ALTITUDE SLICKNESS

Within a year of taking up cycling, Alice Thomson pedalled to the height of Mount Everest - by riding up Naish Hill near Bristol 89 consecutive times. The 26-year-old veterinary student is one of thousands of gritty riders who’ve tackled an ‘Everesting’ challenge, clocking up 8848m of vertical gain, the height of the world’s most famous peak, through repetitions of a single climb, in one gruelling ride. She has a few regrets (“I tried to eat some fancy mushroom ravioli mid-ride but they were disgusting and I felt sick”), while locals thought she was insane (“A guy in a car pulled over in the evening and said, ‘I saw you at 8am! You’re still here!’”). But Thomson battled through to set what was then the women’s world record of 12 hours and 32 minutes.

“I would thoroughly recommend giving it a go,” she says. Thomson tackled the challenge in August 2018 while doing office work that left her dreaming about wild adventures. “If you like Type 2 fun – miserable at the time, but fun in retrospect – you’ll love it. There are many different ways to do it: a full Everest climb, an Everest ‘base camp’ climb (half the height of Everest), solo or with friends. And