This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

He started running in San Francisco, but that's not where Doug Masiuk's story begins. For that, you'd have to pinpoint the moment in time his immune system started attacking the cells in his pancreas responsible for producing insulin.

To get to San Francisco, you'd have to fast-forward through teenage years of self-doubt, lethargy in his 20s and, finally, find the resurgence of his 30s. Then you'd be at the starting point.

Earlier this month, Masiuk, from Annapolis, Md., started a quest to run across the country to raise awareness for Type 1 diabetes, the disease everyone assumed would kill him and instead has given him a reason to live.

That's right. Run. From San Francisco to New York City in 127 days.

"We try to get about a marathon a day," says Bryce Northington, one of Masiuk's three travel partners. A marathon is 26.2 miles long, which would be a light day for Masiuk, an ultramarathoner whose lifetime best is 81 miles — essentially Salt Lake to Logan.

Monday will be Day 26, and Masiuk will begin a several-day stay in Salt Lake City, where he will meet with diabetics, including the local Delinquent Pancreas Club. Hey, they lack insulin, not senses of humor.

For most of his 36 years, Masiuk wasn't a runner. Then an aunt died. Dead in her 50s, heart attack at her desk. Masiuk saw the future. So he tried running.

He vomited.

He slept for two days and tried again. And again. Soon enough ...

"I discovered I had a talent to go far," he says.

Since he started running he's cut his insulin doses by 75 percent.

"Diabetics before me in previous generations weren't always this lucky," he says. "When I was diagnosed it was called a death sentence."

Masiuk is not trying to prove something by running across the country, something only 33 others have done. He's trying to teach something. No joke, he may have found every diabetic along the way, canvassing 30 miles a day. Friday morning it was at a restaurant in Wells, Nev., where a waitress grabbed Masiuk by the arm and said, "You need to talk to my son."

Turned out, he was 20, filled with self-doubt about what he could do with this diabetic life. Sound familiar?

"Once upon a time," Masiuk said. "I had very similar thoughts."

Running, Masiuk hopes, won't change just his life.

But it can't be overlooked that it has. Even since he left San Francisco, striding across California and Nevada, from sea, past sagebrush, toward salt flats, he's inspected the world. Thinking a hill is two miles away, realizing it's 20 and getting there anyway.

"You're like, 'You just did that, your feet just carried you there,'" Masiuk says. "All those moments add up."

For more on Masiuk's journey, visit http://www.1run.org.

boram@sltrib.com Twitter: @oramb