Event Report: T1DecaMan 10x Iron Challenge

Before we get started…

For four to six weeks after I finished my run across the US, I’d have repeated nightmares in which I hadn’t finished the run, was still running, but was in the wrong state going the wrong direction. Sometimes I would just run the same day over and over again, Groundhog Day-style.

I wish someone had told me that doing a 10x Ironman-distance event would be the living embodiment of that.

Not that it would have stopped me.

I had read stories from Facebook ultra-triathlete friends like John Price and Kay Scott Leighton, who had done Mammoth Endurance events and things like the Trans Am Tri (what it sounds like: a triathlon that spans the continental US), that the IUTA (International Ultra Triathlon Association)-sanctioned events were an exercise in sleep deprivation and slogging out whatever pace you could manage for as long as you could manage it. Accordingly, some compromises get made. You go slower. You catch little naps wherever and whenever you can. You try to avoid accumulating injuries. You eat whatever junk your stomach will tolerate. If you get blisters, you tape them up and keep going. If something hurts, you lube it or put diclofenac on it, and keep going.

In that sense, ultra-triathlons are EXACTLY like transcontinental runs, so I should have known what I was committing myself to.

I also knew that “official” “deca anvil” (10x iron distance) finishers were required to complete the task in no more than two weeks. For me at least, that wasn’t going to happen. By my best math, if I pushed it, I could complete 24 miles of swimming in 24 hours, crash, get in maybe 150 miles a day on the bike, and run perhaps 40-50 miles a day. That would put me at something like 13 days. I’d have almost no cushion for bad weather slowdowns, low blood sugars, or even getting a decent bath.

During the my solo run of the 223-mile Capital to Coast Relay, I got only 7 hours of sleep in four days. I literally could not add two numbers in my head or remember my birthday, and had full-on hallucinations. I didn’t want to repeat that.

So I decided to do the T1Decaman on my own terms. I I’d spread the swim out over 3 days, the bike over 10, and the run over 8 days. I’d complete each sport in its entirety for efficiency’s sake, take a total of two rest days between sports (one after the swim and one after the bike), then move onto the next sport. I wouldn’t push myself to go without sleep, or run or ride my bike in the wee hours of the morning any more than I had to. And since it would take me a little over three weeks, I gave myself an hour or two each day to TRY to squeeze in some actual paid work.

Not that any of that made doing 1406 miles of swimming, cycling, and running in less than a month any easier. In the spirit of competition, I held myself to a schedule that would challenge me, and bend it only to environmental, mechanical, and safety concerns, or possibly brush fires at work. Thankfully, mostly that stuff didn’t happen.

Once it was set up, I invited others to participate, and made it clear that it was a so-called “fatass” event (Google the term if you like, but basically it means unofficial, no prizes), or if no one joined me, an OYO (On Your Own) effort. Either way, I was going to do it, and do it my way, or at least try to finish what I hadn’t completed in 2023.

I picked the name T1DecaMan challenge to emphasize the fact that the entire effort, while meant to bear some resemblance to a sanctioned 10x, was also a bit of an experiment, an exploration of what challenges T1Ds faced, how they might be overcome or at least addressed, and what lessons could be learned.

This is how things went.

Swim: 3 days x 8 miles/day=24 miles

Monday, Sept 16, 2024

Leading up to the swim, I had been concerned about starting too late in the season. I knew that if I waited until mid-October as I had done in 2023, I’d be forced to wear a wetsuit or at least a wetsuit top. Last year, the wetsuit top, unencumbered by the downward pull of a fullsuit, kept riding up, moving the collar up my neck. It had chafed my neck significantly over 3 days of swimming, so I was anxious to get out in the water while it was still warm enough to swim without a wetsuit.

When I tested the water temp at Lake Lewisville’s Little Elm Beach the week prior, it was hovering between 76 and 80 degrees F (24-26 C), about the same as a swimming pool. It felt a bit chilly getting in, but once I was underway it warmed up. For that reason, I went with a long sleeved rashguard, one I had trained in during my practice swims at Miami’s Hobie Island Beach, where the water had been around 76. It turned out to be perfect.

As I had done at Hobie Island Beach, I used a trick I learned from serious open water swimmers: putting on diaper paste for sunscreen. It goes on like a thick goop and gets on and into everything, but the the zinc content is pretty high and it doesn’t come off. I guess since it’s for babies who pee themselves, it doesn’t come off without hot water and Dawn dishwashing liquid.

My “rules” for the 10x swim portion allowed for on-shore feeds, typically a mix of whey shake and maple syrup drunk from a widemouth bottle. I tried to keep feeds short, but as always, there was a fair bit of stationary time as I updated my wife Leslie on progress, current needs, water conditions, and so forth. Gradually, we both learned to “feel” what I needed on each loop and the breaks got shorter. I believe my moving average pace was somewhere around 2:46/100 yards, which wasn’t bad for me for open water, and patted myself on the back for not trying to cram the whole swim into 1 or 2 days. I knew I could do better, but it wasn’t a bad showing.

Over the year since my last attempt at a 10x iron event, I had learned to stroke longer, pull harder, and kick more efficiently. During my summer training, I had been faster than most swimmers I was with. Maybe not fast enough to complete the full 12-5 mile Key West swim before countervailing tides and the setting sun put an end to it, but I had improved, and I was anxious to see how well that translated to improved performance during this event.

With the long-sleeve rashguard to keep me a little warmer, plus the swimming pool temperatures, I felt that things went well.

I got in 8.2 miles the first day and was joined toward the end by my long-time swim buddy and dear friend Scott Conway, then I went home, washed the mud and diaper paste off my tired, filthy body, and got ready to do it again.

Tuesday, Sept 17, 2024

One of my objectives during the swim was to get in a few photos that described what it was like as a Type 1 diabetic to log 8 miles a day at the lake. Unfortunately, that meant that if I swam harder or faster or ran into current or chop, I burned more calories and my blood sugar dropped. The photo on the left captures some of that. The red section at the bottom of my Garmin shows my blood glucose reading, 69 mg/dl. It’s red because it shouldn’t be that low.

My glucose setup worked perfectly to warn me of the low. I had decided to wear my continuous glucose monitor transmitter on my glutes, since most of the time if my form was any good, my butt would be level with the surface of the water. The signal from that transmitter was sent to my cellphone, which I had double-ziploc’d into the dry bag of my swim visibility buoy. My phone sent my numbers to the cloud, where Leslie could follow them on her phone using the Dexcom Follow app. I got haptic (vibration) warnings as I approached shore, and Leslie was ready with a feed bottle with whey and maple syrup. The only thing I regretted was having to wait on shore for my sugar to come up. But these are the things you do, and it reminds me of challenges I may face if I choose to attempt another marathon swim such as Key West (full distance next time!).

Because of breaks like that, though, my overall pace was pretty miserable. But on day 2 of the swim, I still held a moving pace of 2:48/100 yards and felt okay about it. I managed to get in another 8 miles of swimming and nothing hurt when I got out.

And there was an upside to the low. Leslie got a fantastic picture of my glucose on my watch, and we used it in a social post for Dexcom.

Wednesday, Sept 18, 2024

My third day of swimming was remarkably consistent with day 1 and day 2. The only negative consequence of swimming 24 miles in 3 days was that ironically, an internal seam on the rashguard I had been wearing actually caused a rash (OK, it’s an abrasion, but same difference). It seemed I couldn’t manage to do an epic swim without rubbing the skin off some part of my body.

But the bike was yet to come, and I would soon learn that chafing can get MUCH worse.

Rest Day

Thursday, Sept 19, 2024

In retrospect, I feel like the rest day after the swim, while appreciated, wasn’t entirely necessary. While it DID give me time to rest my shoulders, which might soon see significant strain from the bike portion, I actually didn’t hurt that bad, nor did I feel particularly sleep deprived or sore.

But I did feel hungry.

Leslie and I found this little pupusas place on 15th Street in downtown Plano. I think it was called Mama Vickie’s. This is the kind of place that almost doesn’t exist on the web. They DO have a Google Business Profile, but it doesn’t point to a website (they don’t have one) and there aren’t menus posted anywhere. You just have to go in, look around, and order.

