Meltdown
In order to explain Day 6 I need to start at the end of Day 5, on that walk back from dinner at the brasserie. As I crossed the road by the roundabout and trudged back up the hill to the B&B I knew something was wrong. My body felt out of whack, but not in a way I could immediately identify. Initially, it was more of a vague notion of being overly fatigued for my level of exertion and also a sensation of gliding along in something of a mental fog. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark (to paraphrase the bard).
It was still early when I got back to my room, and I had no more chores today aside from a bit of tidying up of now recharged devices. So I sat in one of the chairs and gazed out of the window for a bit. I messaged Yoli a couple of times. By now, she and our son had reached their accommodation on their own holiday in Marakesh, but the wifi was more than a little patchy. We communicated though, albeit in random disconnected patches. I think at one point we tried a voice or video call, but it wasn’t really working over the slow and intermittent connection. My head was a jumbled mess of issues – the principal of which was could I (or should I) carry on, or was this the end of my tour. Except I had nothing to base that decision on. I didn’t know what was wrong. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and as I looked in the mirror the fog cleared.
My face looked a little puffy, especially around my eyes. I inspected my fingers, and then my feet and ankles – which confirmed were also swollen. A quick mental countback also showed that I had taken on plenty of water during the day, maybe a little sparse early on, but more than enough to make up for that later on. But my bathroom (or hedgerow) breaks did not match up to that. The fluids were going in, but they weren’t coming out. The 1st part of what was wrong became clear: my kidneys were under stress and were not processing fully. Instinctively, I felt under my chin, and noticed my glands were swollen too, although the reason for that did not come to me in that moment.
Sat back in the chair I scanned the internet rapidly with these symptoms. Everything seemed to point the same direction: I was suffering some form of hydration or kidney issues, which wasn’t really any surprise given the heat. The only question was really how serious it was. Most of the articles I saw suggested with rest it would resolve itself if not severe. And despite feeling shitty, it didn’t feel that desperate. I didn’t feel like I could ride on immediately, but I didn’t feel like I needed to check into a hospital either. Shitty? …. Huh? That sparked another thought. There wasn’t just a lack of pee breaks on my count back. On that thought, the last of the mists parted – my stomach wasn’t just gassy, it was properly bloated. The lack of energy wasn’t just from the heat, I wasn’t processing fuel properly either. And suddenly it all joined up – the swollen glands were the missing piece. Not only had I been riding in intense heat for the last few days but (due to the reversed direction of my originally intended ride) I was also riding south-east into the full glare of the sun all day long. UV does a massive number of me. It’s something Yoli and I figured out a couple of years back which seems to have its roots in a re-triggering of a dormant Epstein Barr virus (more commonly known as gladular fever). And that has a correlation to impaired liver function – the body’s primary fuel plant, especially for anything long distance. Explaining the lack of energy. I’d basically been sweating my kidneys and liver for the last few days and they were on the verge of meltdown.
So, an outline of what was wrong had taken shape – but what to do about it? Abandoning the ride was the instant obvious call, but it felt overly drastic. I could chat with the owners here and see if I could stay another day. Not a bad sounding option really, rest up and heal. But that would throw all of my forward hotel bookings out of whack and, shorten the amount of time I got to spend with my friends in Munich, or mean a later flight home. All of that was going to be a pain in the ass without even thinking about the cost. The near term bookings were already past their cancellation window. My brain was clearly not firing fully, because the bleeding obvious took some time to occur to me. I was not on any kind of event, and there were no rules. As sad as it would be to do, I could simply take a break for a day or two, but rest my systems whilst sat on a train. Skipping ahead by public transport meant I could still use all my bookings. Quickly checking the SNCF schedules, tomorrow looked very easy. As luck would have it, there was a direct train from here to Saint-Dizier. The day after would be a little more complicated, but if necessary I could do the same again with a change of trains in Nancy. The imminent problem solved, I quickly popped around to the main house to let the owner know I would stay for breakfast rather than taking a packed one with me.
Château-Thierry – 07:00
Sat on the patio, it was actually pleasant to enjoy a slow breakfast with a magnificent view. It was definitely a shame to be missing such a scenic part of the ride, along the valleys of the Champagne region and through Epernay. But at least the tour wasn’t over. As if to confirm the decision, two sounds drifted into my ears whilst I was sat in the garden: a green woodpecker somewhere nearby (my late father’s favour bird and one I always associate with him looking over me); and Wish You Were Here playing on the owner’s sound system (the song Yoli and I met too in a random Lisbon bar). If you believe in cosmic signs, it’d be hard to imagine two more direct ones to have reached me.
The Train in Champagne
I thanked the owner, and freewheeled down the hill to the station to catch a train – which, in strangely British style, was actually a bus.
It seems the UK isn’t the only place to have rail replacement buses from time to time. It meant the trip would take 3 hours and not 1.5, so I quickly nipped to a shop to get enough drinks and snacks for the journey. The driver was super helpful making a space in the luggage hold to lie the bike in and, despite becoming quite full at the various stops en-route, it’s bulky presence never seemed to be a problem.
I did see Epernay, and a few other of the region’s towns from the bus window, which wasn’t quite the same of course but it was what my body needed. At each town, we wound around to the station to exchange passengers who would have been on the train, and at one point we swung into a bus depot although I forget why that was needed. I don’t remember changing drivers.
Saint-Dizier – early afternoon
As I was dropped off by the station in Saint-Dizier, the driver looked around and almost seemed apologetic at leaving me there. Sure, it wasn’t nearly such an attractive little town – we’d now left the really scenic valley stretches behind. But it didn’t seem that bad really. And, in fact, it wasn’t that bad. The B&B owners were wonderfully helpful – letting me in to the room way earlier than check in time. The old parts of the little town were definitely charming, and both of the cafes I ate in (lunch and dinner) had great food and friendly staff. Better still, I had time for a couple of naps at the B&B in between. Interestingly, my original accommodation for this area had been a roadside motel in a less inviting looking area outside of the town. It would not have served me nearly so well on my altered circumstances and I was very glad to have spotted this place on a closer look. Even before I went to sleep for the night I felt like my bodily systems were coming back online. Without going into specifics, the backlog of all forms was clearing nicely. Knowing now that I had options, I decided to have a go at riding the next day and see how I got on. It would be one of the longest days of the tour, which wasn’t ideal – but I’d got supplies from the town supermarket so I could start early by skipping the included breakfast. A couple of hours head start on the day would mitigate the heat and let me take a slower pace over the distance.
