Strava Festive 500; my experience and thoughts on how to be successful

The Festive 500 is a Strava Challenge put on each year, this year is the eighth time it’s been run. The premise is easy 500km (310 and change in miles) in the eight days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. The only caveat is that the rides have to be outside, no trainer, no rollers, just hard, cold tarmac (or gravel or dirt or snow). I’ve seen it come around for the last few years and have accumulated the miles in the normal course of training/riding. Most years I would usually total somewhere between 60-70% of the mileage. This year I decided to make a plan and go for it.

There were a couple of other considerations;

• I had to accommodate a pretty tight work schedule, I only had Christmas and New Year’s Day official off.
• The weather, winter has arrived in California, yes, I fully understand it’s relative to somewhere like, Wisconsin but it’s relative and this week has been pretty cold!
• Given that we’re in the depth of winter then day ends abruptly at 5:00pm I was constrained to riding in the morning
• The good news was that it sunrise around 7:00am and I was working from home. So in theory I would be able to get on the road by 6:45am and get a solid 90-120 minutes before work.

So how did it shake out…

Monday December 24; 2:19 35.1 miles (56km), 2356’ gain, Min temp 39.2f Got out a little later than planned but was on the road by 7:00am. A tour round the local roads, with some climbing. A little longer than planned but nothing too onerous.

Tuesday December 25; 4:21 68.5 miles (90km), 4747’ gain. Min temp 53.6f. Headed out at 11:10am for obvious reasons. A nice big loop which took me out to Newbury Park, into the Santa Monica Mountains to see the burned area and home again.

Wednesday December 26; 2:37 38.6 miles (60km) 2375’ gain. Min temp 39.2f. Headed out to the local farmland. Clear blue skies and a nice cold wind. As you can see where we live is not flat by any stretch. Nearly 10,000’ in the last three days!

Thursday December 27; 1:47 27.0 miles (43km) 1736’ gain. Min Temp 35.6f. Looking for new routes I ventured over the hill into Thousand Oaks. While this should have been rush hour, the traffic was lighter. Managed to re-tweak an old reoccurring knee “thing” while doing nothing special?!

Friday December 28; 1:36 22.2 miles (35km) 1394’ gain. Min Temp 48.2f Wrapped up work early and headed out in the afternoon, given how much it hadn’t warmed up I was happy to leave this to much later in the day!

Saturday December 29; 3:36 51.1miles (82km) 3297’ gain. Min Temp 50.0f Slightly later start even through it wasn’t that warm. Headed out towards the Santa Monica Mountains and saw some more of the burn area. Took it easy babying my knee. Had hoped for a few more miles to get me over the 400km mark but fell just short at 391km.

Sunday December 30; 4:47 72.8 miles (107km) 4662’ gain. Min Temp 41f Longest ride of the event. I had planned to ride with the CVR Team but misread the start time and turned up an hour late! With that said I had the .tcx file on my Garmin so I headed and followed my nose….well my Garmin. I added a couple of twists at the end get the mileage and then I was done!

Stats:

• 315 miles / 509km
• Total Time 21:03
• Total Elevation 20,567’ / 6269m

As you can see it’s pretty doable. Other than a tweaky knee that, after making the Adult choice, prevented my from going to the Four Days of Fitness I came out unscathed. I made sure to plan out as day as best as possible but I got caught short with my Garmin showing 10% battery life while I was a two hours from home! Fortunately the 1030 has a Battery Save Mode, but it was down to 3% when I got home…that’s a little close for comfort! So with it completed here are some thoughts;

Home Relations; first and foremost get buy in and agreement on this in advance, balance out any family commitments and duties. Pissing off everyone at home while you’ve disappeared on Christmas Day for 5 hours is not an option for everyone. Fortunately being married to an Endurance Athlete means that I get a pass on a lot of things that others would at best get the dinner in the dog and at worst a set of divorce paper left out for you!

Prep; if you’re going out early, get all your gear prepped, laid out, ready the night before. Fumbling in the early hours sucks! Along with this is charge/recharge everything! Having your Garmin die 20 miles from home will be just a tad frustrating…I almost leaned this the hard way!

Route Planning; I wandered around a bit. Having a pre-planned route helped the miles go by. It also allows you to do the math and make sure you are spreading the distance out over the days, so you can finish it. Eight Metric Centuries will work…but so does a Statute Century (plus some loose change) every other day. Make sure you measure twice and cut once!

Keep some company; riding with a group or just another person not only makes the miles role by but gives you a chance to sit in a bit and draft for some (not all) of the ride. Mentally the company was nice too. I was bummed to miss the Team ride on the last day for both reasons.

Clothing/Gear etc.; I only had to fight with the cold. I finally feel like I have a wardrobe for all seasons. It’s taken a few years, but I am finally there, of course being a poster boy for Pactimo helps! I used everything in my arsenal on multiple days!

Fuel; it’s important to keep the fuel and fluid intake up. You’re not fueling for today, you’re recovering today and fueling for tomorrow. Breakfast and Dinner included. Keep drinking, even if you’re not sweating make sure you keep the intake up

Recovery; foam roll, stretch, recovery boots, Epsom salts bath…whatever your recovery regimen make sure you follow it, if you don’t have one find/create one. Google, your club or your mates can help!

