Of all the stories I wish I had time to share about my twelve days and nights on the Arizona Trail this fall, this one screamed the loudest to be told. It is a story of brotherhood, and the night bikepack racing as we know it almost ceased to exist…

Often, the hardest part of an ultra-endurance race is the part we don’t talk about; the part that comes after the finish. These races take a huge toll. Sometimes they take weeks, or months, to physically and mentally recover from. Ten days after my Arizona Trail Race finish, I arrived at a lonelier place than I have ever been in my life. It felt like a bottomless hole that I was stuck in for nearly a week. Fellow racers helped me climb out.

Most call him, “Doc.” A few call him Spence. I call him dad.

I spent today at my home in Colorado. Yet my heart and mind were 1,500 miles away, riding bikes with him; an ever less likely possibility; temporarily waylaid by the latest pre-school virus.