Final day of bear 100 assignments. Joe and I met up and ran the first 19 miles of the course again and took down the flagging Dave and I put up last week. I would say that half had already been removed by others. I decided I should have waited another week to take down the flagging and by then all of would have been gone. And I wouldn't have to do it. But seriously, I do enjoy running that section of trail. Today, it was a grind at the end. I didn't fuel properly and I was bonking pretty good. Even with that, we still "ran" it 40 mins faster than when we set up the course. It did help that it is much faster to rip the markings off the trees and bushes than to stop and tie them. We did stop for 5 mins to chat with a guy driving a small SUV that looked like a minivan trying to get to Mt. Baldy. Not the brightest guy.
T-3:40 (11:35) 5000' vert (Time includes all stops and breaks (27 mins stopped according to SportTracks))
Full taper mode for my Grand Canyon Adventure on Monday. So, today's run was one of the shortest saturday runs EVER. But just what I needed to charge the batteries and get some fresh air. Nothing better than running up Stump Hollow watching the sunrise. Except maybe running down.
T-1:31:30 (9:09) 1800' vert
Weekly summary: 37.5 miles in 5 days with 4000' vert
One of the coolest experiences of my life and I am so glad I was able to survive it to tell the tale. It capped off my year of insane trail running experiences and was a great way to go out with a bang! It was all Jon's fault but as many of you know I don't do anything half-hearted. If we were going to run the grand canyon, we were going to "enjoy it". And by "enjoy it" I mean run as hard as we can until one of us either collapses or until someone pushes me off the cliff. It's all or nothing in my book. I do believe we succeeded.
Even though this was the longest run of my life the report will be kept to a minimum. So, here it is.....
Roughly 48.5 miles including the sightseeing detour over to the black bridge.
Sport Tracks called it at 20,000' Vertical on my garmin (but the reception is sketchy and therefore wrong)
Garmin Training Center called it 28,000' Vertical (its always wrong)
The trail had everything from smooth buffed out trail to rocky to stair stepping to insane cliffs.
10 hours and 58 mins for the "running time".
Some highlights for my records:
The cold dark descent
The 7 min pace along the desert
The fan club at Phantom Ranch and Indian Gardens
The group of Orientals "hi, hi, hi, hi, hi, etc"
Rob saying "I have to pee" every 10 mins
Jon telling Rob to drink more and take a gu (again and again and again)
The best tasting Snickers that I have ever eaten at the South Rim
The best shower ever at the campground after the run was over
Oh, and sleeping like a rock the night before the run while Rob and Jon tossed and turned all night.
I have decided to break the run into sections as there were distinct sections where the climate and trail would drastically change. I will begin with the North Kaibab trail.
Insane Switchbacks that go on for thousands of feet down and even worse up for the final push to the finish. It was filled with tons of water steps that made for tricky footing especially in the dark. I had a blast winding down this in the early morning. Not as much fun during the return trip.
After the switchbacks comes the Desert
We were lucky to pass through the desert in the cool morning air on the way out, but the way back was brutal and tested our heat tolerance. I was saved by a small creek which I used to cool off the core. My 2 bottles of water was pushing it pretty close. 3 would have been nice.
The next section of trail was the Narrows
The narrows were one of my favorite sections of trail. Very scenic and it was the flattest part of the trail. Fun both directions. It reminded me of Zions National Park. My lousy camera didn't do anything in this trip justice.
Following the narrows was the River
I just plain love the River. It is what made this all possible. It reminded me of the many times I spent at lake powell and even on the colorado above the lake. Can you spot the mule trains on the trail on the other side?
After the river begins the climb up to the South Rim. To get there you must first pass through the Devil's Corkscrew
After that brutal section, you get relief by running through the Indian Gardens then you are into the final section of trail. The South Rim Switchbacks
That little hut there is the 3 mile warming house (aka bathroom). It was 3 miles of endless switchbacks until the top. It was on this section that we ran into hundreds of tourists hiking up and down this mountain. Many were in over their heads and most thought we were crazy.
We made it....halfway at least. Now for the hard part doing it all over again, but with tired legs and heat (about 90 degrees) to add difficulty. I kept my slave driving attitude up until the end. No slackers allowed. If you can run the Grand Canyon, you can run it fast! I did find lots of opportunities to stop for 5 seconds and take a picture though (I took close to 200 pictures). For those interested (Joe maybe?) I will post the link to download all 40MB of the pictures here
We eventually made it back without anyone throwing me off a cliff (although Rob was sure tempted at times). And even more amazing was that the return trip was only about an hour slower than the first half. Not too shabby.