One thing I should tell you is that generally, I don’t like pupusas. Usually I find that they’re too much dough and not enough filling, and the dough is tough and chewy, almost like a bagel.

Not THESE pupusas. They were soft as a cloud, full of fresh, piping-hot, spicy beef, pulled apart easily, and smelled and tasted wonderful. I’m pretty sure Mama Vickie was listening to me sing her praises to our server as she sat at a table and watched her telenovelas.

After lunch, we walked around downtown and sat in a chair that had been nailed to the wall behind it. I was in a silly mood and it felt like finding the “dreamer” sign was karma.

I got about a day of work done in the afternoon, but stopped around 9 PM, because the next day would be a busy one.

Bike: 10 days x 112 miles/day=1120 miles

Friday, Sept 20, 2024

Unlike 2023, I decided to create a bike route that was two 56-mile loops of a well-watered route. This was partly because the previous year’s longer route meant that if I needed anything at the 56-mile turnaround point, such as a spare infuser for my insulin pump or a ride home because of mechanical problems, I’d have to wait an hour for it. My 2023 route was also not very well populated with gas stations or water fountains, which had led me to conserve water, which had led to considerable dehydration, which I believe contributed to the kidney stone I ended up getting on October 27th of that year.

For 2024, I wanted a route that allowed me to refill water frequently. A fortunate side effect of this was that I quickly fell into the habit of purchasing full-sugar Big Gulps (for those not in the US, this is a 44-oz soft drink) at my fuel stops at the 84-mile turnaround point in Deep Ellum. Of course, I didn’t know this before the first day, but it was that kind of thinking, plus familiarity with what I believed were bike-safe routes even during rush hour, that led me to create the two-loop course.

I settled on a route made up of other smaller routes I had previously ridden: Bluebonnet and Chisholm bike trails from the house, 15th street through downtown Plano to Avenue G, then south to a small nameless street that allowed me to cut under the George Bush Turnpike, go through a neighborhood, and turn right on Routh Creek Parkway, a road that doesn’t see much traffic because it’s dense neighborhood on one end and doesn’t really go anywhere on the other. From there, I’d take Central Trail south to where it ended at Buckingham, just north of Texas Instruments, and ride for a short while on TI Boulevard until I got to a wide sidewalk that allowed me to pick up Cottonwood Trail, which fed onto White Rock Creek Trail, and from there take a short jaunt south on Greenville to pick up the SoPac Trail, which I took to downtown Dallas, a total of 28 miles one way. I’d follow the same route coming back to finish the first 56-mile loop, grab a quick lunch, and then repeat the process with more sunlight and higher temperatures.

Apart from hoping I had created a route that would avoid accidents, I didn’t know what to expect on the first cycling day. I knew how fast I TYPICALLY rode, but every route’s different: the hills, turns, stops, and so forth make each one subtly different.

By my best estimation, I averaged around 10 mph. That’s with figuring in bathroom breaks, stoplights, food and water breaks, and the fact that some of my cycling was pre-dawn and I rode slower because I couldn’t see as well in low light. Sunrise was typically around 7:20 AM at that time of year, and it was only going to get later–and sunset earlier–and leave me with less sunlight overall. Sunset was typically around 7 PM. That meant I had about eleven and a half hours of sunlight and part of my ride was going to be in the dark. I chose to start early, around 6:30 AM, because I felt that the pre-dawn hours were quieter and I’d be on bike paths for most of the time before the sun came up.

I didn’t really know how long it would take me to finish 112 miles on this particular route. The only real reference I had was the fact that at Ironman Texas, with cops waving me through intersections and the Hardy Tollway in Houston closed down so bikes could ride on it, AND with volunteers handing me Gatorade and water as I rode by and threw out my old water bottles, it took me 7 hours and 38 minutes. There was no way that was going to happen on this event, on this bike. Maybe a few years ago, but both the bike and I had seen significant miles since then.

I’d be lucky if I caught green lights and the bike paths were clear. Roads would have stop signs, cars and traffic lights, I’d need to make restroom stops, stop at least briefly to eat and stretch my legs (I didn’t want to eat EVERYTHING rolling), and I knew from prior training that at LEAST 2 hours would accumulate from those kinds of delays. So adding those two hours to the seven and a half I knew were the bare minimum, it was going to take just short of ten hours even at a breakneck pace. I figured my real time to finish was closer to 11 hours. If I suddenly needed an unplanned restroom stop or something went wrong with my equipment (which it did), I was looking at 11 and a half or even 12 hours.

I also knew I’d have to get back at it the next day and the next day and the day after that, so I wasn’t all that inclined to push my pace if I couldn’t keep up for another 9 days. So I shot for somewhere in between, trying to keep moving, keeping my breaks short, and riding at a vigorous pace that I could sustain for the entire day while leaving time to stretch my legs and actually swallow my food. That turned out to be somewhere around 12 miles per hour moving speed, but with breaks, closer to the 10 mph I had originally estimated.

At that pace, it took me twelve and a half hours to finish the first day. That seemed reasonable, given the fact that my bike was far from new, I knew the brakes stuck periodically, and it occasionally changed gears for no reason or just jumped the chain ring entirely in the lowest gear.

Gradually, I settled into a pattern that would persist for the entire bike portion: pedaling earnestly, trying to get in as many miles before sunrise as I could, so that I could get home before sunset, not really knowing which bike gears, body position, or alterations to my behavior mattered. I became time-obsessed, and secondarily, concerned that I’d end the day with something so sore I couldn’t ride the next.

This often meant that most of my six-mile route on Bluebonnet Trail to downtown Plano was in the dark and in a hurry. The latter portion of the initial bike trail section of the route was hilly and had a number of sudden turns that weren’t easy to spot in the dark, and I encountered a number of early-morning dog walkers with no light or reflective clothing, so it made for a bit of a white-knuckle ride. That, and while the afternoons were still running in the mid to high 90s F, the mornings ran in the 60s and were a bit chilly, which made it difficult to dress appropriately. Typically, when I reached the point where I crossed under US-75 and rode up to Avenue G in downtown Plano, I could only feel one or two fingers on each hand, but at least the temperature was warming up slightly.

By the time I reached the little picnic table with a checkerboard on Central Trail at about mile 8, I was wide awake. Even so, most of the time sunrise would not officially come until I reached the intersection of Central Trail and Campbell Road in Richardson.

After the first day, I knew I was doing well if I reached the picnic tables at a park near Royal and Greenville Ave by 8:15 AM, the north end of SoPac trail by 8:30 AM, and the 7-11 (pictured) in the Deep Ellum neighborhood of downtown Dallas by no later than 9:30 AM. By the time I got there, I was ravenously hungry, felt like I had been riding all night, and had put in about 28 miles. I tried not to think about the fact that I still had 84 miles to go after that.

On the first day, I was so concerned about not getting home before sunset that I photographed very little of it all, including my arrival back home with the setting sun in the background. That particular shot, however, would soon become a tradition as well as a psychological boost and a reminder that I had logged one more day before the sun went down.

Somehow, that day I accidentally logged an extra mile, managed to figure out that something was wrong on my RideWithGPS route, and adjusted it so that subsequent days were closer to 112 miles.

Somedays, however, weather and construction made logging that exact mileage a challenge.

Saturday, Sept 21, 2024

Saturday morning Scott Conway joined me at my house to ride the first 56-mile loop with me. This was a generous gesture, since Scott not only had to suit up but mount his bike on his truck and drive over to meet me for my customary 6:30 AM departure. If we were on schedule, though, he’d be done by 12:30 PM and still have most of his day ahead of him.

I tried to get a quick selfie in front of the house but could barely see. My cellphone sometimes brightness-corrects so much it’s impossible to see night in a picture. I managed to get a decent photo of Scott before the sun came up, then we were off.

It was cool for a while, and the roads were a bit quieter, especially the stretch on TI Boulevard, which runs past Texas Instruments’ headquarters building at the northeast corner of I-635 and US-75. Scott and I made decent time while the temperatures held, and we got back around 12:30 PM.

