Many congratulations to Graham Stephenson of Rhyl CC who earned his place in the Everesting Hall Of Fame yesterday through repeated ascents of Rhuallt Hill, Denbighshire, North Wales.
Completing the challenge with 30,184ft ascended, over 188 miles, 14hours 31 minutes, and a whopping 10,378 estimated calories.
To those who went out to support, to see, or commented on social media / strava – Stephen had this to say last night:
“Just like to thank everybody again for their support yesterday both to the people who came to Rhuallt and all the comments of encouragement on Facebook. Seemingly the jungle drums were beating quite loudly once word got out that I was doing it. A few things that stick in my mind from yesterday
• On the first ride up thinking “yeah this is going to be doable” but its only after a good few reps in it really sinks in the scale of the task in front of you, but don’t let that put off anybody who’s thinking of doing it
• I have a new friend for life,” Mr Ed” the horse in the field ¾ of the way up on the left
• The guy who lets say looked more than twice my body weight pushing his bike up Rhuallt, I did 3 reps by the time he got to the top but fair play to him he made it
• The dreaded Garmin moment when my 800 shut down and wouldn’t stay powered up after 65 reps, even though it had plenty of battery charge, as it had an external battery connected to it. My 500 had been running on its own battery and I thought that was about to run out of battery any minute. But luckily Nic was there and he gave me his Garmin and reassured me its not a problem as you can patch the files together afterwards but the 500 lasted the day after all. Just goes to show you can never have too many Garmin’s when your Everesting
• The “12th man” does really give you an advantage
• Going up and down the stairs this morning felt more like climbing Everest than yesterday
I was just following in the wheels of Nic Wright and Simon Parkinson who both successfully completed this challenge last year, so who’s next ?” — Graham Stephenson (Rhyl CC)