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 
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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 
Made a banana, walnut and chocolate loaf yesterday - didn’t last 24 hours…
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@John_B1 Definitely don’t start at 100%. My plan was for: 1-3 @ 80%, 4-6 @ 75%, 7-9 @ 70%, 10 @ 65%. I felt good at #4 and stayed at 80% and that was a mistake. Things got dark at #7 and I just hung on from there. It is really a mind over matter event - certainly physical but lots of mental focus. The prep plan is very good and I would suggest the mental toughness program if you haven’t already done it and if you have then do it again. Good luck!
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That’s a tough subject. For most of my tri races or half marathons I usually have to get up early and eat something around 3am. That’s earlier than my body wants to be awake or eating, so it can be difficult to eat much of anything before my body wakes up and my metabolism kicks in and is ready for me to eat solid food. So, like you said, I tried to eat extra carbs not just the night before, but also for the week before. Get my body and my energy stores all topped off and ready. Definitely load your carbs for the whole week.
That morning I tried to eat something I really like that is carb dense and easy to eat so my body is more willing to accept and digest it. Usually something processed, if possible. That way it will be available sooner, especially since I don’t want to wake up TOO much earlier than my event. I woke up at 1:45am for my 2:30am attempt (ended up starting at 2:51 which wasn’t all that horrible as it let me get more food in). I stay away from anything protein heavy, otherwise it will sit there and block the absorption of what I need to digest. So, typically I would eat a bagel and a banana for my shorter races. But the KOS attempt being longer I had to eat more. So, I started off with some water to get my stomach moving. And then moved into getting in some electrolytes ahead of time (I’m also a heavy and salty sweater) with some Gatorade. Also good to pre-load some electrolytes. Then I put a couple frozen waffles in the toaster. That plus a banana was my starting base. With a bagel on hand to munch on (or maybe it was a flour tortilla? A lot of it is a haze, lol!). And a bag with a couple extra toasted waffles in it that I could also munch on during my attempt. But really 80-100g of crabs is about all you can handle, so there’s no need to go for any more than that.
After that I had loads of food varieties on hand in both sweet and savory options. I had granola bars, goldfish crackers, pretzels, Wheat Thin crackers, peanut butter and plain M&M’s, Welch’s fruit snacks, fruit leathers, Honey Stinger gels, and 1L bottles of pre-mixed Gatorade Endurance in the fridge (half a liter every hour). Mostly finger foods so I could easily vary the amounts if I needed more with a couple solid options.
I had a chart made up in my notebook with the amount of carbs per serving of every snack I had available - and kept that next to me along with my snacks. I would then write down what I ate so I knew exactly how many carbs per hour I was getting - if you try to keep a mental calculation you will lose it as your brain energy fades as you go, so either write it down or having something with your track it. I planned on 60-90g per hour. And then I had everything laid out next to me so I could easily grab it all and never had to wander off in search of stuff in between workouts. It was all right there (except for the drinks in the fridge), so all I had to worry about during my breaks was saving my workout, using the restroom, and getting getting the next video queued up.
Definitely don’t start anywhere near 100% or you will not make it through. I planned to do 80-75% for my first attempt. I ended up at 70/65 for the last 3. In my anniversary attempt I added in a lot of the longer videos, so I started at 75% and was quickly down to 70% and ended on 60%. And I was still proper suffering and every Tempo effort felt like an all-out sprint. In the end of my anniversary attempt I was barely able to do low Z2 with a cadence of 68rpms and was just barely hanging on.
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Solid advice there Sir Evan!
Both you and Sir Glen are the best around here. Not forgetting Sir Jon and Sir James too!
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Oh welcome to the forums @John_B1! Great to have you on board too.
You know the saying goes around here in the forum that once you have mentioned it, you shall be doing it 
In all honesty, there’s nothing to be really afraid of, it’s just 10 rides back to back because, #TUHNTF
This is the worse. You really wouldn’t want to experience that on Quest day. A lot of Knights have mentioned about chamois cream and it really does wonders. I personally used Sudocrem on the bib-shorts and the additional snowflake cream directly on my skin.
Just as what Sir Glen mentioned, most Knights do the quest at a decrease intensity level and just keep that intensity there throughout.
Personally I did mine on an average of 70% throughout.
Yup agreed on this 
Thank you very much Sir Glen for your inputs! They were indeed very valuable 
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Really helpful, thanks @emacdoug you clearly have a lot of experience here, especially with early starts.
Aligns with my thinking of a banana and / or jam sandwich before getting started as this is odourless and makes no noise - I don’t want to suffer later in the day for waking everyone
Also aiming for 60-90g carbs per hour on the bike from the eating to suffer guide.
Eating more the whole week before sounds like a solid plan and should happen naturally as long as I don’t reduce food based on the lighter training load.
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Rather unexpectedly, I have to change the date from 19/8 to 15/8.
Of course, I haven’t tapered my training down adequately to hit the new date which is certainly a bad idea. However, since about 90% of this battle is mental, I also don’t have as much time to think about it which can only be a good thing.
Final decisions on running order will be made on Sunday.
Worryingly, I’m rather looking forward to it 
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What a wonderful thing! You SHOULD embrace all the suffering that is thrown at you! Oh my word, give all your best and at the end of the day you will LOVE all the suffering…!
Trust yourself! You were born to suffer….
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Oooh. Exciting! I know what I’ll be doing on the 15th and it won’t be a stooopid Knighthood quest.
Edit: these intervals don’t do themselves 
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I was doing the preparation plan and got to the day where I was supposed to do 5 in a row, decided the night before, if I’m doing half, might as well go all the way and punched it out the next day. Sometimes a last minute change in plans gets you more motivation than you think. By the time I hit number 4 I knew I was either A) completing my quest or B) never doing it again. By 6 I steeled myself that no matter what, it was happening.
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Brilliant. I did a similar thing with my first virtual Everesting. I was set to do 4 reps of the Alpe on Z and figured, if I can do that imma just keep going and…ta da!!
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All the best for tomorrow. I know what you mean about the ‘excitement’. A part of me (not my legs) is really looking forward to Friday
I’ve got 9 Hammers for #10 and just saw the thread about it. I’ve only done the 2 hammers as part of the Kitchen Sink before and there’s no way I’ll be doing 9 Hammers at 100% on Friday. So I’m going to do it tomorrow and hope my Train rider type gets me through. So I’ll still get to share a little suffering with you 
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You’ve got this - smash the hammers tomorrow and nail the knighthood on Friday
My initial plan was to do all 10 videos that are in Kitchen Sink as I love this workout, then I added up all the time needed and it came to 12.5 hours (11 hours riding) and decided that was too much suffering.
I’ll still be suffering with you on Friday as I have 10 m3 logs being delivered that need moving and stacking. Fortunately I’ve done a week with Ian Boswell so know how to do this 
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Decided to make a few last minute changes :
1 - The Bat
2 - Hell Hath No Fury
3 - The Shovel
4 - Nine Hammers
5 - The Wretched
6 - Butter
7 - Power Station
8 - A Very Dark Place
9 - GOAT
10 - Do As You’re Told
Ready to storm the castle in the morning. See you all on the other side…
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We’ll be waiting at the gates!
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Good morning @ediblehedge!
All the best in your epic quest today!
Will be looking forward to your enterpainment 
and will be manning the turret at the castle’s fort
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The Bat and HHNF done and just starting the shovel 
Unfortunately SYSTM doesn’t appear to have saved HHNF past the first 25 mins. Hopefully the minions can recover it 
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Am sure they’ll recover it!
Onwards with your quest! 
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