My Tour Divide — An Analytical and Anecdotal Peek
It’s my own curiosity that prompted me to scroll back through my foray into the Tour Divide. At the risk of repeating myself, “it didn’t go as planned”. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think I’d do anything except finish. And yet, there I was on day five very much not finishing and by day six had “scratch” next to my name.
I wanted to poke around with a bit of introspection, look back at photos and videos, peel back the layers of data, so that these 740 miles don’t become a forgotten memory, but something that is a benefit if I ever decide to take it on again.
Day One:
Banff, Alberta, Canada to Fernie, British Columbia, Canada
Day 1 by the numbers:
11 hours 38 minutes moving time // 12:40 total time
156 miles
201 average watts // 241 normalized power
20.7 WHOOP Strain Score
54% WHOOP Recovery Score to start the day
6:49 slept the evening prior
I set out here on day one with the goal of making it 217 miles. There are two cabins near each other that seemed like an achievable goal, one around 201 and another at 217. I was worried that if I rode to the first cabin for an evening snooze, I’d no sooner fall asleep before being woken up by a dozen riders rolling in over the course of the next few hours making a commotion, so thought I’d try my luck at the second one. But those fears were tossed away on the descent into Fernie when it was dumping rain and we were covered head to toe in thick mud and my drivetrain sounded like it was lubricated with sand. Despite the very long stretches of daylight at this time of year, it was well past dusk and a warm shower and bed sounded infinitely better than carrying on. I stayed at the Snow Valley Lodging which is a place that everyone should consider. They’re expecting TD riders, offer a free hot meal, laundry service, and a friendly smile despite how filthy we all are at arrival about to soil the hotel rooms.
Backtrack a tiny bit, there’s the mass start (which itself is comically disorganized. You start in waves. I anxiously got to the start 3 minutes after my first wave was supposed to go, but a photographer at the start assured me that I was the very first person to arrive. Soon others arrived with the same angst, and about a minute later we just randomly decided to go). So our front group of eight dwindled slowly throughout the day, so that by the time we were going into Fernie it was four of us. There’s no racing, per se. No attacks. Nothing really dynamic. It’s just humming along at a particular speed. The conditions were so abysmal during our arrival into Fernie that I was certain at least one of my fellow front group riders would stop. Nope, they’re braver — or are more content with wet sand embedded in their toes and nether regions — than I.
Koko Claims is no joke. That’s the sometime-riding-mostly-hiking five mile segment that comes exactly at mile 100. It’s labeled as 5.25 miles at 8.7%, but that’s wildly inaccurate. You’re basically using every ounce of strength you can muster to keep your bike above you and not falling down a rock scree wall. If you told me it was consistently 20%, I’d think that’s still underestimating.
No, it’s not a flex that I have the KOM. I spent the whole day chasing Michael Tobin who seemed to sprint up the hill. He definitely has the KOM even if Strava doesn’t claim it.
Day Two:
Fernie, Alberta, Canada to Whitefish, Montana, United States
Day 2 by the numbers:
16:05 moving time // 17:39 total time
221 miles
210 average power // 233 normalized power
20.7 WHOOP Strain score
11% WHOOP Recovery score to start the day
3:18 slept the evening prior
The overnight rain had thankfully passed by early morning on day two. My excitement got the best of me, so despite setting an alarm for 5am, I was up and out the door before 3am. I rolled over in bed, picked up my phone and saw other riders already moving at 2am, I tried to sleep some more, but mostly just tossed and turned for a couple minutes with my mind doing circles. At that point, I decided I should get going. Furthermore, despite being in a motel there’s still a lot to be done given there are amenities within reach. For example, doing laundry and/or drying out clothes, maintaining electronics, taking a shower, getting lots of food in my belly, those things all take time. So as much as it seems like I’d be in bed and sleeping through the night, WHOOP does an excellent job capturing sleep and it captured how my sleep was anything but excellent.
This is a big lesson learned; it’s a minimum two-week race and I’m confident that a lack of rest is what got the best of me. You’ll see that trend in the coming days, a distinct shortage of sleep.
Day two highlights include riding an area that I actually know a little bit, having explored in and around Whitefish over the past couple years. The final climb up Red Meadow makes for a spectacular and high speed descent down into town. This was a positive near end to the day as my toes were already killing me from all the hiking, so I went shoe shopping at Great Northern bike shop. I also got a variety of tasty meals that you can see crammed into my jersey in the photo below — both in pockets and up the back. Sandwiches, snacks, oatmeal, banana bread, etc.
