TD 2010 Entry #7: Ferndale – 135 Miles

For the first time in the race, I didn’t mind getting a late start.  With Bob’s accident still fresh in my mind, getting up early to make big miles was just not at the forefront of my psyche.  I was harboring some kind of strange trepidation about what Day 4 may be holding in store for me.  I was uneasy…out of sorts….unfocused.    Rather than bullishly attacking the route like I’d been wanting to do since Day 1, I was instead wishing I had a day off.

Funny that this would turn out to be the biggest mileage day of my race.

After a hot breakfast at a retro style diner, Tom, Suzanne and I rolled out of Eureka sometime after 8:00 AM on a slowly upward trending route.  It felt a little weird being Bobless.  Bob had been riding with us since mile 35 of Day 1, and he had definitely been the most talkative of our little group.  I don’t like chatting while riding, but I like listening.  I had listened to Bob a lot.  It worked out pretty well.  

At least it was another beautiful day, the third one in a row.  The clear, crisp air helped to unfog my mind a bit.  And once we started putting some miles behind us, I started getting some snap back.  Suzanne, on the other hand,  looked to be in unbearable pain.  Her knees were destroyed.  She’d spent the previous night icing and massaging them to no avail. I didn’t know how or why she continued to ride with us…every stroke of the pedal was excruciating for her.  And yet she rolled on like a champ.  I would have most likely quit long ago. 

About 24 miles into the day, we began the climb up to Whitefish Divide.  I began to enjoy myself again.  The exertion worked wonders for my mindset, and the surroundings were serene and lovely.  I was particularly looking forward to the backside descent, for the tantalizing cue promised a “glorious descent through wild country.”   Glorious!?  Hey, I could use some sweet glory right about now!  Cresting the Divide, I prepared my eyes to drink in a splendid panorama.  Alas, I did not agree with the cue.  It was a very nice descent, for sure, but glorious?  Meh, I’d seen gloriouser.  I mean I did just come from Canada, ya know?

After the Whitefish Divide, we pulled into the Tuchuck Campground to refill water and reapply sunscreen.  I only mention this part of my day because of the monstrously dense cloud of mosquitoes in this area.  They were horrible.  I am lucky in that the little buggers generally don’t bite me as much as others…I guess my flesh is not to their liking.   But they were still unbelievably annoying in that they were constantly slapping into every part of my body.  They’d get between my hand and my skin as I tried to apply sunscreen, and I’d smear them into my skin.  Nasty bastards.

The ride up into the high Red Meadow Lake area was excellent.  The place was a winter wonderland the likes of which this low elevation flatlander never gets to experience.  Pedaling through the white magnificence, I felt like I was a live inhabitant of some award winning photographer’s masterpiece. 

“Don’t judge me,” I told Tom and Suzanne as I dismounted and began hucking rocks on to the surface of the frozen lake.  I never get to do that type of thing back home.  I have no fond childhood memories of sledding down snowy hills, building snowmen, or walking on frozen lakes.  I had an intense urge to make up for it right now.  Tom and Suzanne could have gone on and left me there and I’d have been quite content.  They stayed though, and they probably thought me a simpleton as I opened holes on the lake and cooed with delight.  

Soon enough, we moved on, and after post holing our way down the other side of the pass, Tom ran off into the woods and, by my reckoning, took the longest dump that any human had ever taken in modern times.  As Suzanne and I waited for him, we discussed Bigfoot, of all things.  While in Eureka, Jeff Kerby told me he’d seen one before on the route.  Suzanne was a believer, and had some testimony to support her belief.  I need to see it to believe it, but I was ready and willing to do just that.  In fact, seeing a sasquatch was a secret hope of mine coming into the TD.  Could there have been a better opportunity?

Where the heck was Tom?  Maybe a sasquatch had kidnapped him?  This place did look like Sasquatch Central.  Seriously, we began to wonder if something had happened to him.  “You OK Tom?!” we called, and received nary a reply.  Ten minutes…twelve minutes…fifteen…was his entire ass falling out??  Just as I began to think I may need to go looking for him, he appeared from the woods, spry and ready to roll. 

At some point between Red Meadow Lake and the city of Whitefish, I began feeling like a million bucks.  I can’t tell you why or what caused it, but I just started riding on high.  Reveling in the unexplained surge, I took full advantage.  My speed seemed to increase of its own will, and long hills seemed to flatten out as I climbed them.  I found myself maintaining my fastest pace of the race.  What was going on?  I know that I had dropped several pounds of body weight since Day 1…maybe the decreased weight was playing a factor.  My legs had also become like steel…they seemed to be getting stronger and stronger every day.  I suspected that I was looking highly sexy, except for the dirt and the stench.  So were my weight and my legs the catalysts?  Whatever…I didn’t dwell on it.  I just unquestioningly cranked out miles as fast as my body was willing to let me. 