My moving speed was OK, but I took more breaks, and sometimes longer ones. In fact, Scott commented on one of our breaks that it seemed unusually long. It’s worth keeping in mind that he was conscious that I had another 56-mile loop to go and was trying to keep his own breaks short. I remember one particularly long break at the 7-11 on Centennial Boulevard, somewhere around mile 95, as I was getting overheated and increasingly uncomfortable as the afternoon wore on. I could blame some of that on the fact that one of the bolts on my saddle kept coming loose, and perhaps as a result, my privates were chafing more than expected. (NOTE: I later learned that my SportsShield lube had run out).

This time, even though I had ridden a mile less, it still took me 13 hours, and Scott’s comment haunted me for some time as my already time-obsessed mind began to dwell on just how much time I was wasting each day.

Sunday, Sept 22, 2024

After the first and second days of cycling ran long, I became increasingly concerned that I had not allocated enough time to get home before sunset, that my pace was too slow, or both. I tried starting as early as I could, but I just couldn’t make myself get up before 5:30 AM or out the door before 6:30 AM.

Sunrise as usual came around 7:30 AM, about the time I reached Central Trail and Campbell for the first time, so I knew that part of the day was on schedule, which left me wondering if I was slowing down later in the afternoon when it got hot.

Maybe it was something subconscious. I noticed an uncomfortable feeling when I sat on my saddle, and discovered that one of the bolts that secure it in a horizontal position had started repeatedly loosening itself, pitching the seat forward into an extremely aggressive position, nose-down. I tried to adjust it, only to have it come loose again and pitch the seat forward. I tried loosening the forward bolt and tightening the rear one, which returned my saddle to horizontal, but it never held.

I started riding standing up for much of the route, sitting down only to rest my legs. I noticed after a while that I was often sitting at an angle, or resting on the area between my legs rather than actually sitting on the saddle. Sometimes I’d find myself favoring one side over another. I’d alter my position but it would help only for a little while.

At some point, something on the bike started chafing the inside of my left leg. I was never entirely sure what it was, but it was annoying, and I could feel that it was rubbing a raw spot. There was so much road grit and dirt on my legs that I didn’t notice until I got home and took a shower that the spot was actually seeping blood.

Nevertheless, today it was a bit cloudier in the afternoon, and my time was better. My moving pace was around 11.5 mph and while my finish time wasn’t much improved, it was fifteen minutes faster and it wasn’t over 13 hours. That was encouraging, and to some extent, it quieted the tornado of negative thoughts about time.

Monday, Sept 23, 2024 – RAINED OUT

Just as I felt I was easing into a groove, weather happened.

Monday was nothing but thunderstorms wet roads, and slick, muddy bike paths, so I decided to take a weather day. During a break in the weather, I went to check on what I thought was watermelons growing in my yard. Turns out it was bitter bottle gourd, and I pulled it up.

Meanwhile, I occupied my time catching up on another day’s work and trying to teach myself Chinese before I had to go to sleep.

Tuesday, Sept 24, 2024

Bike day 4 went a little better. From the moment I got out of bed at 5:30 AM, I focused on doing everything as quickly as I could. I began timing my breaks: food and water: 7 minutes. Food, water, and restroom: 11 minutes. If I had to refill my thermoses of iced Kool-Aid at a water fountain and add fresh powder: 15 minutes. I also learned that the simple act of locking up my bike, walking into a convenience store, ordering a soda, and walking back out took almost 20 minutes. Still haunted by Scott’s comment and now more time-obsessed than ever, I tried to keep every stop short and ride as earnestly as I could.

I was pleased when I got PAST the intersection of Central Trail and Campbell Road and photographed the sunrise peeping out between some buildings in a commercial development.

My moving pace didn’t really improve. It was still 11-ish miles per hour, though it was now inching toward 12; but my average OVERALL speed including breaks improved a bit, by almost 1 mph, to just over 9 mph. My total time for the day was as short as it had ever been, at just over 12 hours.

Owing to the adjustments in my route, I came in right at 112 miles for the day. I learned that the extra mile had come from backtracking along Cottonwood Trail and east to TI Boulevard, so on the way back each loop, I exited White Rock Creek Trail along a paved incline and cut through a modern-looking neighborhood that fed the southern end of TI Boulevard south of Royal. This was a more direct route, but I quickly learned that during the week, it could get busy. There was a lot of traffic exiting I-635, cutting under the highway along TI Boulevard, then heading east on Valley View Road, which meant that while I was heading north on TI Boulevard, traffic was constantly cutting across my path to get to the Valley View turn. Combined with the fact that this particular section of TI Boulevard was uphill, it made for some unpleasant cycling.

But I was committed to the slightly shorter route alteration and figured I’d make up the lost miles when I got closer to home. I was pretty certain that after the previous day’s rain, my longer, less-trafficked route along Cottonwood Trail and White Rock Creek Trail would be muddy and slick. Today, I was certain enough that I didn’t want to waste time finding out. Give it another day, maybe, and things would dry out.

The irony was that the rain had not cooled the temperatures down much at all, and moving away from the flood-prone trail section to open road meant a hot, uphill ride on a weekday-busy street.

One thing that only gradually dawned on me was that the effort, especially on route segments like TI Boulevard, was made easier by increasing both my carb and liquid intake. I mentioned earlier that in 2023, I had been trying to conserve liquids because my route along Campion and Texas Trails west of downtown Dallas took me well away from civilization until I got to the turnaround point at 56 miles. It was a single-loop route as well, which meant that I was sort of on my own when I was near the far end. It took me a long time to shake the water conservation habit and drink copiously; but on the days THIS year, when I could stop for a full-sugar soda, I lasted longer, went faster, and felt better.

That made it easier to attack the busy, sunny hill on TI Boulevard, but it didn’t make it easy. Leslie got into the habit of parking the van near TI HQ with cold, sugary liquids, which allowed me to cool down, carb up, and finish the last 15 miles or so without arriving toasted and delirious. To my surprise, this stop did not take long, I arrived back home around 6:40 PM, with almost half an hour to spare, and my blood sugar did not spike.

I ended the day at 137 mg/dl, satisfied that I might have started to figure things out.

Wednesday, Sept 25, 2024: Half Day (Rain)

From about 4:30 in the morning, I knew bike day 5 was going to be a crap shoot. Thunderstorms were moving through again, though weather forecasts said they were supposed to stop at 6:00 AM. I was supposed to head out at 6:30, and by the time I got suited up to head out, the weather still looked dodgy.

Rather than head out when it was still raining, I decided to make the day a half day, and opted to use the extra time and slower pace to explore just how muddy things had gotten along Cottonwood/White Rock Creek trail.

The answer was: VERY muddy. In fact, several sections of the trail were closed, starting with the Spring Creek underpass on Chisholm Trail and the Cottonwood/White Rock Creek connection. Broken tree limbs and debris impeded progress along SoPac Trail, and a large muddy section near the trailhead forced a walk-around on wet, soggy grass.

The good news is that, knowing I planned to do only 56 miles that day, I could start later, take longer breaks, and think of the day as part 10x, part data gathering. I enjoyed a longer-than-usual break at a guardrail near the southern end of SoPac Trail where it headed west into Deep Ellum.

It was a good day overall. Temps were finally down in the afternoon, there was a breeze, and my moving pace was still okay despite the dismounts and walkarounds. I even got some work done that evening.

One thing that DIDN’T go well with the day was that halfway through the bike portion of my challenge, the problems with my constantly-loose saddle and my neglect of personal lubrication both came home to roost. When I got home, I had some really sore raw spots in a very personal place that required Neosporin plus strength tape (better than moleskin!) on the surrounding areas, PLUS a new container of lube, PLUS doubling up on bike shorts.

Even with all that, it still REALLY hurt. Let’s just say that every time I hear that French philosopher’s name, it’s a reminder to take care of things down under.