A day two lowlight was losing my GPS early in the day on one of the long descents. Or, one of my GPSes, since I had two and my backup got tossed somewhere into the woods at 35mph. I thankfully never lost my other one, but double and triple checking that things are properly strapped into place is worth the effort.
On a related note, I’m surprised how many crowns I got on this ride. This goes back to my unintentional plan of riding decently hard while riding, and resting hard while resting. To be honest, I didn’t feel like I was hammering. It’s hard to hammer when you’re pedaling twelve hours per day. But maybe here’s another lesson learned, ride even easier than you think you need to for the sake of the long haul.
Day Three:
Kalispell, Montana to Lincoln, Montana
Day 3 by the numbers:
14:48 moving time // 16:59 total time
198 miles
204 average power // 225 normalized power
20.7 WHOOP strain score
1% WHOOP recovery store to start the day
1:27 slept the evening prior
Another lackluster evening of sleep prior is becoming a theme here. I arrived in Kalispell around 9pm, but between doing laundry in the bathroom sink, bag rearranging (that is, moving stuff from one bag to another based on how much use particular items were getting), eating a quick dinner, and trying to fall asleep, it’s hard to shut off and I probably didn’t sleep for another 90 minutes or more. Once again, the morning’s 4am alarm was never used because I was up and out the door by 3am.
Fog hung in the air in this spectacular region of riding with supremely cool singletrack and massive vistas throughout the day.
I had to make a detour that I preferred not to do, but was mandatory for me. I didn’t have enough food around mile 130/the 11 hour mark, and went off course to Seeley Lake for food and a full dose of lake inspired tourism. A frozen burrito, pizza, soda, and start of the afternoon rain spurred me onto the next locale.
Towards the end of the day, I rode through the petite hamlet of Overdo, MT where I met some very friendly folks from the tiny hometown I grew up in New Hampshire. That was totally unexpected and lifted the spirits mightily!
That bit of positivity unfortunately segued to a blasting headwind and watching the sky go from cloudless to stormy in a matter of minutes. Miraculously there was an unlocked excavator parked on the side of the road, so I sought shelter there from the initial hail for a few minutes before I realized it was worth carrying on wet than riding deep into the night. The town of Lincoln, MT was on the other side of the very cutely named Huckleberry Pass.
It wasn’t quite Noah’s ark, but it rained a memorable amount before I rolled into this unincorporated town of Lincoln. I went straight to the saloon, ordered a burger and fries, water and beer, enjoyed a conversation with the staff about what unincorporated means in an area like this, which certainly elicits notes of the Wild West. And then it was across the street to the Lincoln Log Motel for the night after watching Chris Burkhard and Joe Nation carry on into the drenching night. More power to those heroes.
I took a nap sometime around 11am earlier in the day. I was approaching a climb, feeling my sub-two hours of sleep the night prior, and found a quiet area besides a lake that was primo for a nap. The bivy was the key ingredient here because the mosquitos were ferocious. The buzz of the bugs on the outside of the bivy was actually helpful and I dozed off soundly for a half hour.
In lieu of a photo gallery, here are a couple of videos.
Day 4:
Lincoln, Montana to Butte, Montana
Day 4 by the numbers:
12:02 Moving time // 14:08 Total time
136 miles
185 average power // 214 normalized power
20.5 WHOOP Strain score
15% WHOOP Recovery score
3:02 slept the evening prior
Today was overcast and damp day nearly from start to finish, that’s another common theme. It started with a decently ferocious climb so that by two hours in, I felt like I’d already summited Everest. In truth, I’d hardly topped 7,000 feet.
Helena, MT was the mid-day stop where a tasty sandwich and hot coffee at a bagel shop as well as cheers from the side of the road were just what I needed to continue today’s trudge. I “only” had a 20.5 strain score, which wasn’t a big surprise because I just felt blaaahh throughout the day. You’re not riding with any pop in the first place, but I just just sort of felt like I was riding through damp sand all day. Which isn’t far from the truth.
The next many hours passed like many others. Stellar views and an afternoon deluge. One particularly tough moment was the unceremoniously named “Unnamed road climb” around mile 85. It was a foolish amount of single track to the summit, just as the sky changed from beautiful to dangerously full of electricity. It poured rain, I heard every single rider did an endo into a muddy puddle at the top, before a speedy, muddy trip downhill. The final 35 miles were tediously slow up a saturated false flat, mostly with spitting rain and a painfully slow pace. But, I’m not all doom and gloom: things ended on a beautiful high note as I crested a hill and descended the final mile of singletrack into Butte all in the sparkling sun.
