Everesting…..for fun? Accelerate team member Julian Lings shares his reasons behind it
In the current situation with no races on the horizan some athletes have backed off training, others have time trailed well not team Accelerate member Julian, he heads to his local mountain and ran up and down it enough time to complete the height of Everest also known as Everesting! More commonly seen in cycling it’s a pretty simple concept of running or cycling up and down the same hill till you have accumulated 8,848 m….. simple but not easy.
We caught up with him not longer after completing this crazy challenge to get his thoughts.
Accelerate “What inspired you to attempt this challenge?”
Julian Lings “Like a lot of people, my plans for the 2020 season have been affected by the current situation. With the first half of the summer racing season essentially written off, it was a great opportunity to look at other goals and challenges that I’ve had in the back of my mind. Everesting has been on my list of challenges for a while. I found the concept so simple, and yet daunting. In preparation for the 2020 Summer season, I had been doing a lot of uphill training on the mountain at the back of my house. Given that, and the direction from local authorities currently to train in the area around where you live, it seemed like Everesting at this moment could work well.”
Accelerate “what climb did you do it on? How far was it and how many reps did you have to complete? How long did it take?”
Julian lings “The climb I chose was the ascent of Monte San Salvatore in Lugano, Switzerland. I happen to know it well as I live about a third of the way up the north side. The climb itself is 1.6 miles in length with an average gradient of 19.6%. To complete the challenge I knew I would need to complete 15 repetitions. I started at 5h00 and finished at about 21h00. Looking back, it was a long day, but it went so fast whilst I was doing it.”
Accelerate “what was the hardest part of it?”
Julian Lings “Getting to 10 reps and knowing there was still 5 to go. At that point, my legs were tiring, and I knew the next five hours were going to be a tough grind. It was a critical moment where mental strength was much more important than physical resilience.”
Accelerate “What did you eat/nutrition did you use?”
Julian Lings “A mixture of gels, fruit, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and flapjack. Also had a Snicker bar at halfway – tasted amazing! My crew did a great job of having food ready for me at all the right moments. I feel like I got the nutrition right, but I was even happier with how I hydrated. I made sure I had enough water and electrolytes throughout the day and never went into the danger zone with my hydration levels.”
Accelerate “What did you wear?”
Julian Lings “I had prepared a range of different kit choices to ensure that I had the right options available in case I ever felt I needed to change. I started with a gilet and arm warmers which I quickly shed after two reps. I changed tees three times after each one got too sweaty. Really happy to have good, lightweight tee options available. Each change gave me a little lift for the next rep. Other than doing one visor change, all my other kit stayed the same for the entire effort. I had three shoe options but ended up feeling great in the ones I started in – if it ain’t broke….”
Accelerate
“Are you going to do it again? And if so would you do anything differently?”
Julian Lings “I would certainly like to Everest again. Next time I would like to do it cycling. Let’s see, maybe I will run it on a different mountain in the future too. If I were to do it again, I would start using polls at a much earlier point in the challenge. This time I only used them after 8 reps. The efficiency gain of using them almost certainly offsets the reduced speed over such a prolonged period.”
Accelerate “And finally how do you feel now?”
Julian Lings “Pretty good. I had a couple of niggles going into the challenge that appears to be healing really well. I’m doing my best to rest and resist the urge to start pushing with training quite yet. As I’ve got more experience, I’ve learnt to savour and enjoy the rest periods after big races and challenges. They don’t happen very often, and it’s important to let your body recover, and allow your mind some time to reflect before focusing on the next goal.”
Accelerate “Thank you so much for your time Julian, it sounds like a crazy challenge and very impressive! We look forward to hearing about your next adventures.”
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