PRL Full Debrief + Four Horsemen Event Announcement

Our recent PRL Full Badge Hunters event was another rousing success, even if I sort of blew up near the end. Here’s my story of the big day out – but before that, a bit of news…

Four Horsemen Badge Hunters Event – April 17th

Our current plan is to rotate these monthly Badge Hunters rides between the toughest route badges on Zwift:

• The Über Pretzel
• The PRL Full
• Four Horsemen
• The Mega Pretzel
• The Pretzel
• On Fire (25 Laps of Volcano Circuit)

So we’ve got April’s event planned – we’ll be taking on the Four Horsemen route on the 17th. The event is now on Zwift’s calendar, and you can see it and sign up here or in the Companion app.

So plan to join us on April 17th at 6am Pacific/9am Eastern/2pm GMT, for the only Zwift route that descends the Alpe!

Lessons Learned

I learned a few lessons in our first event on the Über Pretzel:

• A lot of folks are interested in doing these tough rides
• Some people experienced system crashes at the very start, which is a big bummer
• Discord was a big help in passing the time
• Steady fueling and hydration throughout these long rides is crucial. Eat and drink, even if you don’t feel hungry or thirsty.

I put those lessons to work in this event. One particular change we made to help those who might experience system crashes was to set up three categories for people to join. A was the “normal” category that most people signed up for. But B started two minutes later, and C two minutes after that – and if people were running on lower-powered devices they were encouraged to join these groups which had less people signed up.

Everyone did a great job of understanding these categories, and we had just over 500 signed up for categories B and C when the event began. I didn’t see many complaints of crashes, so I think it worked!

Getting Started

I rode with the A group, which had 1294 starters according to Zwift (my screen showed 1360).

Having only ridden the PRL Full once before (in an unofficial event with Monica where I wasn’t pushing my pace), I wasn’t sure how long it would take me. But I figured it would be somewhere in the range of 5-5.5 hours, if I kept my power in that “steady suffering” range.

With that goal in mind, I set off from the start line, sitting in the double draft, and bracing myself for a long day in the saddle.

Glorious Discord

Once again, we used Zwift Insider’s Discord server for the ride, and there were even more in the voice channel this time around – around 75. Everyone was well-behaved, using Push to Talk or quiet enough setups were we didn’t have to hear their trainers or fans constantly. We chatted it up on a variety of topics, checking in with each other as we crested Box Hill or finished a lap.

I can’t emphasize this enough: chatting on Discord makes these long rides pass much more quickly.

Where Am I?

One bummer I noticed right out of the start gates is that the event had been misconfigured and rider placings weren’t showing. Not everyone cares about these, of course, but for me, especially on long rides, I use these placings to help me see how strong I’m riding.

If I’m weakening, I’ll start dropping lower in the rankings. But if I’m riding strong I can keep gaining places, which is quite motivating.

I asked Zwift what happened, but haven’t gotten an answer yet. Hopefully future events will be set up properly though!

The London Loop Rhythm

I found myself settling into a rhythm as the laps progressed. On the flats I would try to sit in the wheels as much as possible, taking advantage of the double draft to keep my speed high with less effort. On some laps there weren’t a lot of riders nearby, and I would push my pace to join riders up the road, or ease up to get caught.

Then we’d ride through the Underground and start the climb up to Box Hill, and all bets were off. It was time to grit my teeth for 10 minutes and just keep pushing. I would catch some riders, and be passed by others – the deck was reshuffled every time we went up the climb. Then it was time to group up again for the descent down Fox Hill, and the flats that followed.

Thank You, Fox Hill

The Fox Hill descent was welcome, because it allows a rider to jump off the bike for a bathroom break, bidon refill, or kit swap without ever actually stopping. The perfect length!

Clearly lots of riders had this same idea, as there were always several avatars stopped at the bottom of the descent.

Box Hill As a Gauge

The PRL Full is basically just 11 times around the London Loop route, with a bit added to the finish. The London Loop route is fairly flat, except for the climb up Box Hill. That’s the tough part of each lap, and where you can lose the most time if you run out of juice.

My Box Hill times mirrored my lap times. You can see I was pretty consistent for the first 6 laps, then things started to slow down.

At first, I didn’t really notice the slowdown – laps 7 and 8 felt OK, and based on my time up to that point I thought I might be able to complete the ride in under 5 hours.

But that wasn’t going to happen. You can see my final three laps were slower still. I would finish in 5:11:14 (see my ride on Strava), not quite hitting the 5-hour mark but much improved over my previous attempt, which lasted 6 hours and 27 minutes!

Of course, there were many riders much faster than me – the fastest finishers on the day did it in just over 4 hours, including Alexandre Gagnon, who took the course KOM! And there were many who took a lot longer, finishing in 8-10 hours or more. Chapeau to all.

Cookie-Fueled

If you recall, in our Über Pretzel I underfueled because my stomach wasn’t feeling great in the final couple hours. I vowed not to make that same mistake this time around.

But I had also baked some amazing chocolate chip cookies the night before, eating a few in order to “carb up”. And at the last minute I decided they would be my food for the PRL Full ride. One cookie per hour. Was it the best option? Perhaps not. But I’ll tell you this – I enjoyed each cookie, and didn’t skip my hourly cookie breaks!

Fellow riders on Discord requested my recipe – so here it is. It comes from my good friend Suzanne Sherwood (hence the name):

Sherwood Chocolate Chip Cookies

What I appreciate about these cookies is that they’re easy to make, and come out consistently good. It’s not a finicky recipe. (Apologies to our international friends who may not work in cups and teaspoons!)

In a mixer or bowl, add:

• 1 cup softened (room temperature) butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs

Beat until smooth. Add:

• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vanilla

Mix well, then add:

• 3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, a cup at a time

Finally, mix in:

• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

(Using all semi-sweet chocolate chips, or some dark chocolate, is also acceptable.)

Mix until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. Use a ice cream scoop to drop 3-4oz cookies on cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12-14 minutes. The edges should have turned brown, but they should still be gooey in the middle. Let cookies rest on the pan for a couple minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Final Stats

Final numbers for the big event:

• Signups: 3,748
• Started: 2,251
• Completed: 1,581
• Completion Rate: 70.24%
  • A Group – 72.8% completion from 1294 starters
  • B Group – 71.88% completion from 480
  • C Group – 61.64% completion from 477 starters
• Gender split for event completion: 89% Men, 11% Women
• Elevation: 13.8M feet/4.2M meters
• Event Distance Ridden: 201k miles/323k kilometers

Amazing work, everyone!

Your Comments

Did you ride the Zwift Insider PRL Full event Saturday? How did it go for you? Share below!