This essay is accompanied by an audio version below. Additional spoken commentary is included at the bottom of the page.
“It does not bargain with you. It does not compromise. If you don’t respect it, if you fight back, you lose. You fail. You are not safe.”
I understand. I hope you will forgive me for working against you, Genna.
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On July 11th, I will begin my attempt of the 1100-mile Mishigami Challenge – a complete circumnavigation of Lake Michigan, beginning and ending in Chicago.
In 2024, I began the inaugural Rule of 3 200 and retired at mile 70 around 1:00 a.m.
In 2025, I made it to mile 170 of the first Central Missouri Circuit and called for extraction after another overnight that robbed me of all faculties.
Later that year, I stopped 163 miles into my solo attempt to ride border to border of the state inside of 24 hours, again coming undone before dawn without recovery.
On the contrary, I rode from St. Louis to Louisville, KY, 420 miles solo in five days. I was morbidly uncertain I could pull it off, but arrived at the Ohio river feeling something like… “that’s it?”
And finally, I rode 465 miles through the heart of Missouri to intercept Lael Wilcox in the final days of her Around the World record attempt. The plan was five days again. On day 4, I wanted to be home and rode the remaining 189 miles at once. That was my strongest and best feeling ride of that trip.
I think you can see where I am going with this.
As I have previously written in Depths Too Dark, the cognition of a trauma-adapted mind seems to interact poorly with the circadian disruption, heightened risk perception, and lowered emotional processing in the overnight hours of ultra events. In my last attempt, I made the critical error of thinking that limiter could be bartered with and more simply, I just didn’t want to accept limits.
I kept trying to force myself through races that struck every single weakness I have, and experienced shutdown every time.
1100-miles, on the other hand, is incredibly too long to be that negligent, and history suggests my legs get better with age.
The distance was never the problem, and neither was I; this format simply did not work for me.
In races past, I have unknowingly simulated the same survival states I have had to navigate off the bike. A chronic, internally decimating sense that anything (or everything) could fail at any moment and I have no safety net. An ever-nagging, unrealistic standard to remain entirely independent, trained into me early by parents that said things like, “I can’t help you with that. I don’t get anything out of it.”
As it turns out the unconscious does not differentiate between being broken down in a vehicle you live in and a dark bike race where help would actually disqualify you. It reacts to threat the same for both.
The attitude of “just keep pushing” is both necessary and a confrontation of all you cannot handle alone in the middle of the night.
Meanwhile, the fastest woman at Mishigami to date describes herself as a “diva” and stays in hotels every night. (An interview with Sarah Rice is on the calendar.)
Of all the things I want to prove still, whether or not I can make it through anything isn’t on the list, really.
I just want to see how hard I can ride without arguments with demons that seem to come out only at night.
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This story is ongoing. I am fortunate to have support for this plan right out of the gate. If you would like to contribute to additional equipment and logistics needs for this event, you can contact Julie at jfkoirty@gmail.com.
I will the machine. 