Thursday, Sept 26, 2024

For some reason, having to start counting bike days by the halves (today was 5 and a half, right?) threw me off a bit. It was just enough of a nudge away from my constantly time-conscious thinking to force me to live a little more in the moment. I no longer saw the pre-dawn starts as a horrid hour of riding in the dark but as one more early morning closer to my goal. After all, yesterday’s half-day had given me a chance to get a little extra rest, and despite all the mud and debris, I had made progress and now had a good idea of which portions of my route were actually rideable with any degree of confidence.

The day was hit-and-miss. I lost the end cap to one of my aero bars, which didn’t affect riding AT ALL, but I was accustomed to placing my thumb on it when I rode the bars, and it was one more little thing that disconcerted me. With the lost endcap, sticking brakes, constantly-loose saddle, worries about mud, the previous half-day, and an unattached mental note to update my website with the updated dates for each portion of the event, I could no longer think clearly about where I should be, how long my breaks were, or what pace I should be going. In a way, that was a GOOD thing: I reached my “sunup” point at Central Trail and Campbell right on schedule, got home before sunset, and actually had a decent pace.

My Garmin Fenix watch had decided that morning that it didn’t feel like recording heart rate until it had enjoyed its morning coffee or whatever, so I decided to wear my old Suunto Baro 9 as a backup, which I would end up doing for the remainder of the bike and run portion.

Then there was the squirrel on SoPac Trail who darted between my tires and somehow managed to live to tell the tale.

The strength tape and doubled-up bike shorts made things much more tolerable.

But a new dread was creeping up on me: the thought that I might finish in decent condition but my bike might not.

Friday, Sept 27, 2024

I woke up earlier than planned on bike day…let’s see, was this 6.5? with a strange spring in my step.

I was definitely feeling the results of being ground down physically: constant hunger, soreness that would go away MOSTLY (but not entirely) after a good night’s sleep, plus the rawness and chafing I mentioned previously. My hands were also taking a beating: the base of both palms and a little line along my thumb felt like they were developing blisters, and Leslie stopped at Bike Mart Richardson and bought me a spare pair of Pearl Izumi bike gloves. I can’t say that I enjoyed them, but they fit differently from my old Castellis, the newest of which had seen better days. Therefore, I took to wearing one pair and stowing the other in my bike jersey.

I got to my usual sunup check-in at Central Trail and Campbell and beat it by just a few minutes, making it a few blocks past Campbell before sunrise. In fact, this got to be something of a game for me, and I was excited when I felt like I was “winning.” It was a way to measure how well I was doing without trying to sift through a soup of numbers in my head while riding.

Yesterday I had encountered a squirrel along SoPac Trail that unexplainably and unexpectedly darted in front of my bike after sitting placidly on the grass nearby chewing on acorns. Today, another squirrel pulled the same acrobatic trick. Or was it the SAME squirrel both times, in the same place, doing the exact same thing? Hmmm? Was there a glitch in the Matrix?

I made it home before sunset and my pace and overall time were decent, and now I had only three and a half days of cycling to go. Moreover, I was excited by the fact that tomorrow would again be Saturday, and I would be joined by my friend Scott.

Saturday, Sept 28, 2024: Half Day (Mechanical)

Bike day 7. You’ll notice I’m not counting in halves, and there’s a story to that.

I was excited to ride with Scott again. This time, he elected to meet me along the route, as his schedule didn’t allow for the full 56 mile loop that I planned to do twice that day. I started super early, hoping I could catch him as soon as he got parked at the DART station at the north end of Routh Creek Parkway. Scott’s as punctual as I am, and he was there exactly when and where he said he would be.

We reached my sunup check-in at Central Trail and Campbell right on time, made it downtown to the 7-11 in Deep Ellum about fifteen minutes early, and Scott helped me stay on time with my break. I grabbed a Big Gulp of Mountain Dew and chugged it down so we could keep things rolling. We made it to our second refill stop at Centennial, then I had a flat tire.

A flat tire would not normally be a big deal, but I ride on Gatorskins AND Campagnolo Zonda two-way tubeless compatible rims. The idea is that if you blow a tube in a race, the fit is so tight that you can fill your tire with slime (fix-a-flat), spin it, and the combination of Zonda two-ways and Gatorskins will hold air, since there are no spoke holes for air to escape from.

This also makes it nearly impossible to get the tire off unless you know SPECIFICALLY how to work a Gatorskin off a Zonda. I always forget how to do this until I try every other option, and after about half an hour it gradually dawns on me that you have to push the tire longitudinally away from the valve stem in order for it to be loose on the opposite side, THEN push laterally to get it off the rim. Between the two of us, I managed to get the tire off and Scott replaced my tube with one from his bike bag.

Scott’s tube, however, was no good, my tire was already back on the rim, and we were both nearly out of time. He had to get back to his truck and to his next appointment, and I had used my sunlight “buffer”, and even if I could get another tube under my tire quickly, would be coming home in the dark. Moreover, I was still irritated about the loose saddle and sticking brakes, so I asked Scott to drop me off at Bike Mart Richardson so I could have the bike checked out and get good tubes that I didn’t have to put on myself.

As I mentioned before, I had a bad feeling about my bike, which the mechanic confirmed. My brakes and shifters, he said, were nearly shot but would probably make it another three days. My rear derailleur, which has been squeaking annoyingly no matter how much lube I put on it (much like me!), had seen better days and my cassette was not only wearing out, but there was a question about whether a decent new one could even be put on a bike as old as mine.

I asked him for the bad news. He said $600, or maybe buy a better used bike. I looked around, and what I saw was not only well over $600 but the Tiagra component group was a step down from what I had on my 15-year-old Specialized, “Carlotta.”

I asked him to replace the tube, give me back the bike, and let me see how long it would last; and later in the day, I managed to get enough miles in to call it a half day.

Sunday, Sept 29, 2024

Bike day 8. It’s difficult to explain, but knowing at the start of the day that there were only 3 days left, that I was starting one of them, plus the fact that I was now back to counting full 112-mile bike days, put my mind in a comfortable place. I was still sore from all the chafing and road bumps my nether regions had endured, but it wouldn’t last much longer, and that made it easier to mentally set aside.

As I headed out in the pre-dawn hours, there was a little cloud cover left over from the previous weather, and temps seemed to have cooled down a little. Overall, I was optimistic.

When sunup came, I was already to the tornado sculpture where Central Trail ends and dumps the rider out onto the protected bike lane along Greenville Avenue, well past Campbell. I had finally settled into taking Cottonwood and White Rock Creek Trails down to downtown Dallas, and taking TI Boulevard back. Even more fortunate, today was Sunday, so traffic along TI Boulevard was nearly nonexistent.

I noticed one odd thing that day: someone had set a small split log on fire and had put it on the barbecue grill at the park at Royal and Greenville. No one was attending the fire, but it was contained entirely on the BBQ grill, and off and on I had seen some homeless folks along Cottonwood Trail making small fires on the concrete to cook meals. I figured this was more of the same, maybe a bit more civilized and disciplined and less likely to catch the woods on fire, so I thought little of it. But it was still odd.

It smelled good, though.

Farther along the route I met a homeowner whose property adjoined SoPac Trail, who had a flat shovel and was scraping the mud off the north end of the trail. I thanked him profusely both times I passed; and it reminded me that there are still people in the world who will do good things for strangers for no reason other than the goodness of it all.

I couldn’t really tell in the mornings if getting farther before sunrise was a function of my speed or the fact that sunrise was coming a few minutes later each day, but looking at my overall and moving pace, I think it was a little of both. I finished 112 miles in the shortest time to date: 12 hours and 12 minutes, and my moving pace was nearly 12 miles per hour. This encouraged me, as I remembered that at Ironman Texas it had been just over 14 miles per hour. I still had the short breaks here and there, but I learned which of them mattered most–specifically, the first snack and restroom break at the park at Royal and Greenville, the liquids refill and Big Gulp at the 7-11 in Deep Ellum, and the stop at the van just outside Texas Instruments. I let those run close to 15 minutes and shaved as much time off everything else as I could; and I felt like the 9.2 mph overall average reflected better break management.

But there were still two days to go, and anything could happen.

