2023 PHOTOS AND STORIES

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Every step was painful! Uninvited thoughts inserted themselves into my consciousness: “Why would you ever attempt a 50-mile run without ANY training?”, “You haven’t even done a marathon, why attempt a 50-mile ultra-run?” I knew the answers to these questions and kept going even while blisters formed, and shin splints set in. The goal of a 50-miler wasn’t mine; it was Brad’s – my twin brother. Brad recruited his close friend, Michael, to support him in the run, but just a week before the big day I convinced myself that I too should be there for him. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to just go for it. During a short respite, after putting 30 miles behind us, Michael leaned over to show me his phone screen. It read “Do you think you can go on?” I indicated that I thought I could. Knowing that Brad would have support for the rest of the run, Michael, who had contracted COVID-19 just weeks before, dropped out. Now, more than ever, I knew that quitting wasn’t an option for me. Back to those nagging questions. Why was I here in the first place? Nearly 10 years earlier Brad had been in a terrible auto accident. The police officer on the scene estimated that his car must have rolled seven or eight times. At the hospital it was discovered that Brad’s neck was broken. An MRI revealed that he would need surgery right away. He was put into traction while awaiting surgery. The surgeon frankly told Brad that the chances of him being able to use his legs and arms again were slim. The surgery was successful and necessary to save his life. In the end, however, Brad was diagnosed as a quadriplegic. He was not only paralyzed from the chest down, but had drop foot, no use of his hands, no ability to urinate on his own. He couldn’t swallow properly or sit up in bed. The doctors were convinced that if Brad could get to the point of using a slide board to transfer from his wheelchair to the bed, that would be as far as he could go. Before his accident Brad was an ultra-runner. He placed third in a 50-miler for his age group. Just two weeks before the accident he had run the equivalent of three marathons in one week in preparation for a 100-mile run. He was fit and feeling good. Brad hung on to hope and worked hard to recover as much use of his arms and legs as he possibly could. As it turned out, he went from shuffling down the hall with a walker in the rehab unit to five years after his accident completing the Humpy’s Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska. The crowd was waiting for him and as he approached, someone shouted “There he is! He’s coming!” Then it was announced “Ladies and gentlemen, Brad Traxler has just completed this marathon!” Brad realized he was their own. They were proud of him. They loved him. This day we were running the Daytona 100/50. We started near St. Augustine and by now we were completing our last 10 miles. We rounded the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and then ran along Daytona Beach for several miles. The tide was up, and we had to run much of the way in loose sand. By the time we got onto the road again we were exhausted, and we must have looked it. Along those few last miles, friendly onlookers offered us water and snacks. It would be a different scene as we completed this 50-miler on Brad’s bucket list. His goal was to be the first quadriplegic to complete a 50-mile run. There was no fan fare as we rounded the corner and, unnoticed, slipped into the garage where the completion times were being recorded. We received our medals, took a picture, got into our car, and left. But we both knew something big had happened that day. Brad Traxler had become the first quadriplegic to complete a 50-mile run in the allotted time. It would be two weeks

before my ankles quit swelling, the pain from shin splints subside and blisters healed. But I have no regrets.

Brad’s book, “Running Miracle”, published in 2019, is available on Amazon.com.