I recommend going to Rob's and Jon's pages for their reports as they are more entertaining. But you knew what you were going to get when you read my blog entries anyway, dry and to the point. I loved every minute of it even with all the pain and misery. I would do it all over again, but FASTER!
Recovery from Monday's excursion went well. All except for Tuesday. I went to work but nausea sent me home a tad early. I then was so sick I couldn't leave the bed. That is until 7 am the next day. From then on, I felt much better.
I finally felt the urge to run again so I decided to go run an old favorite Jardine Juniper. Now, today's run wasn't even close to time trial effort so no chance to break Jon's silly record. But I did take note of key times for future reference. It was a perfect morning for a run though and I made the most of it.
29:30 to Top of First Climb
41:00 to 4 mile Fork
49:00 to Tree turnoff (didn't go to the tree today)
53:15 to Fork
1:18:35 to End ( I took it real easy on the way down to not aggravate my sore knees).
9.5 miles (8:16) 1900' vert
***Weekly summary (2 runs) 58 miles 15,000' Vert (really just a guess on an accurate number).
I literally ran into 2 skunks on Deer Fence Today. I looked up to see the raised rear end of 2 skunks right on the trail in front of me. They didn't want to move, so I went home. They won this round, but at least I don't stink.
I decided to go hard and see what I could do. Its been a long time since I went after it like that but feel that I could still go much faster as I wasn't even sub 6 on any of the downhill. Legs felt 80% or so. Oh well its a benchmark for later runs...
I saw 4 runners and about 15 bikers. That trail was busy.
Drove to Providence and started my run there. Up the Providence Hills to Deer Fence (2 miles) and then over to Dry Canyon just past the big pit at the mouth (3 miles). Back to the car the same way. It was dark and spooky in the wee hours of the morning.
Today we (Joe and I) had a great run up in the high country. The only thing missing was Jon. Poor Jon, we sure do miss him. The runs are just to quiet without him. Anyway....I took Joe on the famous Bunchgrass trail and continued on up the White Pine trail all the way to White Pine Lake. It turned out to be just over 7 miles so we added a bit more vertical running up the saddle heading towards Tony Grove. Then, I made the mistake of letting Joe lead (never let Joe lead!) and we were flying down the canyon. 8min pace turned into 7:30 and then 6:53 then 9:10 (uphill for half) then 5:56 then 5:54 (including Joe botching a muddy creek crossing, quite a show that was!). I just couldn't keep up. He was insane. We both had a blast though and enjoyed the speed.
T- 2:23:00 (9:15) 3100' vert
** Weekly Summary 59.5 Miles 6350' vert (33 miles trail) (26.5 road)
Calf/Knee felt better today so I went out to clear the head. The soreness/tightness is still there but only while running now. Gonna take it easy for a while. No reason to push things, except for my own sanity.
Its been one of those weeks again. Work is busy, life is busy, running just hasn't made the cut. At least my leg is all better now. I did get out this morning for an easy 8. -62 mins
Today, I had a nice opportunity to run with Paul as it fit perfectly in both our schedules. There are definite advantages to running with him. One big one is that he doesn't go up silly mountain sides at 12 mins per mile. We instead run on very reasonable grades at brisk paces. That means we can get a decently long run in in under 2 hours. I made it home by 9:45! And I slept in until 7! Amazing! You do have to time it right though because he can get carried away averaging sub 6 pace all to easy. I happened to catch him during his taper and with no ambitions to do any sort of work. Therefore the pace was mild with lots of chatting and catching up. Good times.
We headed up Smithfield canyon climbing about 200' a mile keeping things well under 8 min/mile until the last couple miles where the climbing picks up and the road turns to dirt.
T- 1:44:15 (6:57) 1350' vert
*Weekly summary 34 miles 2000' vert - It was a pathetic week running wise, but I am on break so too bad!
The narrows were one of my favorite sections of trail. Very scenic and it was the flattest part of the trail. Fun both directions. It reminded me of Zions National Park. My lousy camera didn't do anything in this trip justice.
I just plain love the River. It is what made this all possible. It reminded me of the many times I spent at lake powell and even on the colorado above the lake. Can you spot the mule trains on the trail on the other side?
