Totally agree with you Sir James @jmckenzieKOS. The recovery ride was the ride I did after the Quest. It was only 2 weeks later I continued to cycle but was gradually ramping up the intensity.
Solid advice I’d say. I remember it was you or Sir Evan @emacdoug who mentioned to me to take a break for about a week before getting on the bike again.
By the way, you know what’s the next best thing to do after the quest?
Getting the bike washed 
Welcome Sir Phil @ediblehedge. Glorious suffering! Well done!
As long it’s not winter then it should be fine 
Fortunately, maybe unfortunately, I don’t have that privilege of having 4 seasons in a year. It’s only hot all year round 
This was me last night 
As promised here’s a few notes from the quest:
First, it was awesome! The Sufferlandrian Tribe is always so welcoming, friendly and helpful and I’m so grateful to all the advice and support received on this thread and throughout the forums. Reading through others’ quest experiences was really helpful in planning.
The part I found the hardest was eating enough in the days leading up to and during the quest itself. Forcing a couple of banana and jam sandwiches down at 03:10 with a glass of water was a challenge in itself. Food prep made all the difference and had made up a few mixed boxes of ginger cake, banana and walnut bread, chocolate cake, flapjack - all homemade with carbs per portion calculated and ready for my note book. Alongside these were some jam sandwiches, marmite sandwiches, bananas, pistachios, dates, raisins, rice cakes, fruit pastilles and grapes and I touched none of these.
Food wise, I went off sandwiches straight after breakfast and didn’t eat another one, from this point of ran purely on cake. Breakfast was 130g carbs, ate nothing in hour 1 and then averaged 51g carbs for the next 9 hours. Half way through 8 (AVDP) I was starting crave something hot or cold when I remember the coconut water in the fridge so had a glass after #8 and #9 which kept me going along had nothing solid during this time.
I aimed to ride 1-3 @ 80%, 4-6 @ 75%, 7-9 @ 70% and 10 @ 65% but felt I had more to give after 4 (9 Hammers) so ended up doing 1-3 @ 80%, 4 @ 75% 5-9 @ 80% and 10 @ 75%, dropping to 65% about a third through. My legs were complaining rather loudly by the end of 9 (GOAT) and had to dial it down a bit for DAYT just to get through it, but this helped me know that I’d given my all.
The best tip of the day was to put an ironing board next to the bike to have everything on hand.
All in all, it was an epic way to spend 10.5 hours and thoroughly enjoyed all of it. Slept for 10 hours and then did the recommended 30 minute recovery ride before breakfast this morning. This 30 minutes felt as hard as yesterday, but will certainly help as will quite a lot of walking during the day.
My wife, foolishly asked what’s next about 30 minutes after I finished. My reply of eat and sleep wasn’t quite what she was expecting, so will definitely have to come up with another fun challenge. Which may be another Knighthood Quest in the future - especially if the minions can’t recover the HHNF data and my application is rejected.
Really enjoying eating less food today. The sandwiches I didn’t eat, whilst rather dry, were throughly enjoyed by the herring gulls during the afternoon and the badgers just before I went to bed, so nothing was wasted.
Brilliant advice - thanks @jmckenzieKOS I was wondering when I woke up this morning, saw this and decision was made. A painful 30 minutes but definitely worth it.
Your body will thank you in a few days. Now hydrate and slowly feed. You may feel like eating everything that isn’t nailed down but resist that urge.
Just curious question Sir Phil @ediblehedge, the HHNF ride still didn’t sync until today?
I was a little paranoid when I did my quest 2 1/2 months ago that I not only downloaded the videos but also made sure that after every ride, the summary of ride was sent from SYSTM to my email. In fact, I changed the settings on my laptop to make sure it wouldn’t go to sleep or anything throughout the entire day.
Good luck, from my own experience I’d say pacing is key. It’s gonna be a long day on the bike/trainer. Prepare your bottles and food and feeding strategy well. And enjoy the pain.
Might be too late for that 
Was eating very sensibly until just before dinner when I suddenly fancied some cake. So ate nearly all of it 
Not yet. It’s with the minions to hopefully get it sorted out. I ran everything on my iPad with wired Ethernet at 300Mbps in the pain cave and did download all the videos.
However I had numerous problems with the video stopping and starting during rides 1-3. After this I deleted the downloads and streamed with zero problems. I’ve had this before but figured it was worth trying again.
I had a couple of rides fail to sync a couple of weeks ago that weren’t recovered. Strange but I’m sure it’ll get sorted. Have applied for knighthood and keeping fingers crossed that either it gets fixed or the time stamps will show that I did what I did.
If not, these things happen.
Thankyou for the inspiration.
Nearly the 19th …
I’ve got the following planned:
The ironing board is already out with 4 packs of fig rolls, 2 big bags of crisps and a coffee cake.
I’ll start at 80% and listen to my legs.
Planning to start around 7-8am (unless I wake up earlier due to the excitement 
)
Solid. Very, very solid.
Good looking itinerary- you got this 
Starting with Violator - suitably impressive!
That ironing board is a great trick and one I used as well. Looking at your fuel menu I’d be concerned you don’t have enough variety - taste fatigue becomes a real issue and worsens as you head towards 6-10 where you really need that fuel! As an example on my board I had: home-made oat and banana bars, home-made banana bread, bought energy bars (4 different flavours), bananas, sea salt crisps, energy gels (4 different flavours), and sweet jubes. I had everything “packaged” into +/- 20g carb lots so keeping track was easy (count the tin foil/ glad wrap pieces!). I’m not a sweet tooth but 5 of those tiny jubes make up 20g carbs so I had those when I really didn’t feel like eating. I also had carbs in all my bottles (with electrolytes). Despite all of that I got really tired of everything on offer and around ride 6 or 7 my wife made me a toasted cheese sandwich and around 9 I had Vegemite on toast and an espresso coffee.
Good luck and CRUSH IT!
Hopefully it gets sorted enough really soon. Wouldn’t want to be doing a way too in-advanced anniversary quest would we although GvA would highly approve of it and we know Sir Evan @emacdoug would encourage 
Geez this sounds really hardcore from the beginning!
Getting violated and thereafter defending from angels for the best thing in the world 
This is epic and a rather painful way to end the quest but it is something GvA would highly approve of!
Got to agree with Sir @Craig.Quarmby. I am concerned for your impending taste fatigue. I had my fair share of taste fatigue at the end of 7 and persisted right through to 10 even though I had yoghurt coated muesli bars, tuna onigiri, ebiko onigiri, tuna sandwich, bananas, roast p**k, GU gels and multigrain soymilk.
Otherwise, you should be all primed and ready!
All the best! Crush it dear Squire!
Thankyou Sir @Craig.Quarmby, I’ll be making up 6 litres of High5 energy drink, I found a couple of mini bags of animal chocolate biscuits in the cupboard, and I’ll grab a few bananas. Fortunately my wife will be in all day and so I’ll be able to get some additional snacks on request
. I’m sure GvA would approve 100%.