Crazy Christmas Challenge
By: Julie Kenny
Tags: Personal Development, Healthy Lifestyle, Exercise, Personal Challenge, Personal Growth

Crazy Christmas Challenge

Photo courtesy of Glen Kenny

This year has not been the best for me as far as physical exercise goes. With all races cancelled, the inability to travel not mention a lock-down — my mojo has taken a hike. In November my good cycling buddy asked me to keep her company on some of her longer weekday rides, I jumped at the opportunity.

“It doesn’t get any easier, you just get faster”

Greg LeMond

It is never fun returning to a sport from a point of lousy fitness. The first few weeks of early morning long rides did see me being a grumpy cow — well at least till the sun came up. I’m glad I pushed through the horrible few weeks of being constantly exhaustipated. The last few rides have started to be more like fun and less like a chore.

That said when she suggested that we do the Festive 500 together I needed a running jump as far as taking on this type of challenge. The Festive 500 is a challenge started by Rapha Cycling Clothing. Cyclists are encouraged to ride 500 km between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. As this is a worldwide challenge, I do feel that those of us who do this in summer are at an advantage.

In its favour:

We have eight days to complete 500 km (distance from Singapore to Penang, Malaysia)

That’s only 70 km a day (distance from Tuas, Singapore to Changi Airport, Singapore and back again)

It will be fun to have a stretch target with a solid achievement at the finish

I will finish the year with good base fitness

Launching a fitness plan for 2021 won’t be such a stretch

I have never done this challenge before

The downsides:

500 km in eight days!

70 km every day for eight days!

Diet and alcohol consumption will need to be successfully managed and minimised — no rides are to be put off due to a hangover

The longer these challenges go on the harder they are on the body

In the end though I decided to throw my hat in the ring and commit to this target. With that in mind I had to rapidly ramp up how many km’s I was doing per week. I needed to start riding daily so that I could manage the consistency of riding to get that number of kilometers in. I know from experience that whilst I can ride more than my current fitness suggests. The longer we get into the challenge the worse the experience will be. If I’m doing this for fun — then I need to improve my base fitness so that it is remotely possible. The last few days will be awful no matter what I do — this is a given.

“Ride lots.”

Eddy Merckx

For me once I make a commitment like this, I am pretty good at achieving my goals. I’m also competent at “breaking down a large goal and making it fun”. Having agreed to the challenge I went home and created an excel database with all the riding days listed. I then added the rides and approximate distances of each ride. My friend and I then refined and edited the rides so that we could finish one day early. This would allow for mechanicals and/or bad weather. We are based in Singapore. This means that our weather challenges are biblical rainstorms, heat and humidity. We have agreed that we will try to not cancel but a delayed start is permissible if we are mid-storm at the start of the ride.

Photo courtesy of Glen Kenny

The fun part was the addition of the end stop. To help make it more fun we decided to do a different route each day with a different coffee stop. We added one night ride for fun as we generally ride in the morning. We also added one long ride to start and finish the challenge with. End stops have become a major part of this challenge. It will help to have a good coffee and breakfast to look forward to at the end of each ride.

Having shared this excel DB with many of our cycling buddies, whom also have either done or will do the same challenge I have had some positive comments on my plan. This is because we plan on not just stopping for coffee but also for burgers, rosé and beer.

Photo courtesy of Glen Kenny

I plan to document my journey over the next eight days. Both on the physical side but also as a writing challenge. Hopefully both will see positive development.