Monday, Sept 30, 2024

When bike day 9 rolled around, I had stopped thinking so much about the cold, dark mornings and focused my attention on what might be possible that day. I got to the sunup check-in at Central Trail and Campbell at about the same time as usual, and by 8:15 AM I was at the park at Royal and Greenville. This time, however, the path was blocked by yellow safety tape. Overnight, apparently, a large tree next to the picnic pavilion had fallen, blocking the bike path.

I wondered if high winds had felled trees elsewhere, especially along SoPac Trail, which so was heavily wooded that only dappled sunlight filtered through the trees, making for a cool, fast, glare-free stretch of about 6-8 miles before the woods opened up just north of White Rock Lake. But everything was fine.

I finished the day around 6:40 PM, happy that after 9 days, my pace was still holding up. I was a little worried about my shifters, though, as they had started acting erratic along Greenville Avenue on the way back from the second loop.

Tuesday, Oct 1, 2024

5:30 AM came early, but knowing it was the last day that I’d have to head out at 6:30 AM, I began to think about the fact that some of the things I had become accustomed to viewing along the route I would be seeing for the last time in a while.

Like my sunrise check-in at Central Trail and Campbell. Only today, I made it as far as Texas avenue, near the spot where Scott had changed my flat, before the sun came up.

Even though it was a weekday, my friend Scott took a vacation day to ride the last bike day with me. We met at the usual place near the DART station, and in his customary fashion, he mixed punctuality and schedule adherence with a Buddha-like calm. True friends are like that, and it was one more thing to be grateful for that day.

That, and the fact that I wasn’t doing anything really important when my shifter cables snapped. I was riding south in the bike lane on Greenville Avenue on the 2nd and final bike loop, about 40 miles from finishing the entire bike portion, when I shifted up to take advantage of a long downhill stretch, felt the bike change gears, and then the cable went slack. Somehow I was able to shift back down–I guess there was enough cable left to do that, but from that point forward, I had only my low gears left. Fortunately, I spent a lot of time in third gear, and it was no problem to finish in that gear anyway.

I still made it home before sunset, and tomorrow would be an eagerly-anticipated rest day.

Rest Day

Wednesday, Oct 2, 2024

The raw spots on my leg and private area (not pictured here–trust me, you don’t want to see it anyway) were improving; the one on my leg had scabbed over and the others weren’t looking as bad as they had nearly a week ago.

I took some of my free time to shop for replacement bikes. Though what I wanted was durability, I found some nice bikes at reasonable prices. But it was more than I wanted to spend, especially after learning that our dishwasher had quit working.

Run: 8 days x 33 miles/day (last day=31 miles)=262 miles

Thursday, Oct 3, 2024

I started the first run day at 7 AM, half an hour later than I had been leaving the house on my bike. By then, it was only a few minutes until sunrise, which made for some wonderful, inspiring, hope-drenched, positivity-infused mornings.

Perhaps for that reason, I was more inclined to take progress photos during the run. Maybe it was the fact that by my best calculations, my worst pace was around a 20 minute mile (3 mph); and even at that pace, I could get in the requisite 33 miles each day in 11 hours with a decent amount of sunlight to spare. Maybe it was just that running 33 miles a day for days on end is something I’m familiar with, something that for whatever discomfort it may bring, still has the familiarity and reassurance of putting on an old shoe. No surprises here, just another week of running.

I know some of you feel like 3 mph is a walk, and if that were all one did, I’d agree. But you have to remember that this pace includes bathroom breaks, food breaks, liquid refills at convenience stores, and so on. Under these circumstances, most transconners would consider an all-up-all-in 17 minute mile a good pace. And when I was running, that’s about what I averaged.

Plus, I was determined to stop and smell at least one or two of the roses, say hello to dogs, and try to enjoy the journey. I wanted to be fully present for at least the run, where I felt I was in more control of circumstances, didn’t have to worry about mechanical failures, and wasn’t racing the clock to get home without being hit by a car whose driver couldn’t see me in the setting sun.

As I headed out, sunrise was a beautiful salmon color, almost matched to my Day-Glo orange shirt, hat, and running shorts. It literally changed the sky to orange as the sun peeked over the horizon, and it amused me that the whole saffron color of everything reminded me of Buddhist monks.

Be fully present, I thought. There is no time but now.

The air felt cool and the day full of possibility.

My route took me east along Bluebonnet Trail in the mornings, where it turned north at Chase Oaks and headed toward a golf course, ducked under US-75, and ran through Oak Point Park and Bob Woodruff Park. From there, it followed Los Rios south to Breckenridge, east along Breckenridge to Telecom, south along Telecom to Lookout, west on Lookout to Routh Creek Parkway, then along a path the ducked under the parkway and emptied ultimately onto the western side of US-75, where I ran along Renner to a Shell station near Custer, the backtracked and picked up Alma Drive going as far north as 15th street, then back home along Chisholm Trail and Bluebonnet, retracing some parts of my bike route through familiar territory.

As I neared mile 7 before the path ducked under US-75, I passed a golf course with a fountain, then ran through two adjoining parks, Oak Point and Bob Woodruff, marveling at the serenity, the color of the wildflowers in the morning sun, and the modern architecture that appeared to blend seamlessly into the land around it. There were open fields, stables, picnic areas, quiet creeks, and more until I reached my first liquids refill stop at a gas station at mile 12.

There was another gas station at mile 15, then a sunny stretch through a business park and a long uphill bit along Lookout Drive until I reached Crowley Park, where I usually met Leslie for a 20-minute lunch break, usually a double Whataburger, onion rings and a diet Coke. Perhaps it wasn’t a dietarily perfect choice, but let’s just say that the fat, salt, caffeine, and cold hydration did not go to waste.

From there, it was uphill on sunny streets, including Los Rios, Breckenridge, Telecom, Lookout, Renner, and Alma, for most of the rest of the day. That part was a slog, but somehow I didn’t mind it too much psychologically. It was amazing how much hydration helped improve my mood. For what was left, I just had to keep telling my body that the unpleasantness, like the sunrise, would pass. Try to appreciate the day you are given, I told myself, and eventually, I was able to, at least that day.

I felt good about getting home before sunset, good about my 16 minute mile moving pace, and good about the fact that my overall pace was under 20 minutes/mile. I felt good about being able to eat a double Whataburger without having to worry about insulin.

I knew when I got home and DIDN’T have mind-numbing, on-your-knees back pain that this year, I had dodged a bullet and avoided a kidney stone on the first day of running. Tomorrow would be somewhat new territory, as I hadn’t made it that far in 2023. But even if I only made it 100 yards, it would be progress.

And despite the heat and the hills, I decided it was a good day after all.

Friday, Oct 4, 2024

Run day 2 was supposed to get into the mid-90s temperature-wise, which, while not the hottest it’s ever been in Texas, can still be unpleasant.

I switched to my desert running shirt, a Solumbra Ultramarathon Shirt. The shirt itself is a bit of genius that sometimes catches people off guard. People have why in mid-August anyone would be running in a long-sleeve shirt. What I can tell you is that it works, and you’ll see a lot of people at the Badwater 135, which is usually in August in Death Valley, CA, where air temps can get into the 120s, wearing them. The principle is simple, really: above 98.6 degrees, you can’t lose body heat from evaporation, because you become a heat sink for the hotter surrounding air. But you can still lose the hot layer of air if it’s caught between two thin layers of UV-reflective nylon sealed at the bottom and chimneyed out the open top of the shirt using the same principle that keeps composting toilets at state and national parks cool. Hot, damp air rises, and even when temps are above 100, warm, dry air coming in through the vented underarms can hold moisture. It’s not evaporation, but it’s better than nothing. For the rest of it, you hydrate constantly with ice cold beverages (iced Kool-Aid in a Thermos in my Orange Mud hydration quiver) and cool down in whatever shade you can find.

Throughout the event, I alternated between this desert shirt and my Desoto Skincooler tri top with Coolwings, basically sleeves made out of the same material used to cool canteens in the desert. The fact that the sleeves and the tri top didn’t cover my underarm area helped vent a LOT of excess body heat and kept me relatively cool while the desert shirt was in the washer.

