Day 4

I woke up two hours later, once again chilled to the bone.

Everyone was gone. Worse yet, my throat was sore, I had burn like blisters all over my tongue and mouth, and a cough producing something I’d never seen come out of my body before… little white gelatin projectiles. "FUCK! I’M SICK!," I thought. “I can’t be sick. This race is way too hard to do sick. What if I get sicker? Will I even be able to get myself out of here?”

A thousand feet of climbing up Tank Seven Creek to Sargents Mesa lay directly ahead. Sargents Mesa is a notoriously awful 20-mile-long moto-torn section of the Colorado Trail. It is riddled with loose rock, nasty climbs, and a dead forest that mocks your every misstep. Pack bikers typically must hike most of it. That can be very tedious and exhausting on a good day. This did not feel like a good day…

I quickly determined it didn’t matter if I was sick or not. I needed to at least get myself to a road where someone could reach me if my condition got worse. The best option was to continue forward over Sargents Mesa.

I downed some Vitamin-C and Zinc and started pushing my bike up Tank Seven.

It was chilly. My bike computer said 30 degrees. The lack of power in my legs matched the terrible feeling in my throat. “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

I passed through a herd of cattle around sunrise. Each gave me the same stony, “dead man walking,” look.

After 90-minutes, I finally made the mesa top and took out my trail guide. I’d been thinking the 20-miles of Sargents hell started at the base of the climb I’d just come up. I was hoping to get a little positive affirmation of progress made. Nope. The festering shit-hole started right where my feet were planted. “Bartender, please add another FUCK to my tab!”

I dropped into the first rocky descent and subsequent climb. Suddenly, I heard a noise behind me. It was Marco, the first racer I’d seen on course since Karin at Twin Lakes two days before. He seemed to have come straight out of the forest. I was glad to see him. His knee was hurting. I told him I was having a rough morning but didn’t get into the details. We talked about the coming weather and the need to hit Coney-Cataract early the next morning. He made a quip about leapfrogging. It hit my funny bone. Then he was gone… out-gimping me up the next hill.

Marco’s irreverent visit had slapped some life back into me. There was now direct evidence that I was not the only racer suffering out here, and his wise crack had given me something less defeatist to think about. Our short conversation occupied my mind for much of the next six-hours.

It got hot. I had a big break to drink and eat before the last two hike-a-bikes. I struggled mightily to get over them, but Sargents Mesa was finally behind me.

A zoomy descent dropped me into the Lujan Creek drainage where I was looking forward to a water resupply and cleaning up my rapidly worsening trench foot. When I got there, reality did not quite match the shady mountain oasis that had been growing in my mind. The creek was a light trickle running through a sun-blasted sage meadow with cattle wandering all over it.

I met some thru hikers at the stream who happened to have a keen interest in the CTR. We chatted for a bit. They were encouraging. It helped. I cleaned up my feet, dried out my socks, chugged a bunch of filtered cow-shit, and climbed back on my bike feeling like burnt toast.

I still thought my race was probably over. I didn’t want that to be true, but the writing was on the wall. It was already early afternoon. My throat still hurt. My legs still sucked. Sargents had taken forever. I still had to cover another 14-mile section of trail plus the 55-mile LaGarita Wilderness detour to get in position for making a run at the high elevation Coney-Cataract section before certain death-by-lightning arrived tomorrow afternoon. I figured I’d need to reach the top of Slumgullion Pass by midnight to have any realistic chance of safely moving forward. That was NOT going to happen at the pace I was moving.

Slowly, but surely, the worm began to turn…

The next 14 miles of trail were smooth and fast - a revelation- and the quickest riding since the Upper Arkansas Valley. I knocked it out in rapid fashion and without a whole lot of effort.

Next up detour. The first 10-15 miles were slightly downhill. Barely pedaling got me to Dome Lakes in well under an hour.

After trading up(?) water at the outflow, I turned west onto Los Pinos Pass and found myself in a slight tailwind reevaluating my symptoms. They were all still present, but none were worse. The cough only happened when I stopped for a while. My pedaling power had rebounded a little way back.

I started to wonder if my scorched orifice might have come from breathing hard through my mouth-hole for 20 hours a day for the past several days; or if it was some caustic effect from all the electrolytes and salty food I’d been cramming down my gullet. I didn't have an explanation for the white projectiles, but I hadn't seen more of those since waking up that morning.

All these ideas began adding up to the notion that maybe I wasn't sick, just burnt. I could deal with burnt.

Also, the major uptick in riding speed meant it now seemed more likely I would reach the top of Slumgullion Pass by midnight. Recalculating, I determined my plan would be to camp at the top of the pass, wake up at 2am, and decide whether to turn left towards Spring Creek Pass (continuing with the race), or turn right, descending to Lake City and scratch.

Somehow, someway, I was still in a position to keep going - and I still wanted that, rather badly. There was never a moment I would have traded the chance to chase this dream. If that desire had wavered, the whole thing would have unraveled with great immediacy. It hurt (a lot!) but my body had not shut down, and my mind hadn’t given up.

But what of tomorrow? I was terrified of all the unknowns the next day would hold. These were rational fears of the highest order; the prospect of getting caught out on an ultra-exposed 33-mile long high alpine traverse, with a failing body, and severe weather on the way? That’s a hard thing to justify. The “fuck-it, let’s go,” mentality that had been the secret sauce just a few nights ago, now seemed nothing more than a cheap bottle of food coloring. And I’d burned so many matches. How many were left?

Then… BADGER!!!

It ran out of the willows into the road; for a moment lowering its head and squaring off with my handlebars; then turned 180 degrees and ran right down the center of the road for a good 100 yards before peeling off into the brush.

Now, you may need to know something about the Annabel family to understand what I'll say next about this encounter. I’ve long referred to my father as a, “crusty old badger.” I frequently call my 4-year old son a baby badger; “Badgy,” to be more precise. I’d never seen a badger in the wild before this encounter; but just a week before the race, remarked how much I hoped to one day.

For me to meet a badger, at this pivotal moment in my race/journey/life?

It was as if Earth and Time held me in the warmest of blankets for the briefest of moments.

The message pierced my soul in a single galvanizing second.

PERSIST.

I cried the rest of the way up Los Pinos.

For the gift.

For my family.

For my fear.

I decided to take the short detour to Cathedral Ranch Cabins.

I’d schlepped plenty of calories to get to Silverton but was sick of my options and yearned for a hot food reboot.

Boy was that a good call. I rolled in to find John & Karin enjoying microwave pizza and gearing up to hit Slumgullion Pass. I hadn’t seen either of them in days. It gave me hope I might cross paths with one or both on the next day’s Coney-Cataract mission.

Brad and Annette were terrific hosts who very thoughtfully stock their little store with anything a bike pack racer might need. I picked up a couple of frozen burritos and a heap of other snacks. But the biggest boost came in the form of an unexpected handshake from Brad and big-ole mom-hug send-off from Annette. That buoyed me most of the way up the pass in the dark.

I got very sleepy in the last few miles and had to climb off, lean on my bike, and close my eyes for some indeterminate amount of time (maybe seconds? maybe minutes?). This happened several times; right in the middle of the road. Fortunately, there were no cars about. Each such instance would help fend off the sleepy-wobbles for the next 5-10 minutes. It was next level suffering, but there was zero chance I was sleeping short of my goal that night.

I finally reached Slumgullion Pass – the unexpected Rubicon of my journey – at 11:20pm. I put on all my layers, and without a single tortured thought, dove full send towards Spring Creek Pass.

Thank you badger.

Route & Elevation Profiles

2022 Colorado Trail Race