Day 10 and beyond (6/14 -): End of the line
Morning came in Darby, MT and it was raining...again, as usual. It was also cold and I felt like crap so not going anywhere just yet. Spent some time getting up to date with everything and found that Nathan had put out an alternative route to get around the issue in Yellowstone. The route didn't look all that fun; a southern bypass of 160+ miles with 7000 ft of climb up over the Tetons...ugh. NPS reported that Yellowstone might have the western gate open by Thursday and most of the racers were still holding up at the western entrance hoping that NPS was accurate in their estimate of when the park would open again.
lunch spot
pipe insulation...great padding
packed up and ready to go home.
comedy of errors 😆
i'm on the board!
the TransAm trail marker
me in my Goodwill attire 😉
Corey and family.... amazing people!
Taking this and my general feeling of crappiness into account I decided that a rest day was in order. If all I had was a little cold then I would be feeling better in a day or so and then could resume the race... hopefully getting to the western gate around the time it was supposed to reopen...at least if things went to plan. Askan, the badass German cyclist that I had briefly spoken with outside of Baker City had been down sick for a couple of days at the start of the race but had jumped right back into the mix once he felt better. While I'm not anywhere in his category or class the idea was still sound, especially with the Yellowstone closure....could still make this work. I did do a rapid Covid test (they had them at the store...no pharmacy but Covid home kits) just in case. I didn't think that I had Covid but wanted to be sure and nope, results were negative....fever was from something else.
I spent the day watching lousy TV shows and eyeing the news. The images from Yellowstone didn't look encouraging; houses and roads being swept away. Hour by hour it was looking more like Thursday's possible reopening was not going to be realistic and several racers were now taking the alternative route. For my part, I still was running a fever (low but there...99.8) and was having all kinds of weird pains and twitches. I decided to try and get a look at my injury site to see if there was something weird going on. I won't post the pictures here...that would be entirely TMI but what I saw was way beyond any saddle sores that I have previously suffered through.
Ok, maybe need some professional advice here and so I looked into whether Darby had an urgent care. No such luck and the only general practitioner in town was out of office and wouldn't have been able to see me anyway as she was booked through July...small towns. Next option was a teledoc session which my company provides as part of our benefits package. Having filled out the online form and submitted a couple of the images I had taken (with the appropriate apologies for having to send them) I awaited the callback from the on duty MD.
About an hour later I got the call. The doctor laid out what he thought was going on. Without going into too much detail my ancestry lends to me having...well, inopportune body hair for a cyclist. The constant friction from my bib shorts had essentially pulled a lot of that hair out and created skin irritation. In addition, the bibs, having been repeatedly saturated by rain and sweat, had broken down a bit (this should not have happened) and had created friction burns...on my butt. This, the MD suggested, had set up an environment for bacterial infection and I now was dealing with not only saddle sores but a deeper cellulitis...in my butt 🙄. The doc was a little concerned about the fever...worried about possible onset of sepsis. I had a hard time buying this but was aware of another racer from a few years ago who developed sepsis along a similar path and had to withdraw from the race.
I asked the doc what my options were and he was emphatic - off the bike. "How long?" I asked and when he said up to 7 days my heart just kinda sunk. It was not realistic to spend a week off the bike and then proceed for another 20-25 days...I just didn't have that kind of time not to mention the added cost of holing up for a week. While my plan for the race included a lot of camping sleeping in a bivvy with an active skin infection was probably not going to be a way forward to getting healthy again. I hung up with the doc and laid there, thinking to myself that this can't be the way this ends...I can't scratch over this, just can't. The doc had Rx'd me a topical antibiotic and after an hour or so I went back up to the store which, according to Google, had a pharmacy. Well, small town life got me again - the "pharmacy" was a pickup counter for a pharmacy up in Hamilton. When I called up to the pharmacy (in Hamilton) they reported that they did deliver to Darby but only on Monday and Friday....it would be 3 days before the meds got to me. I threw my phone down on the bed and, after cursing a bit (maybe more than a bit) i went and got lunch.
I spent the rest of the day on and off soaking in the tub and trying a variety of OTC antibiotic creams and ointments. If I could get the pain and swelling under control then maybe I could still press on.
About mid-afternoon I saw a FB message from Stuart, relaying that he had decided to withdraw from the race. He cited several reasons for scratching - I won't get into them here but I respect and support his decision. He had made it down past Sula but had turned around and returned to Darby to arrange his next steps. As he is from Scotland he had numerous additional things that he had to consider in making his way back home.
I felt very bad for him...the logistics of racing in this event are formidable. Getting yourself, your bike, and your gear to the start point and then managing all of the aspects of supporting yourself during the event is challenging and I imagine adding the layer of being from an overseas location makes it even more challenging. To have to withdraw from the race, especially for the reasons Stuart had cited, seemed especially unfortunate to me.