Sunrise was the same brilliant orange as the day before, and as the day began to brighten, the slanting rays highlighted a patch of coneflower growing at the side of Bluebonnet Trail.

By the time I reached the modern-looking restroom building at Oak Point park, I felt I was slipping into a familiar running rhythm I’d somehow picked up from transconning: run until something in your body says not to. It could be anything–a sore foot, a water stop, a need to scratch an ankle, anything. Then pick up running again once the reason for stopping goes away. It’s a way to keep yourself honest without letting the task of running mask very real signals from your body that it needs something.

Breakfast, typically half a cup of Catalina Crunch low-carb cereal and a half cup of Fairlife low-carb milk, total 30g carbs, had usually worn off by then. I’d sit down at a shaded picnic table on the eastern side of the lake, unwrap a brownie Leslie had made for me, and wash it down with some cold Kool-Aid. That usually lasted me until mile 12, where I usually grabbed a Big Gulp of orange soda that lasted me until mile 15-17.

There was a horse stable around mile 11, and sometimes I saw people riding horses in the distance. The view was so idyllic I had to take a picture of it. It was hard to believe places like that existed in a metropolitan area with a population of over 8 million people.

About half a mile further was a shaded picnic area with a water fountain, where I usually rested my feet and took a few gulps from the water fountain before going the remaining half-mile to the Chevron station at mile 12, and a little farther long the path, another lake with numerous ducks and an occasional snowy egret. I managed to get a good close-up of the egret before continuing.

At the Chevron, I bought an extra large Fanta Orange soda and a bottled water to refill my Kool-Aid Thermos. Despite drinking a full-sugar soda, I’d usually feel my blood glucose dropping about a mile or two from Crowley Park, which was at the 18.5 mile mark. I’d top off my blood sugar with a Rice Krispy Treat if needed and pour some of my spare bottled water over the ice left over from refilling the Kool-Aid Thermos once I’d finished the soda. By the time I reached Crowley, there was usually no ice left, but I still felt reasonably energetic. At Crowley, I’d meet Leslie at the van, grab a Whataburger lunch as was our habit, and continued running.

Maybe I should rephrase that. I actually began to notice that I had to walk a little bit before my legs warmed back up, which was convenient since from Crowley, it was uphill along Lookout until I reached a golf course I cut through to get to Routh Creek Parkway.

On the far side of the golf course was one of the most brutally sunny places I’ve seen since running across the Mojave Desert. It was an uphill stretch along Lookout headed toward Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas’s headquarters on the western side of Jupiter Road. The open-shirt pic with the sun in the background over a green field does not do it justice. There was absolutely no shade and temps were at their daily high of around 95 degrees.

Things got a little better once I reached the little planked trail that branched off from Routh Creek Parkway and looped under the parkway through woods toward a massive Baptist church on the west side of US-75. It was there that I met Leslie again for a quick carb-up, cold liquids, and the remaining 10 miles of running out and back along Renner, up Alma, and home by way of Chisholm Trail.

At Chisholm Trail, about 5 miles from home, I spotted a creepy clown bag toss, or perhaps it was a kid’s tent, sitting abandoned behind a gas station, and farther along the path, a beach ball washed up against some reeds. I’m sure it all had an explanation, but everything about it screamed “Timmy was last seen here…but never again.”

I reached the end of the day’s run before sundown, happy with my 16-17 minute moving pace, and not too dissatisfied with the 20 minute overall pace including breaks.

Day two was in the books, and I had broken whatever curse beset me in 2023. While it was still possible to somehow come down with a horrible injury of health condition, today was at least NOT a step backwards.

Saturday, Oct 5, 2024

At the start of run day 3, I switched from the last of my remaining Dexcom G6 sensors, a backlog of which I had been working through to preserve the number of G7 sensors I could use later. It was nice to finally have nothing but the lower-profile G7 CGM (continuous glucose monitor), which was less likely to catch on doorways than the G6, AND given the often razor-thin personal time between days during the T1DecaMan, the 20-minute warm-up provided very welcome relief from wondering what my sugar was doing for two hours while things spun up to speed.

Sunrise was as usual, amazing, saffron, and brilliant. I reached the golf course just before the cut-under at US-75 heading into Oak Point Park right on schedule. At the lake at Oak Point I noticed a fisherman, and there just seemed to be something so RIGHT about the way he patiently stood there in the morning sun and waited to see what the day brought. Farther along in Oak Point, the peculiar geometry of power poles receding into the distance caught my eye.

I met a woman and her grandson riding horses in Bob Woodruff Park, and we talked for a bit as the horses followed my loping running gait until got to the turnoff at 18th street, which headed up toward Los Rios, the long sunny stretch, and a place where horses were not usually welcome. When I got to Lookout at the end of Telecom, I snapped a photo of the ONLY shade on Lookout: a wooden drum from some kind of cable installation. It was THAT sunny.

After acting spotty for some time–Leslie would often ask me to confirm my coordinates because they were WAY off expectations–my Garmin InReach decided to go ENTIRELY off the reservation, recording no more than 1 data point in 33 miles, so I shut off my subscription and stopped using it until I could figure out whether it was a software or hardware problem.

I made it home before sunset, felt good about my pace, and was still smiling about seeing the horses when I walked through the front door.

Sometimes little things like that can make your day.

Sunday, Oct 6, 2024

Somehow, run day 4 arrived without my really noticing.

I ascribe some of this to the fact that after Texas and the US run, I was used to focusing on what was around me, maintaining attention to the present rather than my own tornado of thoughts, and letting time flow around me.

The truth is, that’s probably an idealized version of how things really went. By day 4, I was starting to feel a little soreness on the balls of my feet, and on the uphills, I could tell I was grabbing the road with my toes, creating hot spots on the ends and bottoms of the ones most forward in my shoe. And this was after lubing, lace-locking, sizing up shoes, and wearing blister-resistant socks. My feet were starting to be unhappy, and while I attended to the world around me, I found myself stopping more frequently to sit down, stretch tight legs, take off my shoes and massage my feet until I felt like running on them again.

But that was usually later in the day. I still found sunrises the most uplifting time of day and probably always will. The light was a fantastic mother-of-pearl this morning, and the sun lit the wildflowers along the edge of Bluebonnet Trail as if they were in a painting.

By the time I reached Oak Point Park, I heard cheering, and despite the amazing quality of my “hallucinations” (more on that later), I knew it wasn’t for me. I stumbled across a sign announcing I was on a run route, and managed to get PAST that point just as I heard the announcer count down to the start. Fortunately, I was able to continue quietly on my run as a wave of people moved in the opposite direction.

The lake at Oak Point Park was, as usual, serene. I sat at the usual shaded picnic table, unpacked a brownie, and washed it down with Kool-Aid as was my custom.

For some reason, I didn’t take many more pictures until I got to the underpass that connected Routh Creek Parkway’s wooded path to the trail that ran past the Baptist Church on the west side of US-75. I saw a pizza box on the concrete. I texted Leslie the following message, a reference to the practice in first-person-shooter games of walking your character over what looks like pizza lying in the street in order to restore health lost from walking around or getting shot by bad guys.

But maybe I DID need to do something like that. I was still able to maintain my usual pace, but only when I kept moving. It got harder and harder to start up again, and by the time I left Crowley Park at mile 18.5, I felt like an old man. This was a little surprising to me, as I held my running ability in higher regard than perhaps was justified based on my training level. I felt fueled up, hydrated, and in a good mood, but fatigue was also settling in.

Monday, Oct 7, 2024

Run day 5 was a strange day. As soon as I headed out, my Garmin watch decided AGAIN it didn’t want to record heart rate. Sunrise was beautiful as usual, and I became interested in capturing images of some of the underpasses the trail ran through. There were a number of them under US-75 and Jupiter that really caught my attention. One looked like it might fade into the landscape at any moment. Another looked swallowed by weeds. I thought to myself, this is nature playing the long game. And there were others I didn’t photograph but promised myself to capture on the next day, or the next.

As I neared Oak Point Park, I decided to see if I could capture some alternative perspectives of the lake I would be passing by each day, as a way of remembering the many moods of the week.

