Ultracycling

ALPI4000 has some electronic shit where you submit your cert to an online thing and it verifies it and then they use a QR code and something something I fell asleep.

In 5 years time I'll be paying some fucking homeless guy to piss into a cup to prove I'm less fucked than reality to do a ride I've already done in training.

https://jamesmarkhayden.eu/knowledge/men­tal-fortitude

This is good and I've found similar things, in the races and elsewhere.

Some say it helps to break the route into segments and just focus on reaching the next one and I agree to some extent, but for me the better mindset is usually to settle into the thought that this is what I'm doing now and kind of embrace the experience and the present, while not really thinking about a goal, or that the goal is to do what I need and want to do right there to keep moving as fast as I can. I find I enjoy it more like this and am probably faster and better organized. But this requires you to actually want to do it and be confident.

I think there was something about how you learn to handle stressful situations at the when you get used to them, for example during deliberate cold exposure, that they mentioned in the Huberman lab podcast. How it's kind of neurological training for dealing with adrenalin. I went to a cold exposure course too where they said something about this.

Kurt Refsnider has his concept of "normalizing difficult", that you do things that are hard enough during training that it feels normal in a race. At least it means that different kinds of terrain and weather won't feel so surprising if you've dealt with them before. Which indeed is just being confident.

Pan Celtic route is up.

I like the idea of starting in Brittany, then it looks like Wonderfully Wessex audax + The Bryan Chapman, right? ; )

Quite flat for 2000k.

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Long ol' ferry ride, no?

Yeah that must be 6 hours or so?

That's a lot of pints.

i'm tempted but the likelihood of arriving back in the UK too 'refreshed' and just getting a train home is high

Haha innit.

Also don't feel like you'd be in too much of a bad place after looping around that bit of Brittany, a bit tired maybe. Temptation to just try and ride it all non-stop knowing you've got 6 hours' kip coming up.

don't feel like you'd be in too much of a bad place after looping around that bit of Brittany

possibly would put you into a good state of 'too tired to care any more' ahead of dealing with UK driving standards too

Just for you.

(Certificate secured)

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I cycled past it while touring in 05. Not sure I knew what it was back then. Must've been a track day or something on as they were definitely racing something on it at the time.

The Spa Rally was on Saturday. "Closed" roads everywhere...but more like "if you're quick...on ya go"

Delightful area even in subzero temps.

I don't ride up there much, particularly not this time of year but the Ardennes in general is great.

Leave the GPS running for bonus distance.

That bit will be the only chance of a KOM for me

It was very cold. Went up to Signal de Botrange as well, very frosty. Fantastic though, love it as a cycling destination and I'm into my war history too. Snow rolled in the next day. Now back in Sunny Scotland.

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A trip down from there to the sites of the battle of the bulge has some good riding on it.

Nelson's latest event: Greece.
Looks fun...
No date for it yet

https://www.komoot.com/collection/1865336/-hellenic-mountain-race-2023

13 may

https://www.instagram.com/hellenicmountainrace/

Soon.

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/you-need-to-be-strong-in-the-mind-and-focused-italian-ultra-cyclist-aims-to-ride-across-the-antarctic

https://www.instagram.com/p/Clu-oK8qYK7/

Didn't he do something cold weather last year too? Edit: yeah.

In Winter 2021, he became the first ever cyclist to reach Everest Base Camp, on the Nepalese side of Everest.

I chuckled when I read that, as I cycled to Everest base camp on the Tibetan side 12 years ago, on a group tour, and it wasn't that hard. I guess the Nepalese one is a bit less accessible!

Don't think this was posted in here but this was quite the watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMazM7DlFz8

Remember reading about her horrendous crash last year and so to come back the following year is quite incredible.

In Winter 2021, he became the first ever cyclist to reach Everest Base
Camp, on the Nepalese side of Everest.

Some guys from the RSF did it in the 70s (edit, nope - 80s).
Actually the link says he was the first to do it 'in winter' - he was there in March? I've been to the Everest region in late March to early April, and Annapurna area in mid March, it's regular trekking season.