I tentatively starting planning for my own Everest attempt, and I’ve been glued to the weather ever since.

And now, it looks like tomorrow is a go for me! I’ve got the day off work, all my things are packed (7 bags, 3 gallons of water, and a cooler waiting for all it’s treats).

I’m getting ready to have some mac & cheese for dinner, along with some cookie dough … Continue reading