Day 5:
Butte, Montana to… Butte, Montana
Day 5 by the numbers:
2:23 Moving time // 3:24 Total time
34 miles
199 average power // 220 normalized power
11.1 WHOOP Strain score
49% WHOOP Recovery score
4:58 slept the evening prior
I optimistically woke up buoyed from a hearty burrito for dinner from an actual Mexican restaurant, rather than from the frozen section of a convenience store, as well as a breakfast pita from Pita Pit ready to shuttle me along on day five. Maybe it was spoiled eggs, maybe it was my soon to be diagnosed rhabdomyolysis, but today was not my day. I rode nearly an hour with an equal portion of time pulled over to the side of the road.
My head was throbbing. I was nauseated. I barfed up into my mouth a few times. I was producing comically low power. My whole body felt swollen. It wasn’t just lethargy or feeling tired. I felt like a shell of myself.
By some miracle I had cell reception. I talked to Laura, I talked to my PCP, tears were flowing as I worked my way through my options. I could either continue forward some 180 miles to the next little town, which likely wouldn’t have many services or I could backtrack that hour to get checked out in Butte. Back to Butte and riding straight to the ER is what I did.
They took what looked like 15 vials of blood and ultimately came back with a diagnosis of rhabdo and dehydration. Which is interesting to me for a few reasons:
It’s reassuring to have an actual diagnosis so that I wasn't just being a wuss.
It’s odd that I felt swollen but was clinically dehydrated.
It’s bizarre that rhabdo is prevented by preparing your body for the type of training that you’re doing. Physiologically, I would say I was in peak racing form. That being said, I certainly wasn’t in peak “ride all day, day after day” form.
So from that visit to the ER, I was told to rest for the day in Butte, go back the next day and get another test of my blood values and see if I’d recovered at all. It was about 11am and motel checkin around town wasn’t available until 3pm. I ate an entire pizza and caught up with friends on the phone most of the day.
Call the following a bit of trail magic. Dirty Dan is a character on Tour Divide who has ridden the last four or so editions. He was in Butte and getting a lift back to the bike shop where his bike was getting a new axle. Meanwhile, I was just aimlessly riding around town waiting to check into a motel. When we crossed paths, I was stepping out of a consignment store trying to buy a t-shirt and shorts for the day so that I could visit local establishments and be slightly more comfortable. I got a smoking deal with both shirt and shorts acquired for just $2.75! And better yet, Dan got a hotel or two nights but wasn’t going to need his second night so offered it up to me then and there.
That was the good news. The less good news is that I Ubered up to the hospital the following day, got another test the and saw my values had recovered some, but were still well north of normal.
Day 6… 7, 8, 9 and through the present:
Montana to Colorado to Vermont to Maine to infinity and beyond
With the benefit of hindsight, I think the start of the end of my ride is when I arbitrarily allotted between 2 to 3 weeks to finish the Tour Divide. The prospect of resting another few days in Butte to recover, then riding more slowly in order to not bring the onset of rhabdo, was pushing me well beyond that range of time. It’s like once the idea was seeded in my mind of “maybe this isn’t the year for me”, being home by Father’s Day, being home in my own bed for the first time in three months, that was an incentive.
If you find any of the above interesting, I was excited to talk shop and record a podcast about my experience with the one and only Rebecca Rusch. She’s a terrific host with loads of ultra experience to ask lots of insightful questions.👇
I also have the two part blog where I talk about all my gear and any hardware changes I’d make to streamline the experience. The overarching summary, both above, in conversations with Rebecca, and the above is that there isn’t a ton to change.
A little More About WHOOP:
I find WHOOP data incredibly helpful. I understand how someone could read too far into their numbers. Specifically, how someone could look at these recovery scores circling the toilet every morning and already dismiss themselves from any sort of achievable result that day besides laying in bed. Let me be frank: I don’t do that. I especially find WHOOP’s sleep data excellent, the daily stress scores very helpful, and looking at trends over time. If you have any interest in trying out WHOOP, for a ridiculous event like this or just every day living, get your free strap and month subscription comped here.
(The Tour Divide is the four day stretch of blue 20+ strain scores, below center. The two 20+ scores on June 2-3 are the overnight Unbound XL.)
