A University of Guelph student is going the distance in virtual cycling challenges, including breaking a record for the most stationary kilometres pedalled in 24 hours.
Heather Petrick, a PhD student, cycled 933 stationary kilometres through an online cycling community called Zwift to achieve a cycling record through the platform.
“I’m sort of a competitive cyclist, because I haven’t actually raced in the real world yet,” says Petrick, mentioning the pandemic has limited opportunities for her to compete in person.
“I’m a competitive cyclist in the virtual world right now, and hopefully that will translate into the real world as well.”
The 24-hour cycle was part of a challenge hosted by a Toronto group of cyclists to support the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) during the pandemic.
At the time, Petrick mentions she wasn’t too interested in participating, until she learned that the women’s record for largest number of kilometres pedalled was 680 km.
“I was pretty sure that I could do more than that,” she says about the record, “And so that kind of motivation to beat that is what made me interested in doing the 24-hour ride.”
While she went on to beat the Zwift record, Petrick says didn’t end up achieving the world record due to not registering early enough.
“I didn’t realize you had to apply to break the record so another girl actually broke the record while I did it,” says Petrick, explaining she had to apply 12 weeks prior to the event and only registered a week and a half prior.
“Even though I didn’t break the (world) record, it didn’t change how I felt about it because I was happy to do that in 24 hours.”
Petrick became interested in cycling after sustaining too many recurring injuries as a cross-country runner.
A U of G release notes Petrick was the Canadian Interuniversity Sport and Ontario University Athletics (OUA) cross-country rookie of the year in ’13 and the OUA cross-country champ in ’14.
A couple years ago, she joined a local cycling club in Guelph and became interested in competing in long distance races.
“I wanted to do more endurance events than what my body would let me do as a runner,” she says, “So when I turned to cycling, that’s what immediately appealed to me was those...long, endurance rides.”
Since then, Petrick has also completed other virtual challenges, including the Hells500 Roam challenge, a 400km trek, and the virtual Everesting challenge.
“The Everesting challenge is climbing the height of Mount Everest in one hill,” says Petrick about the virtual feat, “So it’s just up and down until you hit the height of Mount Everest, which is 8,840 metres.”
“The fun part is planning up a challenge, and then going through the training, and then trying to attempt it and see what I can do," she says, “That’s what kept me moving through these endurance rides and planning the next one.”
With her PhD focus on the mitochondria and how muscles exert energy during exercise and inactivity, Petrick mentions some of her research relates to her athleticism.
“Some of the nutritional-related research and stuff we do has pretty cool applicability to...understanding what can happen on the molecular level,” she says.
“Some of those things have cool implications in terms of refuelling.”
After completing the 24-hour challenge, Petrick is planning to complete another Everesting challenge, but this time, outdoors.
“It’s a lot easier to do it on Zwift in your living room within a very controlled environment, than doing it outside on like a real mountain,” she says.
Petrick is hoping to do this next week as she leaves for Maastricht University in the Netherlands to study a year abroad in early May. While over there, she hopes to compete in cycling events in the late summer or early fall, if they are being held in person.
“It will be an awesome experience within the lab and in terms of cycling within Europe,” she says.
