The Festive 500 is the world’s longest running Strava Challenge and is run in conjunction with premium cycling clothing brand Rapha.

The challenge is to ride 500km in 8 days between Xmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. This is the blurb from Rapha’s website:

The festive season is meant to be the moment to take a breath before life resets. But it often ends up being the most hectic part of the year. That is why we challenge ourselves every December – from the 24th to the 31st. Not just physically, but to remind ourselves that the holidays grant you permission to waste some time exactly how you want. We choose to waste ours over eight days, and 500 kilometres. Time is precious. Waste it wisely.

I particularly like that last bit.

I think I first heard of the challenge from Tempocyclist’s blog back in 2014. At the time I was working in retail and the thought of getting that much time off over Xmas and New Year seemed like a pipedream. Add to that the fact that I was only really just getting into cycling. The thought of anyone doing that kind of distance in a week was mindblowing.

Once I started cycling longer distances the Festive 500 has sat out there as the one challenge I thought I’d never be able to get the time to complete. Working retail just made it impossible and the thought of completing it indoors was totally unattractive! I even thought about doing a Summer version but it didn’t have the same appeal…

Last year I changed jobs and one piece of the puzzle was solved. With extended holidays over Xmas and New Year I now had the time. The issue now was that I had only returned to cycling in October. With less than 900km for the year and only a handful of rides over 50km I had nowhere near the fitness level required. To be honest it never even occurred to me!

This year it’s different. I still have the time off work (December 24th – January 2nd), I have almost 4,500km ridden for the year and multiple rides of 100km+ with most of that in the second half of the year.

The final piece of the puzzle is the weather. It’s hard enough at this time of year with reduced daylight so decent weather is key. For the last couple of weeks Carlow Weather has been teasing the possibility of a settled, cold, dry and bright period for Xmas and into the New Year.

It looks like he was right!

As guided by Tempocyclist I also have a plan, probably for the first time in my life! I’m going to start the challenge with a 100km cycle tomorrow. This will get me off to a great start and will also fulfill my Audax 100 ride for RRTY 100. For the sake of my marriage, I won’t be riding on Xmas Day. I aim to finish on New Year’s Eve with a second 100km so that leaves me 5 days in between for rides of 60km each. This is my plan:

• Xmas Eve: East Donegal 100 Audax Permanent [RWGPS Link]
• Xmas Day: Rest
• Boxing Day: St Johnston 65km [RWGPS Link]
• Dec 27th: Club Twixmas Social Ride + Extra ~60km
• Dec 28th: Kilross 57km [RWGPS Link]
• Dec 29th: Killeter 63km [RWGPS Link]
• Dec 30th: Victoria Bridge 60km [RWGPS Link]
• New Year’s Eve: East Donegal 100 Audax Permanent

Apart from repeating the 100km route I’ve deliberately chosen different routes for each day. These are all long time favourites and some I haven’t ridden for a while. They’re challenging enough to be interesting but not hard enough to kill my legs each day.

I’m feeling excited about this challenge which I didn’t expect. Usually I get more nervous and anxious but this time I feel different. It should be a bit of fun and it feels like this could be my year 🤞