I thrive on challenges, but have struggled lately without specific ones. Running a small business is littered with daily stresses, and being a present husband and father all takes up a load of mental bandwidth as well. Add in the gravest injury I’ve ever had, and unfortunately, I can’t say I have set any other challenges for myself to grow.
The last couple Veteran’s Days we have done the Hero WOD “Chad” in the gym in support of our veterans and their mental health. Hero WOD “Chad” is 1,000 Box Step-ups and if possible done with a weight or ruck. It is a great mentally and physically challenging workout, but not when recovering from a torn Achilles.
I still wanted to find a way to honor our veterans with our community, though. So I thought about what I could do that was within my abilities and would not set back my recovery. I liked keeping the theme of 1,000 reps, and settled on doing 1,000 calories on the Echo Bike 😳. For those that have used the Echo Bike know how gnarly this sounds.
I’m not going to lie, I didn’t fully grasp how difficult and uncomfortable it was going to be, but I committed and set my sights on it. I also posted about it on social media and told as many people as I could so I wouldn’t back out. If I were the only one aware of it, there were chances I would back out when it got tough, sad but true.
I realized the smart way to go about it was to prepare correctly, mentally and physically. I was about 8 weeks out from Veteran’s Day, so I settled on doing 300 calories the first week, and planned to add 100 calories each week until the holiday.
The first couple of weeks were very doable as I was trying to learn my sustainable pace. I realized that if I could keep a 57 cadence/RPM then I would get 10 calories per minute. The challenge was that each cadence lower would make it take exponentially longer, just delaying the finish. My goal was to be as efficient as possible within my abilities to endure.
Through the training weeks I realized how impactful bike shorts are as well as media for a distraction. The first 3 weeks I would listen to Audible, then after that I would add in YouTube as well. I also had to wrap the bike handles with paper towels because my hands would get so sweaty within the first 100 calories.
The training weeks got really hard during the 800 and 900 calorie efforts. For these I would let myself get up for a couple minutes after 500 calories and 700 as well. This way I could let my legs stretch out, calm my heart rate down a little, and drink some water. The 900 felt like FOREVER, and the last 200 calories I was watching every one turnover. The 800 took 77 minutes and the 900 took 96:30.
For the 1,000 calories my plan was to get up at 500 and 800 calories to break it up mentally and physically, stretch the legs, and get some water. I also wanted to finish in under 2 hours. If I kept around a 56-57 cadence/RPM average, and got up twice for up to 5 minutes each, I would finish in under 2 hours with a little time to spare if anything went sideways.
One thing I realized in my last couple weeks of training was that the calories on the Echo Bike would only show 3 digits, essentially only going up to 999 before turning back over to 1, or something different. I didn’t want to chance that it would not accurately read the effort I was putting in, so I set the calories to count down from 999, and once it finished I would do 1.
Veteran’s Day came and I set off around 6am so I could finish by 8am. I started steady and made sure not to overdo it from the beginning. Around 300 calories in I came to the realization that the timer only had 2 digits for the minutes, meaning it would only go to 99:99, 20 minutes under my time I was giving myself to complete it 😒. This led to some quick math that if I kept a good pace and didn’t get off, I would finish under 99:99, and wouldn’t risk my effort not showing correctly.
I kept my sights on a 57 cadence/RPM and was able to keep that steady for the first 500 calories. After that it got harder to keep so my pace went to 56 and never went below that.
I felt better than I had during the 800 and 900 sessions, and my heart rate stayed down more than those days as well. In some of my training efforts my heart rate would continue to creep up to around 185 or 190 and become super daunting. On the day I did 1,000 calories my heart rate settled around 170-175 for most of the time, which greatly helped me sustain my effort.
The last 200 calories though were so very uncomfortable. My butt and hamstrings ached the whole time and I was very ready for it to be done. The last 200 was by far the hardest and the time that would be easiest to quit or get off and take a break, but I just kept my head down and pushed through as best I could. There was a LOT of mental challenge through this part.
At the end of it all 1,000 calories took me 97:41 and I never got up during it. My heart rate ranged from 165-178 BPM and I burned 1,350 active calories and 1,519 total calories, which were tracked on my Apple Watch.
I’m very proud that I committed to it, stuck with it, and accomplished it. This was the first thing I have been able to fully physically accomplish since tearing my Achilles, and I definitely needed something on the horizon to keep me focused, and this was why it was so important for me.
I will have another piece about the 5 main takeaways from doing 1,000 calories on the Echo Bike soon, so keep an eye out for it 👀.
