Easy like Sunday morning… if you’re a bat 
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I have only used a fan a couple of times, I never usually find a way to position it where it made a difference and did not interfere with my breathing.Head on or 45 degrees is a no no . On the road sometimes I find myself hyperventilating if the wind is blowing the wrong way.Did the FF in June, pain cave was in the 90s, the fan and me worked well together that time.
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Did The Bat for the first time today. I found this workout incredibly effective for the mental ! I uses the MTF and I found great to have a practical reminder of the founding elements!
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I tend to adjust rides for what I want to get out of that ride. To me the BAT is supposed to hold you at the edge of your tolerance for giving up and keep you there, but it does so in a way that you’re not actually working that hard, you just are not allowed to recover, to clear acid. For that to work though, I hit the sprints a bit harder than called for. I learned this routine from a similar GCN video. Theirs is a little shorter and probably meant to be a little harder, but it basically called for going all out on the sprints and then at threshold. Presumably the threshold part is producing acid at the maximum rate you can clear it, so there’s no way you can clear the backlog from the sprint. This is painful to get through if done right, in my opinion, but doesn’t leave you drained because the actual work load isn’t that high. That’s probably where the notion of mental toughness comes in. You just have to have the grit to hang on, but it won’t destroy you.
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This is becoming one of my favourite workouts as I always come away feeling I’ve worked hard but not completely destroyed. I look forward to the soundtrack on Bat 4 as well - just over halfway and a great beat to keep the legs churning to stay with that group!
Physiologically:
The first 30-second effort digs you into an anaerobic hole. Even though it is a MAP based target, your Heart Rate and Breathing rates (and thus ability to deliver oxygen) are still low, so your body must produce much of this power anaerobically. By the time you settle into the 4-minutes at just below FTP, your body will have produced an excess of metabolites responsible for that burning in your legs. Only by riding below FTP will your body clear them out since FTP is the tipping point where your body is producing metabolites at the same rate it is clearing them. By holding you at FTP, your body is unable to clear out that excess, forcing you to deal with the associated discomfort for the next 4-minutes. Capping the effort off with a final 30-second surge requires that you dig into what is left of your AC, while your body pushes you close to your VO2 max, or the point at which your body is using as much oxygen as it possibly can. The net result is a session that is great for improving FTP, MAP, and AC, regardless of your strengths and weaknesses.Psychologically:
Each 4-minute segment at just below FTP will end up feeling harder than it should, given your body is forced to stew in whatever excess metabolites you produced in the first 30-seconds. While it will be unpleasant, you should find it never really gets MORE unpleasant. In addition to the benefits from the actual mental training exercises, this preps you to have confidence in your ability to hold longer sustained FTP efforts. The final surge then shows you that even when you have been feeling that uncomfortable, for that long, your body still has something more to give. Going through the Mental Training techniques while you’re pushing through the discomfort will only make you stronger out on the road.
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I did The Bat a few weeks ago and I enjoyed the mental part of it. It was hard, but not too hard. I dare say I enjoyed it.
It can also depend on your rider type. I Always enjoy doing Defender, but then I’ve seen a few people post about how hard it is for them. So, you just never know. It doesn’t sound like it’s supposed to be one of the hardest, but as I’ve found in SUF, it’s all relative.
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I am an ex phys geek, so I love studying the training plan prior to the workout and then taking that info into the workout with me. The combination of mental training and knowing my immediate goal of clearing metabolites as efficiently as possible as one of my focus points creates the perfect scenario for getting the desired outcome for this workout. Motivation, instruction, reward: MTP. It’s so great to have an all-inclusive training program. Just love this “Suff” so much.
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I like The Bat. I’ve done it a few times and always completed it at 100%. It feels like a Goldilocks workout to me. Not too hot, not too cold, just right!
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Great workout, was 2 weeks more or less in Couchlandria (birth of twins & cold). After TBTITW on Saturday (hardly suffered after the cold). This was the perfect workout today. The intervalls are hard, but not to crazy. Feels like back in biz now 
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Congratulations on the twins 
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Thx Sir !
Now that I have finally got around to doing this in the 3rd ‘on’ week of the MAP block - I thought it was moderately easy until the last interval.
I liked psychobabble work - but have to say I was made extra nervous due to the most excellent opening tune!
Which was also used for the for PIRIN ULTRA SKYRACE 2019 - HIGHLIGHTS / SWS19 - Skyrunning - YouTube which I did and it was, most brutal. Mainly because it seemed like a good idea a the time when on holiday - I’d just pb’d at the Ben Nevis Triathlon 7 days prior and there was plenty of thin air 
I think I could safely say ‘more than you’ after that race!
Looking forward to the next time 
I did The Bat for the first time today and am glad to see that I am not alone in finding that while it is a solid and enjoyable workout, it doesn’t require the mental toughness techniques that are described to get through it. I’ll stash those in my jersey pocket for when I really need them, e.g., Nine Hammers or Hell Hath No Fury.
A separate, and admittedly trivial issue - why is it called The Bat? Most of the original Sufferfest workouts have some kind of tongue-in-cheek, campy narrative that is reflected in the title, but I can’t see any reference to the two most common meanings for bat that spring to my mind - small, flying rodents or implements for hitting balls.
The original workout was called “Batman Intervals”. Look at the power profile and you may spot the inspiration. Presumably Batman didn’t make the legal cut for the video hence the name change 
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@Salsa In the last line of the description for the video it is noted that in some cultures the bat symbolizes the death of old ways and the birth of new ones. Yes - the tone is different but it does play into some of the themes that come up during the mental toughness program which I would recommend if you haven’t checked it out yet.
Ah, yes, I can see that, so similar inspiration as “The Shovel”. Although for that one I can imagine that the title could also refer to the garden tool that has just wacked you over the head.
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I just did the Bat again yesterday. I’m also in the “it’s somewhat easy” camp, but I did the last set in Level Mode and really liked that challenge.
For me the hardest part of the Bat is minutes 2-3 after the first harder effort. By the time I get to minute 4-5 I’m almost “recovered” and know I’ll make it to the end. Doing it in Level Mode was really instructive in how to best dial the effort down from the hard effort then to the threshold effort.
The more I do Level Mode on certain workouts, the more I like the added challenge. I still do most workouts in Erg, but I’m starting to increase the amount of time I spend in Level.
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Doing this in level mode is an interesting one. I will try this as a way of staying engaged. My OP on this was really motivated by the fact that the workout professes to be building mental strength through a tough interval, but if the interval isn’t sufficiently taxing then I’m failing to get this whole mental toughness challenge. Level mode may well add another dimension to it all.
Good shout.
It’s a solid workout, tough enough to apply the techniques without actually needing them, but if it was tough enough to need the mental toughness techniques I wouldn’t be able to read them off the screen. Apparently there’s video footage and screen prompts during the 9th Hammer I’ve never seen them🤷🏼
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I did it again this evening (cos, badges).
I still don’t get the fuss about this workout. I mean, it’s a nice session, and the vid and music are great, but maybe the whole mental toughness stuff just doesn’t it for me. I get the point, but if the workout isn’t pushing me too much then I find it hard to get much out of practicing those techniques.
4-minute sub-threshold intervals with 4mins recovery doesn’t really take you (or me, at least) to where thinking mental toughness comes in to it. I take @JGreengrass’s point that you dont’ want to be utterly blowing in order to practice, but it’s not taxing enough to put you (me) in the state that it feels even worthwhile.
A Defender-like workout or even a session with high MAP efforts would, in my mind, be more suited - maybe something that looks like AVDP.
Everyone’s different though. I get that.
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