2023 in numbers

My stats for the year:

TOTAL DISTANCE IN 2023

Run (outdoor): 287 miles / 459 km
Cycle (Outdoor): 595 miles / 951 km
Cycle (Zwift): 1,519 miles / 2,426 km
Walk/Hike: 759 miles / 1,215 km
Total = 3,160 miles / 5,052 km (target was > 5,000 km)

Walk / Hike = recorded hiking & walking events, not general steps.
Total includes “other” activities such as SUP.

KEY EVENTS IN 2023

2 x Ultra Marathons: Goring Gap 50 and Race The Sun 50
1 x Marathon: Brighton
3 x 10k running events: Mortimer Trail, Bradenham Blast and Compton Verney
49 parkruns, including 12 new locations
23 parkrun volunteering occasions
4 new Historic County Tops: Ben Lawers, Ben Vorlich, Ben Lomond, Hill of Stake
28 new Present-Day, alternative or previous County Tops:
- England: Whitehorse Hill, Haddenham Village, Racecourse Road, Nether Hall, Mill Hill, Staverton Clump, The Slipe, Bow Brickhill, Corley Moor, Meigh’s Wood, Rednall Hill North Top, Bassett Avenue, Fort Southwick, Holly Hill, Liddington Hill, London Road, Heath Mount, Langdon Hill Southwest Slope, Blagdon Hill Farm, Niver Hill, Hanging Hill
- Wales: Garth Hill, Tair Onnen, Mynydd y Betws, Merthyr Common, Pen March, Coety Mountain, Wentwood
33 new OS Trig Pillars bagged
3 international / island High Points: Pico de las Nieves* (Gran Canaria), El Toro (Menorca), Mt Etna* (Sicily) … *=highest accessible point
Completing the Surrey sections of the Greensand Way and North Downs Way
The Portsmouth Semaphore Line cycle route

Richard gower31 December 2023Run, Cycle, Trek, Zwift, SUPComment

2022 in numbers

My stats for the year:

TOTAL DISTANCE IN 2022

Run (outdoor): 519 miles (830 km)
Cycle (Outdoor): 651 miles (1,042 km)
Cycle (Zwift): 1,160 miles (1,857 km)
Trek: 642 miles (1,028 km)
Total = 2,976 miles (4,761 km)

Trek = recorded hiking & walking events, not general steps.

KEY EVENTS IN 2022

2 x Ultra Marathon: Serpent Trail and Hurtwood 50
7 x 10k events: Lee Valley, Kempton Park, Brighton Trail, Mapledurham Trail, Marlow 10 (Trail), Freith Hilly, Watlington Trail
125 x 5ks including 45 parkruns and 80 (not)parkruns
12 new County Tops:
- Ireland: Lugnaquillia Mountain, Mount Leinster, Brandon Hill, Cupidstown Hill, Kippure
- Scotland: West Lomond, Innerdouny Hill, Ben Cleuch, Cairnpapple Hill, Blackhope Scar, Meikle Says Law, Meikle Says Law - Southeast Slope
Completing the Finland Archipelago Trail Cycle Tour

Richard gower31 December 2022Run, Cycle, Trek, Zwift, SUPComment

Zwift Everested! Extra Credit Badge

In addition to the usual Zwift Route and Achievement Badges there’s 12 Extra Credit Badges. These don’t appear in your Badges screen until you’ve received them and they’re typically tougher to get than the standard badges. The Everested! Badge is awarded when you’ve climbed 29,029 ft / 8,848m in a single activity. Most people do it by riding up and down Alpe du Zwift on the Watopia Road To Sky route 8 and a half times.

As with the IRL Everesting Challenge, it’s generally understood that you need to complete it within 24 hours. As days got shorter in Autumn 2021 I wondered whether it was possible to get the badge in a single activity but not in 24 hours. I didn’t have the time or enthusiasm to spend a whole day in the saddle but I did have 30 -60 minutes each day in-between work. This would mean doing it over multiple days but not ending or saving the activity in between.

When I set out I wasn’t sure whether Zwift would award me the badge, but I didn’t see why not. My main concern was about having a power cut during the challenge and losing all the progress. Just to be safe I made a note of progress at the end of each day so I could at least add the distance and elevation to my Garmin account if I lost it all.

As it turned out I had a busy time at work so I only had 30 minutes in the saddle on most days. Still, it was good exercise and I was making progress but it did take about a month to get to the target distance. I was very pleased when the Achievement Unlocked banner came up and I get my badge.

The only snag was that the activity didn’t save properly. When I checked my Zwift Activities log, it wasn’t there, so the total distance and elevation were not saved. The badge was there though which was the main thing I was interested in. I was having Wi-Fi issues at the time so that may have been the cause. I reported it to Zwift Support but they’re not able to manually add in missing progress. It’s a shame as it was a lot of distance and elevation to lose, but certainly nothing to lose sleep over.

I’m sure that some will say that it’s a cheat to not complete it in 24 hours. Am I bothered? Not in the slightest …

For how to do it the proper way, see this article on vEveresting from Ron Chatfield

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Richard gower1 January 2022Cycle, Mountain, ZwiftComment

2021 in numbers

My stats for the year:

TOTAL DISTANCE IN 2021

Run (outdoor): 670 miles (1,071 km)
Run (Zwift): 93 miles (149 km)
Cycle (Outdoor): 1,089 miles (1,743 km)
Cycle (Zwift): 1,315 miles (2,104 km)
Trek: 506 miles (810 km)
SUP: 30 miles (48 km)
Total = 3,704 miles (5,926 km)

Trek = recorded hiking & walking events, not general steps.

