Knighthood Quest: 19/08/2022

I did five of my rides as climbs including three of my last four. I only did two other Speed rides, AVDP at 5 and Do As You’re Told at 9. Overall I liked my lineup. When I do it again the only ride I might swap out would be The Hunted.

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Adding on to Sir @Erik-KOS that the entire quest is mostly mental and less physical, I can’t stress enough the importance and benefits of incorporating the MTP in preparing for the quest.

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For me, the one which I would really want to be bold enough to take on would be Team Scream if I ever do attempt an anniversary Knighthood quest :sweat_smile:

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Do it! It’s fun! :smiley::+1::tada:

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Do you have your list of 12 yet for November Sir @emacdoug?

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@Glen.Coutts You’ve already commented on that thread, so I do believe you’re setting me up to post a link to it. I will, of course, comply. :smile:

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Hehe. People need to know. Also, I can’t remember why I went into the spare room 15 minutes ago so…

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So true. :rofl:

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I’d be careful about starting at 3 AM. I recommend against potentially compromising sleep at all… if that’s the case here.

I’m youngish (33), but I actually didn’t end up eating everything I had prepared for it.

GOOD LUCK – most importantly. Just press through around video 7 when it really starts to set in. It’s not that bad in the end.

On standby at the castle gates…

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I wouldn’t necessarily suggest against starting super early. The time you start is often determined by life circumstances and everyone’s comfort levels with different times of day varies widely.

Some knights have done theirs through the middle of the night. That would be hard for a lot of us. But if you are a night owl or work a regular night shift then it might not be problem.

Personally, I started my second one at 2:50am. I actually was up and ready to start at 2:30am, but the servers went down right as I was about to start and I had to email support and wait for them to come back up. But I’m often up to exercise between 4 and 5am. And when I did longer rides I would wake up between 3 and 4. So the earlier time wasn’t that big of a stretch. And the week before when I tapered I went to bed earlier to get some extra sleep.

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Will reply reply to all the various messages later or tomorrow but wanted to give an update from the encouraged full frontal this morning:

NM 618 - 680 +10%

AC 347 - 381 +9.5%

MAP 250 - 265 +6%

FTP 211 - 223 +5%

Really pleased with both the increase in numbers and happy that I gave my all. Especially please with the NM and AC increases which surprised me.

There was a post on here I read recently, but now can’t find, that totally changed how I approached FF. In the past I’ve dreaded it, slept badly the night before and mentally justified avoiding it. This time I approached with a kinder mind and focused purely on enjoying it. I slept great and thoroughly enjoyed it, to the point I’m now looking forward to doing it more regularly.

I did it in ERG mode, which I know is against all the instructions but I found that adjusting intensity with the up/down arrows to what I felt would be possible allowed me to focus on the effort and the enjoyment. I finished each section spent and the whole session satisfied that I’d given everything I could.

So whilst not as instructed it was perfect for me.

Of course I’ve now made the quest a little trickier :scream_cat:

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Excellent! The Laser Goats and all Sufferlandrians are in LOVE with every all out effort!

An increase by 5…10% is terrific! Something you can and should be proud of!

I have no doubt that you will storm the castle in style!

Crush it.
:boom: :boom: :boom:

Sidenote: FF in ERG? Really? Hmmm…

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Erg mode will stifle all of your all out efforts as it will keep you at or around the power targets that are already in the system which are based on previous tests or manual input. All of the sprints NM(5 sec) AC (1 min) MAP and FTP must be done in level mode otherwise no matter how hard you push or pedal your nuts off ERG mode will keep your efforts down. Do it as per the instructions and you will probably get a nice surprise especially the NM (5 sec) effort

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Completely understand this. I’ve always done FF in level mode in the past and always struggled with the sprints. Maybe I could have got more in level mode, but I know that it would have been on my mind all night and would have been doing it after poor sleep. I know it’s not the right way, but wanted to try it - maybe on balance it’s a better approach for me at the moment.

Found the post I was thinking of:

Didn’t remember that this said level for NM and MAP and ERG for the rest. Will try this next time around.

Either way, I’m happy with the decision, the effort and the results

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I will consider that proposed sanity strike Sir Evan :wink:

I did exactly just that, but unfortunately couldn’t fall asleep until almost an hour later :sweat_smile:

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@ediblehedge Come into the sprints around FTP at a cadence of 85 or 90 and then accelerate fast to a cadence of 120+.

For the next sprint workout be sure to use level mode and you will definitely start improving your sprints.

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Coincidentally I was just looking at what you had to do for the Knight badge this morning and then saw your thread. Now the idea is in my head, it will happen :slight_smile: Good luck for the 19th. I’m excited for you and scared for me :slight_smile:
I’ve done some outdoor rides of ~200 miles and indoor Everest and 10,000 Cal ride. I do tend to get too much food ready and over eat to start with. For me, I (should) stick to mostly sugar for the extra calories and just enough real food to stop my stomach feeling empty. Over 10 hours the body has time to metabolise quite a bit of body fat into sugars to supplement the ~2,000 Calories of glucose/glycogen you have ready to use.
A 24 hour indoor ride got scuppered some months back because I was using worn out kit (->Saddle sores) and messing about chasing RGT real-bots (->Using sugar faster than I could replace it).
My 4DP was definitely a max effort and I find some of the sufferfest videos pretty hard to complete if my legs are a bit tired to start with. Do any knights have any suggestions on adjusting the percentage for the Watt levels (e.g. 95% for all the workouts or start at 100% and reduce it as you go through the vids)? The rules seem to suggest that you can do this as long as you are still suffering!

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Hey @John_B1, welcome to the forums.

Knighthood is an endurance event. Most Knights complete their quests in the 70-75% range. Some start out too hard and blow up, some start out hard and dial it back as the hours wear on, some find their groove and try to stick to it. It’s all very personal. It’s also highly unlikely that anyone could do all 10 meeting all the targets without dialing down. The eligible vids are just not designed to be done back-to-back-back. Hence, it’s a challenge no matter how you do it. Unlike Everesting and some of those other outdoor challenges one of the biggest challenges of a Quest is the limit of 10 minutes max between vids. Doesn’t offer a lot of rest.

Tons of advice on here if you look around.

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You have a lot more experience than me - 3 hours is my max on the trainer in one hit. These were tough at 100% and wouldn’t do more, I’ll definitely be dialling it down on the day :slight_smile:

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Totally agree, it’s not much earlier than I’m normally up anyway and have to consider the rest of the family at both ends of the day.

Given that you also started so early, would be great to know what (or if) you ate before starting?

My usual plan is to just eat a little more the night before, dinner is usually about 5:30 and bed by 9. But will likely eat something quick and easy about 10 mins before heading out to the pain cave.

Currently feeling more concerned about eating enough and having enough variety made up and ready to go than the riding. That’s probably because I can prep food ahead of time, but not the riding :smiley:

Made a banana, walnut and chocolate loaf yesterday - didn’t last 24 hours…

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