Pacing; pace yourself for the event not for the day. Go out too hard on Day, 1, 2 or 3 and you’ll be paying for it down the line!

Bike Love; we all love our bike, show it some, give it a wash, wipe down, whatever it takes. Lube the chain and check the tire pressure. Just some basics will keep you humming along the road rather than standing on the side of it! If you use anyt of your spares; tubes etc, make sure you replace them for the next day

Have fun; finally enjoy the challenge, you’re not a pro, you’re not being paid to do this, all you’re going to get is a Ralpha Roundel and a Virtual Badge! Those not in the know will look at these and listen with a measure of disbelief and incredulity at what you just did…but hey you just did it!

So, these are the things that I can think of, I am sure I missed some, what thoughts do you have?

Five ways to spend your Christmas Cash!

Christmas is behind us, it’s the downswing waiting for the new year to roll around. Chances are you may have a bit of cash to spend. That good old stand by Christmas gift that is always King! Here are a few suggestions for things that you could spend some of your Christmas loot on. This is in no way a review of each option but more of a “hey I didn’t know about that” teaser post.

Strava Premium $7.99 a month or $59.99 annually. As a cyclist it’s almost a given that you have a Premium Account. The upper tier gives you access to more features including Coaching Programs. Online Analysis of your training/racing and Real Time Segments, you can red my post about that feature here. There are few other bells and whistles that are nice but these are the three key features that get unlocked. These extend across to your mobile device too so you get a little extra bang for your buck. If you’re considering this and you use Chrome as your browser try the Stravastix Plugin as that may give you the functionality that you want and then donate $20 to the Developer Thomas to keep him going!

Veloviewer Pro $15 annually or Pro+ $30 annually. If you like hills; ok nobody really likes hills, but we ride them, data and graphs and maps and more data this is for you. Veloviewer lets you dig deep into post ride analysis of your route, ride, effort, segment and so. It takes the data captured by your device from Strava via their API and slices and dices into various tables, graphs and images including rotational 3D images, some of which you have seen on this site. It’s now available as a Chrome Plugin too so with that little more extensibility it integrates into your Browser window. Essentially this fills the holes in Strava’s website on the presentation of data.

SportTracks Mobi $35 annually with a forever pricelock. SportTracks began life as a PC Desktop application. It became my de-facto container for all my Garmin data. Several PCs later and several years worth of data down the drain due to no one’s fault but my own I switched over to their Online version and have been using it every day since the end of 2013. All the graphs you see in my training posts come from this application. It gives the power to analyze your activities. I also use it as the main log for all my gear (post on this to follow) and as the repository for my HRV data that I collect using my iPhone. Don’t be fooled by the simple and clean UI, one of its strengths in my opinion. There are a lot of analysis tools available. You can also still get the Desktop version but I do not use that anymore so I can’t comment on it.

TrainerRoad $89 annually. Unless you have been hiding under a rock I am a huge fan and user of TrainerRoad. I have been using it since December 2011, to date I have over 850 rides totaling 5.2 weeks spent on my trainer! I have used it for multiple training cycles across various events including my Sufferfest Knighthood, multiple centuries, two Everestings and Dirty Kanza 200. If you want smart structured training that improves your cycling in the most time efficient manner, then this is for you. I am trying not to sound like a fanboy but the truth is that this works. It integrates across many other platforms including The Sufferfest, 3LC, RealRides, epicRIDES as others. There are many Training Plans that cater to different disciplines. Of course not baked into the price here is a trainer and all the trimmings that go with that but if you shop around you do not have to break the bank and you do not need a Power Meter to get started!

So far everything has been an online option, the next one is old school…

Books. Yes good old fashioned books. I am determined to get my book reading habit back on track for this coming year. One way you can stock on is to pick up slightly older titles from Amazon on the Used list. Here you can find titles heavily discounted. Some that are a year or so old can be had for less than a dollar if you don’t mind the odd dog ear. Often the shipping which is usually fixed can outweigh the cost of the book!

A couple of other options to consider are:

Zwift; I was a beta tester for this on the program that ended about this time last year and thought it was fun but could never see any real training benefit. No doubt it has iterated during the last year, they were just starting to bring in training plans when I was cut off. Given its success there it is obvious that it is appealing to the masses however that’s one mass that I am not part of. This is a personal thing as in general I am not into video games and that’s where I categorize this. I have no plans to go back to Zwift but if you are interested I would direct you to DCRainmaker for his review or just google it.

The Sufferfest App. The Sufferfest has moved its business model into an online format. The App is where you go now for all things ‘fest, unless, like me you have a library of downloaded content in which case you can use the videos with TrainerRoad. The downside of not having the App is that there is exclusive content being released there so you are missing out some. As a SF Knight I am privy to some of the development that is going on but so far I haven’t jumped in. This year’s Tour of Sufferandria will be App based so I will get to try it out then. Again DCRainmaker has a review of the App.

Ok so by no means a comprehensive list but just some food for thought into some ways you can spend that Christmas money! Many of these also have a Free Trial Period too so don’t feel the need to sign up straightaway!

What did I miss? Leave a comment below.