Somehow in the middle of all of this I let fueling get away from me. By the time I reached the Chevron at mile 12, my sugar was falling hard. If you don’t have type 1 diabetes, it’s hard to describe the feeling. The closest thing I can compare it to is the way you feel when you blow through a red light and nearly t-bone an innocent driver. You’re flushed with adrenalin. You know it’s your fault, you know it’s not going to turn out well, and MAYBE just MAYBE, if you do things right, you might avoid dying.

I managed to shuffle into the store and buy a large Fanta Orange soda, get it out to the parking lot, and sit there drinking it. Usually, I’d sip from the soda as I walked through the remainder of Bob Woodruff Park and out to 18th street, but today I just sat in the parking lot and drank the whole thing. Even 20 minutes after that, my blood glucose was still 67 mg/dl, and I had killed 20 minutes doing nothing.

But the day got more interesting after that. When I stopped at Crowley Park to meet Leslie for a quick lunch, as I threw out my empty Big Gulp from the 7-11 on Renner, I missed the garbage can. As I bent down to pick it up, I rolled my ankle. It didn’t hurt all that much, but I felt clumsy and from that point forward, it didn’t seem to like any sideways movement. I tried to run with as straight a gait as possible, which wasn’t the easiest thing, since both feet were developing blisters in a couple of places. Worse, it slowed me down just the tiniest bit, dragging my already slow pace out just enough to take off some of the daylight cushion I had SO taken for granted at the start of the run.

Along Alma Drive, around mile 25, I spotted a sofa under the George Bush Turnpike and sat down on the edge of it. It felt GREAT! My spirits lifted, I picked my feet up a little higher and ran the remaining 2 miles to where Leslie awaited in the van, grabbed a quick snack, get a spare water bottle out of the van, and feeling an urgent need to use the restroom, popped into the Tiger Mart at mile 28.

As I exited the store, the store owner followed me out asking for me to show the water bottle I had taken from the store. I pulled out the water bottle I had picked up from the van and showed him: it said “Kirkland” in nice big letters. He seemed satisfied at that point that I hadn’t shoplifted it and I went on my way. But it was one more delay.

The sun was getting kind of low in the sky when I reached the turn where Chisholm Trail branches off west and intersects with Bluebonnet. I knew I was pushing the edge of sunset when I saw a bunny near the trail, as it’s been my observation that they mostly come out at dawn and dusk.

I reached the end of my day’s run JUST before sunset this time, with very little cushion to spare. My moving pace was slower by a minute, my overall pace equally slower, and the day showed it. But I was back through the front door and in the house before the sun finally dipped below the horizon.

That night, I asked Leslie to help cover my blisters with gel pads and tape two of my toes on either foot so that they’d make it the remaining three days of the run.

Tuesday, Oct 8, 2024

As run day 6 began, I noticed that I was catching sunrise farther and farther along the trail. I wasn’t starting any earlier, so it was clearly because the days were getting shorter. It’s funny how you don’t notice this sort of thing until you observe it day after day after day, and then, like a heartbeat, the quiet rhythms of the world become more apparent. Maybe the repetition in the days was a sort of meditation, calling my attention to things I had not noticed even when observing intently. The deeper you look, the more you see, I suppose.

The sky was a beautiful clear blue, and the water was so calm and reflective that it looked like a render from a ray-tracing program.

I met my equestrian friend again, this time in Oak Point Park, not long after I had passed the lake and was headed toward Bob Woodruff Park. Previously, she had been riding with her grandson; this time it was with a friend. We said hello, chatted briefly, and I moved on.

As I ran, and in my mind I was still running, despite the fact that a stranger I chatted briefly with wished me good luck on my “walk”–my attention was again drawn to bridge underpasses. One in particular stood out: the pass under Jupiter Road, where debris from past flooding sat in huge piles in the hollows of what had briefly been a creek. The debris piles cast shadows as the sun beamed off pillars in the distance, giving the whole thing a kind of science fictional quality.

Again I passed the picnic area in Bob Woodruff Park where I usually sat down briefly, then drank from the water fountain. It began to occur to me, as it had during the bike portion, that the things that I remembered most would be documented ONLY in my memory if I didn’t photograph them; so with some small bit of judgment to keep me from photographing everything, I picked the things that stood out. One of those things was the place where the path coming down from Routh Creek Parkway cut under the parkway and went through some woods to the Baptist Church west of US-75. That’s it above with the paved path bordered by a rock wall. It was nice and shady there, and as I began to learn that the bench just twenty yards east of it was rarely in the shade, especially as I arrived at the same spot later and later in the day, so I sat on the rock wall under the highway and drank Kool-Aid before hitting the sunny segment that ran toward the church.

Leslie’s a little camera-shy, but I managed to snap this wonderful photo of her when I stopped at the van at the church for a quick liquids refresh. I didn’t always need to carb up, especially as I got slower and burned less energy per hour, but the stop underneath the shade tree was always welcome before I hit the relentless sun on Alma that brought me to the southern of Chisholm Trail.

When I got to the section of Chisholm Trail called Big Lake Park (it’s NOT a big lake, by the way), a large number of ducks sat on and near the path, and as I approached, casually headed west down an adjoining street. They seemed to know where they were going, but it was odd to see so many of them just getting up slowly and walking casually down the street. Too much free dried corn, I guess.

During the run, I had experimented with ways to make the miles come out to 33 each day. I knew that heading west along Renner to the Shell station and back would add about a mile, but every time I got to the dog park where Chisholm intersected Bluebonnet Trail, I’d be 2 miles short. As a result, I started adding a one-mile side route north along Chisholm just a bit farther, to a stone pavilion, then turned around and headed back toward the bridge that rejoined Chisholm with westbound Bluebonnet. It seemed to work out just right, and I got home before sunset.

Despite the fact that my my legs had heat rash, my toes now felt like they were on fire, and my right ankle had swollen quite uncomfortably, I had managed to keep a healthy moving pace and my overall pace was back down around a 20 minute mile.

Only two more days to go.

Wednesday, Oct 9, 2024

By run day 7, I could feel some of the weight of what I had been attempting lift from my shoulders. I was almost done! By this time, though, it was clear the days were getting shorter. I was almost to the dog park east of Independence before the sun came up.

As I traversed the underpasses, I tried to pay even MORE attention to what I hadn’t noticed. This time I spotted a good-sized log probably 9 feet off the ground, resting on a crossbeam under the highway.

When I got to the little bridge across the creek at Bob Woodruff Park just before the picnic area and the stables, I snapped a pic. You never knew when such as photo might remind you of the moment, and as I approached the end of the T1DecaMan, I wanted to remember the moments. I had a growing sense that I would probably not attempt another event like this–maybe something else epic and fit to my taste, but not this–and I wanted to capture it as it was happening. The sun through the trees and the play of light on the edges of high clouds seemed magical.

As I reached the long, straight path that led from the picnic area to the lake at Bob Woodruff, the sheer size of the park struck me. The photo of the sidewalk doesn’t do it justice. I suppose we have local ranchers to thank–historically, the city of Plano has been deeded large tracts of land on the condition that it not be commercially developed. A lot of it is from the remnants of the once-vast Haggard Ranch, and much of the land remains untouched except for the park path, a few picnic tables, and the occasional playground and parking lot to make the land accessible to folks so they can enjoy it. There are horses. There are birds, fish, and wildlife. Just like there always were. It’s nice.

Once I got past the Chevron station and my usual extra large Fanta Orange stop at mile 12, it was back to running uphill on Los Rios until I got to Breckenridge, turned, and headed toward the business park at Telecom.

After 7 days of running, it finally dawned on my that the south side of the street was a little bit shadier. Not by much, but there was a park, Creek Hollow Park I think was the name, that had a few trees and broke up the glaring, monotonous sunlight.

The usual lunch stop at Crowley Park seemed to come and go in a flash. I have vague memories of my right ankle REALLY hurting as I headed uphill toward the golf course and the final half of the day’s running, but before I knew it, I was most of the way up Alma, under the George Bush Turnpike, sitting on the miraculously situated sofa.

