Digital Mountains

To motivate myself to do some more sport, I signed up for the Rapha rising challenge. It is a digital event, taking place via Zwift, a software that let’s me compete with my roadbike virtually against thousands of others. The Idea is simple. Three days, three climbs, each around 1000m elevation. And to make it a bit more interesting, competing against hundreds of others is also possible and intended.

I did the challenge last year and felt it would be a good Idea to do the same again this year. I don’t even know why.

Some (non-surprising) takeaways:

• Considering it as a race and fight for each place in the first half when the course is flat is easy, climbing afterwards will drop you to the end of the field.
• Maxing out day one is easy. Surviving day two is hard.
• Nutrition is important. I am still hungry.
• Competing on a roadbike for 22km and 1000hm or more is completely different to sitting in a rowing boat fighting a few hundred or thousand meters.

I guess there’s a reason why the saying goes:

better start like an old man and finish like a young god than the other way round.