It took me a while to realize that Tom and Suzanne were no longer behind me.  I wondered guiltily if I had seen the last of them.  I considered waiting, but how could I?  I felt like I had a jet engine under my seat that would fizzle and die if I stopped.  I blasted onwards, determined to let things play out of their own accord.

Soon, I was cruising past Whitefish Lake and the multimillion dollar homes abounding it, when I heard and felt the annoying flub flub flub of a flat back tire.  Just like that, my amazing rocket ride was over.   I was only 10 miles from the city of Whitefish…why could it have not waited until then!?

I pulled out my patch kit, took way too much time patching the leak, then began riding again, only to have another flat almost immediately.  Damnit!  I repeated the process…déjà vu.  Flat again after a few minutes.  After cussing out a few trees and chucking a pine cone at a suspicious bird, I acknowledged to myself that my patching skills suck quite mightily, and I pulled out a new tube.  By this time I think 30 minutes or more had passed.  As I began changing out the tube, Tom and Suzanne came rolling up.  I told them to go on ahead, I’d catch up.  I didn’t want them to see me fighting with my back tire and cussing out woodland critters. 

I would have two more flats over the next couple days.  Aaaand why did I not go with a tubeless setup??

Soon enough, I rolled into Whitefish, and I was a little taken aback by how big the city was.  I guess I didn’t really pay attention to the size of it on the ACA map, since I wasn’t expecting to stay there tonight.  I wondered how in the world I was going to find Suzanne and Tom.  I knew they were going to a restaurant, but there were lots of them here.  After mulling it over a bit, I figured I’d just pick a place to chow down, supply up, and then leave without them.  We’d probably meet up later anyway…seemed to be the way of things. 

Cruising down Spokane Ave, looking for a restaurant that suited my tastes, I spotted a dude standing in the bike lane.  His left arm was in a sling.  It was Bob!  He’d been tracking me from the hotel computer and had come outside to wait for me.  The ambulance had brought him here yesterday for treatment, and he was now awaiting a flight home.  He filled me in on race news.  We were pretty much way in the back, which I expected by now judging how things had gone, but there were still a few riders behind us.  We weren’t last.  That was something. 

It was great to see Bob…I certainly had not expected to ever meet him again.  He was in good spirits, albeit still somewhat depressed that his race was over.  He told me Tom and Suzanne had gone to a BBQ place down the road (he’d met them in the bike lane as well) and that he would join us there.  I can’t remember how it happened now, but somehow we all reunited at a Dairy Queen. 

As we stuffed our faces, Suzanne hit us with the news…she was done.  Her knees could take her no further.  I’d known it was coming…in fact, I had expected it much sooner… but it was, nevertheless, a very sad moment.  She had hung in there valiantly for as long as she could, but it was over now. 

Tom and I said our sad goodbyes to Suzanne and Bob, and went outside to gear up.  We made it to Walgreens just before closing to supply up a bit, then hit the road as the last rays of sunlight disappeared.   I was now on a mission to make up mileage. 

The next 45 miles were mostly flat and uneventful,  save for Tom blowing the seal on his tubeless setup.  He wiped up a load of goo and put a tube in.  As we pedaled late into the night, I had lots of time to reflect on all the events of my race thus far.  I felt as if I’d lived a lifetime in these 4 days, and none of it had really adhered to my plans.  I guess I’d expected that from all the reading I’d done before the race, but I had still tried and failed to stick to a general plan of attack.  Now, it felt a bit strange riding only with Tom.  My entire TD life had included Bob and Suzanne, and they were gone now.   

We pulled into the small town of Ferndale around 2:45 AM. It had been a 135 mile day, and I can’t even tell you how happy I was to finally get in a REAL mileage total.  Maybe now the bad luck and the bad decisions were behind me.  After spending 10 or 15 minutes trying to find the bed and breakfast that was supposed to be here, we gave up and decided to stealth camp in a copse of trees behind the fire station. 

I managed to get to sleep pretty quickly for a change.  But when the sun began to come up, so did I.  I reckoned I got in almost 3 hours.  Woo hoo!  Let’s see..Day 1, I got NO sleep at all.  Day 2, I got 1.5 hours.  Day 3, I got 3 hours, and now on Day 4 I got another 3 hours.   For the mathematically challenged, that would be 7.5 hours in 4 days.  How I was managing to even think clearly, let alone put in all the miles, was completely beyond any explanation I can give.  And I still wasn’t really even tired or sleepy.  In my next run, I don’t know if I should take advantage of that by riding 21 hours a day, or if I should take some Ambien with me and knock myself out for some forced rest.  Sheesh.

Sorry for the lack of pics…I seemed to start slowing down on the picture taking on Day 4.  Here’s the rest:

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