KEY EVENTS IN 2021

2 x Ultra Marathons: Race to the Castle and Downs Link Ultra
7 x 10k events: St Albans Easter, Loseley Park Trail, Henley Trail, Hardest of Snails Trail, Thame, Run Reigate, Weybridge
171 x 5ks including 20 parkruns and 140 (not)parkruns
6 new County Tops: Craigairie Fell, Merrick, Kirriereoch Hill-Northwest Slope, Culter Fell, Broad Law, White Coomb
Completing the Finland Archipelago Trail Cycle Tour

Richard gower31 December 2021Run, Cycle, Trek, Zwift, SUPComment

5k Runs in 2021

A nice improvement on 2020 …

Richard gower31 December 2021Run, parkrun, ZwiftComment

Breaking 100 kph in Zwift

Having completed my Zwift Masochist badge, the obvious one to do next was the 100 kph Extra Credit badge. I already knew that the best place to do it was on the descent down from the Radio Tower. I’d tried it a few times before but could never get over 97 kph. As it turns out, you need a little help and the Aero Boost Helmet Power-up is the best way to do it.

Top Tips to get the 100 kph Badge

Select the Mountain 8 Route in Watopia.
After around 400 metres you’ll pass through the Downtown start/finish arch. This normally gives you a Power-up. If you get the Aero Boost Helmet, carry on. If you don’t get it, stop the ride, start again and keep trying until you get the helmet. I got it on my 6th attempt.
At 12km into the Mountain 8 route you’ll get to the top of the Radio Tower. Stop here and have a rest.
For the descent you’ll need a heavy bike. I chose the Zwift TT frame with the Zipp 808 wheels.
Continue round the loop at the top of the Radio Tower loop, gradually picking up speed. Keep accelerating down the first part of the descent. When you get to the bend (at 12.8 km) hit the Power-up button and give it everything you’ve got. This will give you the boost you’ll need to get you over 100 kph.

Other Notes

Check your own weight in your profile before starting off. I discovered that my Zwift weight was showing lower than my real weight. I hadn’t updated it after Christmas :-). Be sure to correct your weight if it’s understating it.
When I first attempted it using the tips above I pressed the Power-up button too early and just missed the badge. I’ve heard of different people pressing it at different points on the descent. It’s probably also related to how much power you’re putting though too.
You notice that my cadence is going crazy for the first few seconds in the video. It always does that after I’ve stopped and re-started and likely a faulty cadence monitor. It doesn’t affect the speed on the descent though. The horrible cranking sound is what my bike does since the Mascochist badge. Time for a service I think.

Comment below if you have other tips for breaking 100 kph.

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Richard gower1 April 2021Cycle, Mountain, ZwiftComment

Alpe du Zwift Tracker

If you’re into collecting the Zwift achievement badges and all of the low-hanging ones are in the bag, you’ll probably be wanting to head up the Alpe du Zwift. There’s 2 badges for multiple climbs of the Alpe. Both are awarded for total climbs and, thankfully, not just in one session.

The Avid Climber badge for 5 climbs is fairly straightforward. If you’re also completing all of the Watopia routes you’ll automatically get it as the Alpe is part of:

The Masochist badge takes a lot more dedication as you’ll need another 20 climbs to achieve it. The shortest route to choose is Road To Sky which has a little over 5k of mostly downhill cycling before you reach the Alpe ascent.

One annoying Zwift “feature” is that there’s no way of seeing how many ascents you’ve already completed. Click on the image on the right for a printable version of a low-tech tracker to keep you sane as you approach the 25 climb target.

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Richard gower23 February 2021Cycle, Zwift, MountainComment

Zwift Watopia & (not)parkrun Mash-up

It took me nearly a year of cycling on Zwift before starting to do Zwift running too. I was hesitant to buy a treadmill so I considered buying the £38 RunPod to see if I could run both in Zwift and in real life (IRL) at the same time.

Winter 2020 approached and, with the prospect of being locked down for a long time, I bit the bullet and bought a treadmill. Predictably, I got hooked on Zwift running and was soon collecting the Run Achievement badges.

My friend Brian reminded me about the question of whether you can run both IRL and in Zwift at the same time. Having now had a better understanding of how Zwift Running works I thought that it would be weird but possible. As it turned out, that was true.

So, on a chilly Saturday afternoon in January I got to the start line of the Black Park parkrun course ready for the experiment. I had my Garmin watch ready to record the IRL run, my RunPod on my trainer and the Zwift App open on my iPhone. I selected the Watopia 5k Loop course, pressed start on the Garmin and I was off.

I normally run IRL with my iPhone in an arm strap. I kept it in my hand for this run as I wanted to keep track of my Zwift progress on screen and didn’t want to end the run by accidentally clicking on something. Keeping an eye on the IRL course and on the screen was a bit distracting but I wasn’t going for a PB so it was doable. I loved the contrast between the grey, drizzly Black Park and the bright, clear beach scene in Watopia.

When I’m running indoors there’s normally a noticeable difference between the treadmill speed and what shows in Zwift via the RunPod. The variance between Zwift and my Garmin for this run was only very slight. By the end of the run my Garmin showed 5.01 km to 4.77 km in Zwift.

5k is probably as far as I would do as a dual run. Apart from the distraction it was a quite a drain on the phone’s battery so it won’t have lasted for a 10k. It was a fun experiment to prove that it could be done but I don’t think I’ll be doing any more dual runs.