Michael Cook’s feet are still asleep a week later.

Scabs cover his left elbow. Fatigue fills his eyes. He can’t yet bend his fingers as far as he could before he embarked on his greatest endurance challenge.

But the 38-year-old medical software writer doesn’t mind the ramifications that represent his completion of Race Across America, a grueling 3,000-plus mile pedal from coast to coast.

Cook crossed the finish line in Annapolis, Md., in the middle of the night last Monday, wrapping up the race in just over 11 days and 12 hours to earn an official finish with half a day to spare.

An accomplished endurance runner who had used cycling as little more than a cross-training side component to his jogging, Cook qualified for RAAM two years ago at the Furnace Creek 508, a race from Santa Clarita to Twentynine Palms. Cook finished the sprint through the Mojave Desert and Death Valley, his longest ride to that point, in 32 hours.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was kind of like the ultras, like Western States, where you’re done in a day, a day-and-a-half,” Cook said. “That was nice, because you know you’re going to be home tomorrow.”

Not this race.

Cook crashed his bike early on the first day. That night, he was forced to wear a wool balaclava and goggles as he crossed the warm desert to keep swarms of bugs off his face.

“You realize you’re in a different kind of race where you have these elements you had no idea you were going to run into and you have to adapt to each situation,” he said.

Cook kept his water bottles and sun sleeves packed with ice as the temperature rose in Utah.

“I was doing everything just to stay cool,” he said. “We don’t have that humidity in California. I was just dripping.

“You can’t consume enough liquids. I was getting weighed every day. When it drops to 160 that’s a warning sign I’m not taking in enough liquids. I was down to 161 and I was still drinking as much as possible.”

Cook also consumed nearly 8,000 calories a day to counter the extreme energy burn, feasting mostly on cold pasta and chicken. Coca Cola and Dr. Pepper carried him through the Kansas heat. Energy drinks and caffeine shots helped him stay alert in the saddle until after 2 a.m. several nights.

“The goal was to ride until 2, but often it was 2:30, just because we were running late,” he said. “Then we’d sleep until 5 or 5:30. I don’t think we ever got more than three or three-and-a-half hours of sleep.”

Cook would beg the members of his six-man crew following behind in a Jeep for 10-minute midday power naps on the side of the road.

“I had no idea how long I was out for,” he said. “It could have been two hours or a minute.”

On paper, every day of the race would entail three 100-mile shifts, each lasting seven hours.

“That was the goal, but it didn’t quite work out that way,” Cook said. “We stuck with three shifts, but the mileage would vary. Maybe the first shift would be 105, the next would be 80 and the last shift would maybe be 90, so over time our mileage kept getting smaller and smaller.

“If I did 300 miles a day, we’d be done in 10 days, but you do 280 and then say, ‘well, I’ll make up 320 tomorrow,’ and then you do 270 and that difference keeps growing.”

Cook also lost three hours by not operating on East Coast time, by which the race is clocked.

“Even if you planned to ride for 21 hours you’re losing an hour somewhere,” he said. “You’re losing it in sleep or you have to ride faster.”

Every 50 miles Cook got off the bike to refuel on energy bars. After meeting a rider earlier in the race who dropped out last year with only 200 miles left because his neck was so stiff he couldn’t ride, Cook also focused on stretching his upper body.

“A lot of people end up having their neck tighten up from being in that position for so long,” he said. “That was a real worry. I didn’t want to get to day six or day seven and then drop because of a stiff shoulder.”

Cook suffered a setback midway through the race when his right Achilles tendon acted up as he rode through Kansas.

“That was a surprise,” he said. “I had never had a problem with that before. I’ve always had really good luck with injuries. That was pretty painful.

“We figured out about every 40 miles it would come to the point where I couldn’t pedal with any consistency, with any power. We’d take a 10-minute break just to get an ice down and a massage and then carry on.”

As Cook crossed into Missouri one morning, he hit the turning point.

“It was just miles and miles of beautiful green corn fields, and I was in such pain from all the previous days, and I’m tired and I’m just thinking I’ve got five more days of this,” he said. “You realize that you’re here and you’ve invested all this time, all this money. People are here supporting you. You don’t want to quit.

“That was the moment I realized I had to get through it. You don’t want to let people down, and you’ve got these dreams. You don’t want to let yourself down.”

As saddle sores worsened and his limbs fell asleep from vibration and being in the same position for so long, Cook’s crew attempted to calculate when he would finish.

“It got harder and harder to manage the time,” he said. “We kept figuring what pace do we have to maintain. We had flights on Sunday for everybody, so we were trying to get done by Saturday. We realized we weren’t going to make the flights on Sunday, so then we’re thinking, ‘OK, we’ll just get in Sunday night.’

“I had people running numbers, and they said, ‘You’ve just gotta make sure you’re going to finish in 12 days. You don’t want to cut it close.’ It’s hard to know when you’re really going to finish.”

With his crew blasting Coldplay, Bruce Springsteen and U2 from a speaker mounted on top of the Jeep, Cook wrapped up a monumental race that took him through the Rocky Mountains, Gettysburg and past the Appalachian Trail.

He doesn’t plan to improve on his finish next year.

“It’s hard with the amount of time you have to invest with a family and at this point in my life,” Cook said. “Maybe later on I’d reconsider it, but it was such a big investment, just getting in the time on the bike to train. I still probably should have done more time on the bike.

“Balancing work, family, training is difficult,” he continued. “I’m happy that I did it. I’m pleased that I finished. A lot of the other racers are sponsored and a couple of them are (members of the Army’s) Special Forces. Their jobs help encourage that kind of a lifestyle, whereas I’m just an everyday, sit-at-my-desk-40-hours-a-week guy.”