I was heading out to dinner when Stuart rolled into the hotel's parking lot. We talked for a few minutes and then he headed out...was getting picked up by a "warm showers" participant and would be staying with them for a day or so until he had a plan. I grabbed a quick dinner and then decided to make it an early night...maybe I'll feel better in the a.m.
Day 11: I woke up around 0600 feeling not too bad and decided that I might try and go "AMA" and head out. I loaded the bike, got dressed, and rolled outside to get underway. The first mile was not that bad...I was able to sit on the seat reasonably well and was pedalling without problems. However, by mile 3 things were suddenly right back to the way they were; any pressure on the seat generated pain and that pain now radiated down the backs of my legs...this was not going to work. I limped back to the hotel and went back to the room - had a couple of hours before I had to either book for another day or check out. I called home and after discussing what was going on made the decision to scratch.
I sat there with a certain level of disbelief...I was having to withdraw because of butt pain. Now that's not actually true...I was scratching due to cellulitis and possible early onset of a more systemic infection. However all I could think about at that moment was I had to stop because of butt pain...crap! I sent an email to Nathan, informing him of my need to withdraw and posted in the FB TransAm page on my need to scratch. As there are no viable transportation options in Darby I posted the question on how to get back to Missoula so I could get a flight home. Within a few moments I received several replies, including an offer of shelter and transport from a man named Corey who said he would be happy to come get me.
A little while later Corey showed up. I was actually a little surprised...a small part of me had thought that this might be some cruel joke that a FB spammer was playing. But no, here was this guy, a person that I did not know and who wasn't directly involved with the race here to help me out 👍. We loaded the bike and my gear into his car and headed back to Florence, MT. During the drive I learned a bit about Corey - he and his wife participated in the "warm showers" program which provides free or low-cost hosting of cyclists all over the US. (https://www.warmshowers.org). I had heard of the program but only in the abstract and so hadn't given it much thought but now was being helped/hosted by these awesome people. Corey was also a Paramedic and with my previous life as a medic in Raleigh/Wake County found we had a lot to talk about. Corey was also an avid cyclist though more gravel/MTB than road cycling. As we talked I found out that Stuart was also staying with them and was working on his next steps for getting home. I found myself wondering what I had done right to get so lucky here - rescued from what could be described as close to the middle of nowhere...it is something that I still ponder on weeks later.
We arrived at Corey/Deanna's house and they set me up in an unused room. Well, technically the room wasn't unused - it was their son's room but as he was in DC on a field trip it was open for the next few days. I met up with Stuart again and we spent the next couple of days getting things that we needed post-race. This included something to wear other than cycling kit...you don't really carry normal clothes with you on this type of event - too much weight. However this puts you in a bind if you have to exit early. I needed pants, a shirt, shoes, etc....Goodwill to the rescue! Florence has a large Goodwill store and we were able to find most of what we needed at a discount that made it a little more bearable.
Beyond: Over the next few days I got the bike packed back up - Corey's dad was nice enough to bring me one of his old bike boxes. Learning from last year's issue with the packing of my bike (shop that packed it did a crappy job and it got damaged) I was determined to do it right.
Stuart also needed a box and so we drove up to Missoula (Corey lent us his car!) to see if the bike shop had one. They did and we had what can only be described as the most laughable moment of the entire event. So, the car was a Honda and we thought that the box would fit in the back seat. Upon getting it into the back seat we came to realize that it was too long...was hanging out one of the doors. Problem was, when we tried to get it back out of the car it wouldn't come out - once inside the frame of the car it was too big and no matter what we did it would come back through the door opening!
We eventually figured out that removing the staples from one side of the box allowed us to collapse it down and free it from the car. I went to get a pair of pliers from the bike shop and told them our tale of woe...they got quite the laugh out of it...it was pretty funny looking back on it.
As we were in Missoula we took the opportunity to visit the Adventure Cycling Association headquarters...which happened to be right across the street from where we were struggling with the bike box. I could spend a bunch of time here describing what the ACA (https://www.adventurecycling.org/) is but you can look over the web site if you are interested in learning more about them. I will say that they are the developers of the route that the TABR races on as well as other cycling routes throughout the US. The office/hq is an interesting place to visit and has a lot of memorbila of past cyclists and events.
The next day it was time to head to the airport. A last thank you and goodbye to Corey and his family....again really awesome people who I cannot thank enough for their kindness.
Missoula airport is small...I'd say smaller than RDU (my home airport) and movement through the airport was a simple matter. The only wrinkle in the whole process was that my bike came in over weight and I had to pay the extra fee. I feel that the scales maybe had a problem there...I had the same items in the box that I had flown out with and yet it came out over 10 lbs heavier than when I left RDU 🤔 but otherwise no issues. Stuart and I hung out for a bit until his flight was leaving - he had contacted another racer who had scratched and they were going to go to Palm Springs for a week or so...lucky dog! We said our goodbyes and then it was just me until my flight was ready to leave.
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