Zoxe

I'm participating in the Festive 500 this year.
If you're not familiar: Rapha sponsors a 500km event from Dec 24 - Dec 31, indoor or outdoor kms count, multi-day for most but some do it in a single run. There's a Strava challenge to help you track.

Am curious if anyone else is taking this on? How are things going for you?

Here's me: I'm doing this indoors via Zwift (though if the abnormally high temps persist I will need to get the mtn bike out and at least knock the cobwebs off of it). I am a heavy biker so my watts/kg are lower than most - so I am doing this as a journey not a sprint. I'm currently a little over 100km into it after day 2 (easier day for Christmas day). So far I am testing the waters to see what works best for me, not overcook my legs. I do hope to put in an Imperial Century on Monday or Tuesday, and plan to wrap up the event with the January Grand Fondo event which overlaps the dates slightly.

gthomson

I never thought of doing an indoor Festive 500 but I think that's a brilliant idea. I have never done it and didn't really consider it but following those on GCN that are doing it. COVID has certainly made it more challenging for teams this year to participate but there shouldn't be any fear if Zwifting. Keep it up and all the best to reaching your goal.

Up here in the great white north (which is not very white this year) 500 km's would be tough to achieve outdoors.

tempocyclist

Just back form this morning's ride, which puts me at around 300km so far.

I've never tried to complete it indoors, I think that's only been an official option the past two years with Covid restrictions still affecting many people.

Zoxe

Awesome!

After a metric century this morning I am well past 50%. The Imperial Century I'd hoped to tackle today just wasn't meant to be. I'm still tracking to be done on time, though.

ingo

Did a Metric century yesterday on the AHDR breakfast ride and 90 km today with the Rapha Festive ride (race?) today so that is totalling 340 km towards the goal. There were 2201 riders on the Rapha ride so the bunches were large. The easiest distance accumulator is Coco Cadence on the flats. There is a huge mob of 300+ riders doing a steady 39 kph for as long as you want at 2.3 to 2.5 W/kg. I also got the Jensie badge as Ride Ons are being dropped continuously. With 4 days to go I can take a day off.

tempocyclist

Nice one! Bagged another 100km this morning with a great café stop half way. Weather has been mint in Tasmania. Only 92km left to go now.


The pace partners are certainly the best way to rack up big distances on Zwift (plus accumulate extra drops). The robots are there pretty much all day every day.

Cadence and her bunch will tow you around Tempus Fugit at 38-40kph for as long as you can bear to sit on the turbo.

spelger

Hats off to you guys that are dong this. that is too much riding in such a short period of time for me. right now i am confined to indoor riding due to out door temps and i'm in the garage on a kicker. quite cold in there even for a 1.5 hour session.

good luck all.

Zoxe

After this morning's ride, I am at 330km of the 500. I don't normally spend this much time on the trainer, so this has been a good experience and good challenge overall. Pace partners have been super fun, but the lack of rest days has caught up with me. When the dust settles I'll be putting the C and D partners into my weekly rotation.

I should be able to grind out 60km for the next 2 days and then finish with the shortest Fondo on Friday.

tempocyclist

Great work and kudos for putting in the trainer time. That's a challenge in itself for sure!

Zoxe

Am now 450k of 500k. Was very tempting to keep going and wrap this up, but have the Zwift Fondo slated for tomorrow and am looking forward to a few days off the bike after that.

Zoxe

I'm done!
I started the day needing 50km, did the Bambino Fondo event in Zwift, and after cooling down and coasting back down the volcano, finished at 58km.

gthomson

Wow, good for you guys and can you tell us how it was? so how did you plan it out to meet the distance in that time frame? Wondering if I could consider it for next season.

Zoxe

I was off from Christmas eve through Jan 3rd, so my schedule was perfect for the event. I went in with zero prep, on a whim. I fell into a routine of having breakfast, riding, and then getting cleaned up for whatever I had planned for the day. The weather here was wet and muddy, and that helped offset anything I should be doing outside (we own 10 acres, and I should be splitting firewood or getting caught up on trail maintenance so I can ride the MTB more).

I had a quick spreadsheet where I logged the KMs each day, and it told me the average number of KMs required per (remaining) day to complete. I knew that I wanted to end with the Fondo event, and hoped to get ahead of the curve enough to have a rest day mid-week. My lofty goals of doing an imperial century early in the week didn't pan out, and I ended up riding all 8 days. Other than a metric century on Monday, and an easier day Christmas Day, I put in 60km per day. I did a variety of rides - group rides, Pace Partner, etc. but most of my time was on Tempus Fugit riding against a long structured workout that kept me in Zone 2 (blue) but alternated the watts every 60 seconds. I always had an arch to chase.

My legs were very tired the last couple days, but my tolerance of the seat and hand/shoulder pain did go up. Oddly, I put on weight though the week, probably because I was leaning heavily on sugary sports drinks to avoid being dehydrated or getting sick.

Mrs. Zoxe worked from home all week, so I couldn't crank the music, but did have a playlist running most of the time.

Today was my first day off the bike in awhile, and it was weird. Looking forward to getting back to it on Monday.

gthomson

Very impressive Zoxe, I like the spread sheet idea to keep track. That is a lot of Zwifting to keep it up for 60 KM/day or to even consider a century on the trainer. I would really need to plan for that to make sure I had enough GCN video content to watch! ha ha

Can I ask how long 60k took each day to ride? I do about 25km in 45 minutes when Zwifting so 60 K would probably be 1/45 minutes to 2 hours for me?

Would be tough for sure.

Zoxe

Riding solo, I was averaging 30km/hr so right at 2 hours a day, with a break at 1:00 and 1:30. You are riding about the same pace, maybe a little faster. Using the structured workout mode kept me on pace, since it set the power input for me and I didn't get distracted and slack off.

There are quicker ways to do it; drafting in Zwift is a big deal and riding as a group has real benefit. Many participants rode with the 'C' group pace partner, which ran about 40 km/h, if you can hang with them. I rode a bit with the 'D' group pace partner but the average speed was about the same (30 km/h) and riding solo I could stop whenever I needed to.