Endurance Athlete Completes "Everesting" Triathlon

We’ve covered the “Everesting” trend a few times in the past here on The Adventure Blog. That’s the activity where an athlete picks a certain challenge—say running or cycling up and down a hill—then repeats that activity over and over again, without stopping until they rack up 29,029 vertical feet (8848 meters), which matches the height of Mt. Everest. This unusual challenge has its roots in the cycling community, but has spread to other types of sports as well. Case in point, recently a triathlete from Hong Kong completed what he believes is the first “Everesting” triathlon, swimming, cycling, and running his way to the height of the world’s highest peak in each discipline.

The details of his exact route used for this undertaking are a bit sketchy, and least for those of us who aren’t form Hong Kong. But in order to complete this epic challenge, endurance athlete Mayank Vaid swam a 9 km (5.5 mile) course, road his bike along a route known as Hiram, and then ran up High Junk Peak, a prominent and popular trail on the island, over and over again. Essentially, he repeated each activity until he had managed to cover the required 8848 meters of vertical gain for each leg of the triathlon, earning an “Everest” in each sport along the way.

As you can probably imagine, this wasn’t an easy feat to accomplish. At one point, Vaid was so calorically depleted that he began to hallucinate and doubt his ability to continue. He simply couldn’t consume enough calories to keep powering forward, which was made all the more difficult thanks to his exhausted body. Vaid says that his wife was the one who helped keep him going however, serving as support at his aid stations while also providing some tough love along the way. When he began to doubt his ability to continue, she told him “You’re not going to die, your life is not in any threat, you can move, this is just in your head.” Tough love indeed.

You can read more about Vaid’s impressive undertaking here.

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Kraig Becker

Kraig is an outdoor and adventure travel writer based in Nashville, TN. Over the course of his career, he has contributed to numerous online and print outlets, including Popular Mechanics, Gear Junkie, Outside Online, National Geographic, Digital Trends, Business Insider, TripSavvy, about.com, and of course The Adventure Blog.