November 14th is World Diabetes Day and starting from 7am, I'll be attempting virtual Everest! As a good cycling buddy is a type 1 diabetic, I’ve been riding with the Zwift Team Type 1 group since the pandemic started. We’ll be marking the day and celebrating the discovery of insulin with some epic Zwift riding including people riding for 24 hours, riding routes to collect Zwift badges, short rides, etc. I’m taking the plunge and trying to virtual Everest by riding laps up the Alpe de Zwift almost 10 times until I reach the elevation of Mt. Everest (29,028 ft). Want to join me for all or part of it? Search for “Sylvia Poulos” or Sorella in the app and my name will pop up (with a Greek flag). You can request a meet up and you’ll suddenly find yourself somewhere on the Alpe, close to me. My avatar will look like the picture so don’t look for the
Hincapie kit you’d expect to see outside.
I expect the insane adventure to take over 12 hours so there’s plenty of schedule flexibility and I’d love the company! While I have the advantage of not dealing with real altitude sickness or weather, there’s still some planning for a ride like this. I’m sharing my plan in case you want to join me or ever decide to try this.
I plan to ride at a pace of ~ 2w/kg up the climb and then allowing the avatar to supertuck down the descent. Once the avatar reaches a speed of 36 mph it will fly without the need to pedal- giving the rider about 15-20 minutes of recovery time. Yup, this is time to use the restroom, stretch, change kits and shoes, etc. so I’ll be doing that every 1 ½ hrs for comfort. There will certainly be a line-up of a water bottle an hour with
Infinit Nutrition, solid food, movies to watch and music when pedaling gets hard and I need help. Yes, the pandemic even means I have to plan ahead for celebrating the end of a long day by picking up a
Grant Park Sour from Eventide since the sound of sour and tart apple is amazing.
If this sounds a tad crazy and intense, I must admit it is intimidating to me as well. But 2020 is a nutty year. I’m happy to introduce you to some of the other riders that will be on Zwift that day… many will actually be in a blue Team Type 1 Zwift kit and have (TT1) behind their names. If you happen to see one, I’m sure they’d appreciate the support as well!