Things like a chair, and especially a sofa, are rare finds. The most I ever encountered on my run across Texas were five-gallon utility buckets, which I typically turned upside down and sat on the bottom of for a few seconds when no guardrail or other suitable sitting surface was present. I remember one chair I found heading east out of Riverside, CA into Moreno Valley. And there was the office chair I stumbled onto at the side of the road, six miles into the Gila River Reservation, where both Google and RideWithGPS had guided me to be, though it was native land, private property, and strictly off limits to outsiders. Moments like that just don’t come often, so seeing the sofa several days in a row, not picked up by garbage crews, always lifted my spirits.

I know that makes me sound like a homeless wanderer, but I like to think it’s just Creation’s way of reminding us to be thankful for the simple things.

A couple hours later, I was at my turnaround point at the pavilion at the north end of Chisholm, this time for the last time. Tomorrow’s route would be two miles shorter in order to round out to 262 miles of running, and I was looking forward to it as I reached Coit, took my pre-sunset photo, and logged my final miles of the day.

Thursday, Oct 10, 2024

The final run day, run day 8, was an emotional one for me. Many of the places I had come to recognize as “old friends” and learn to know more deeply were now fading into history.

Sunrise was beautiful as usual, especially when it glanced off fields of wildflowers.

I have often thought that if I knew my last moments were coming, I would want to spend them at sunrise, watching wildflowers, or at least tall grass, waving in the breeze. Whatever happens in the world, there is that beauty and hope and sense of nourishment, and it is to such moments and feelings that we attach our will to keep going even when things get rough.

At mile 4 I passed a high school where the band had been practicing starting around 7;30 AM for at least a week. I could tell they were getting better: the music was crisper and tighter, the movements of the color guard were better coordinated, and the marching seemed to flow as though the individual band members were cells in some giant organism. I know it’s an October thing and it happens all over the US, but seeing the same little bit of it each day allowed me to see their progress. I would miss that, I realized.

I began to notice places in Oak Point Park where trees had fallen. Had they always been that way, or had the recent storms knocked them down? I realized I didn’t know, hadn’t noticed, or was simply never really paying attention.

As I went through the underpass below Jupiter Road for the last time, it only then dawned on me that there was a large drainage pipe to the side of all the accumulated tree debris, beckoning darkly amidst the columns like some gate to the underworld.

As I ran, I noticed spiderwebs on the grass, as I had seen for several days in a row, It turns out, not surprisingly, that there is a thing called a grass spider. I had gone 63 years without knowing this, and for every one of those years, those grass spiders had been spinning webs in the field that eventually became Oak Point Park.

The beauty of creation continues to unfold the more we look at it. But we have to look quietly, intently, and constantly, or we won’t see it. It twinkles in front of us like starlight, and after a few more apartments, a few more Starbucks, and yet another not-particularly-needed strip mall, it’s gone.

The lake at Oak Point was, as usual, stunning, and as I ran, I spotted a marker for a 10K run. I don’t know how long it’s been there, but clearly the City of Plano had a long term commitment to holding runs in the park. Looking back at the last 8 days, I couldn’t help but approve: it got people out into nature where they could see it first hand.

I was delayed somewhat when I reached Bob Woodruff Park because there was a small white passenger sedan driving the perimeter of the park very slowly. At first, I thought it was a park employee, but when I saw the car had no Parks and Rec stickers, I suspected something wasn’t right. I called the non-emergency number at the Plano Police Department, and an officer arrived in the time it took me to top off the ice in my Thermoses from the recently-drunk Fanta Orange I’d bought at the Chevron. Once the officer arrived, I was good to continue my run, but I kept thinking about the white car. The way the driver was ultra-cautious but completely lost gave off a strong “senior” vibe, and I couldn’t help but think I’d played a small role in getting someone’s elderly parent or grandparent back to safety.

It shook me, though.

Not long afterwards, I reached the hill at Los Rios and began ascending. Looking for something to amuse myself, I spotted another large wooden cable spool in a field next to a high school and began to make up a story in my head about how it had gotten there. It’s also worth mentioning that after my experience on Lookout Drive with the giant cable drum being the ONLY shade, Leslie and I had started to call them “shade drums.”

Maybe you have to be of a certain age to recognize the riff on the old TV show Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, but the hilarity of Leslie’s text about the “shade drum” made my day.

Eventually I made it to “my” sofa at mile 24, to the van at mile 25 and the parking lot on 15th street near Barnes and Noble, and out the back onto Chisholm Trail, where I spotted a soft drink that had not moved for FOUR DAYS.

On my way back on Bluebonnet Trail, this time skipping the bridge and the northern leg that led to the little stone pavilion, I encountered writing in the sidewalk that I had not noticed before, but which had clearly been there for some time.

It said, simply, “Ed.” It made me think of my dad, and that put a smile on my face as well.

Despite the fact that I had only run 31 miles that day instead of 33, I arrived at Coit and the end of my run just before the sun went down. My moving time was horribly slow, as my ankle had really begun to hurt. My feet were incredibly sore, and my toes were practically screaming despite the gel pads and tape, which were slowly slipping off underneath my sock. My shoe felt tight and I wanted desperately to get a bath.

But I didn’t care, because none of that mattered. I had promised myself, I would do the 1406 miles my own way, and I did: slowly, steadily, and in the moment.

It had been a wonderful, memorable day, and an incredible 25 days full of life, joy, and memories.

Wrap-up

Ever since I’d experienced horrible and somewhat surprising peripheral edema following my run across Iowa in 2018, I’d realized I needed something I could walk in that fit swollen feet. Immediately after I got home from the last day of the run, I got out some shoes I’d held onto since the end of the USA run: a pair of barely-used size-13 Roadclaw 275s. I wore them for the three days following the end of the run.

Meanwhile, Leslie had been watching Facebook Marketplace ads for lightly used bikes. She spotted a titanium frame 2017 Motobecane SL Ti, with a nearly-new Ultegra component group, new brakes, and only slightly worn shifter cables. It had the weight of a carbon bike but the durability of aluminum, and the price was right: even if I had to put three or four hundred dollars into repair, it wouldn’t equal the cost of repairing my old bike. We decided to go for it, and drove down to Houston to check it out. The bike was as good as it sounded, I bought it, and quickly took it to Bike Mart to have my old wheelset moved over, which would take a little doing since the particular Zondas I was using might or might not handle an 11-speed cassette. I still don’t know which set of wheels I’ll end up with, but I know that once I get “Mike the Bike” back, I’ll have something that’s in better condition than Carlotta. And maybe it will be time for a new wheelset, I don’t know. Right now, it’s too much to think about. I’m bone-tired, hungry, my feet hurt, and I feel like I could sleep until the middle of next week.

But the damage wasn’t just physical or mechanical. As with the transcon, I was getting a bit emotionally ground down toward the end of this event. At least it was something I recognized.

Sometimes when that happens, though, I listen to my own negativity and that of others; and as physical, mental, and spiritual exhaustion set in, I begin to doubt myself, wonder if any of it matters, and feel like an imposter just when I’ve accomplished something I should feel genuinely good about. It’s something well-known to transcontinental runners, who most often experience it in the 4-6 weeks following completion of their event. There’s even a name for it: The Weight of Gold, a reference to the fact that Olympic athletes often feel depressed after their intense training is over, they’ve won the gold, and should feel happy but don’t. Those moments didn’t come on as hard or last as long as they did after the US run, but I suspect that my exhaustion and emotional lability toward the end of the T1DecaMan might have had a little to do with my feeling down as I was wrapping things up.

That’s why the real icing on the cake was the surprise call from my Mom the day after I finished. My brother-in-law Tommy had stopped by her facility to help get her settled in after a recent move, and took the opportunity to tell her what I had just done, and recorded her words. When I texted him back, he set up the call on his cell phone.

It felt especially nice to know Mom was proud of me, but even better just to hear her voice. It lifted me up as it always has, and reminded me that like the trees, sunlight, quiet creeks, shade, cold water and a place to sit down, the simplest, best things in life are meant to be enjoyed in the moment, while they are happening, as fully as possible.