Grand Canyon Run

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This is a report from my friends Paul Todd and Mykl Shannon who recently ran the 48 mile Grand Canyon Loop.

Running the Grand Canyon has been on my list of things to do for a while. So I started to look into the logistics of it and see what was involved. Initially I was thinking a run from south to north would be good. It turns out it’s a 200 mile plus drive to the north side for a pickup. No way was I going to convince my wife to do that. Not to mention the north rim is shut down until May. So after reading about what other people have done, I decided to hoof it back and make it a double.The route is just shy of 48 miles and has about 21,000 feet of descending and ascending. It’s almost flat. We also ran around a little bit on the trail adding in some distance to get to 49 or 50. We weren’t completely sure since GPS is a little goofy in the canyon. March seemed like a good time since it wouldn’t be during race season and the weather would be manageable (not too hot or too cold, just right). My goal was to build up to a couple of 50 mile weeks. Between general obligations and getting sick a few times I was only able to run about 20 miles a week and get in one 30 mile week. My longest runs were between 10 and 11 miles; all 5 of them.Mykl and I arrived on Friday afternoon and did some trail recon to check conditions. The weather was going to be perfect with highs on the south rim of 60, 80 at the river, and 40 on the north rim. It was going to be a new moon, meaning no natural light. There was not really any ice on the south rim which is about the only worry this time of year. Dennis was running late so we went ahead with a gourmet dinner at the local pizza joint. One pizza and a pitcher of beer later we were good to go. We went back to the room and double checked our gear and relaxed.The plan was to start at 3:30 AM. Well we woke up at 3 but for some reason it took too long to mobilize and we didn’t hit the trailhead until 4:20 AM. It was 20 degrees at the start. Which, for me is cold. I think 50 degrees is cold! We put on our head lamps and started out nice and slow to ease into it. We were all pretty excited. Going down was easy. We hit the 1.5 mile rest house and used the facilities. We took a few pictures and kept going. After a little bit longer we hit the 3 mile rest house. I pulled off my gloves here as my hands were warming up. The trail was well maintained and easy to descend on. I would start getting into a rhythm going over the logs in the trail. There was a fair amount of dust so I took the lead to avoid breathing it in. Somewhere around mile four I tripped on a log or rock and crashed hard on my right side. As I was getting up and assessing the damage Mykl and Dennis caught up to me. I felt okay but my left hand had a few scrapes and was bleeding. I rinsed it off since there was plenty of mule crap on the trail.We went through Indian Gardens quickly and started to hit the devil’s corkscrew. The morning light was starting to filter into the canyon. We stopped to get out the medical kit and clean my hand. We put the lamps away since we could run with the morning light now. Our first glimpse of the river was at Pipe Creek beach. From there it was a couple of miles along the river in some loose dirt and soft sand before we were able to cross at Bright Angel (Silver) Bridge. A few campers from Phantom Ranch were stirring and starting their hikes out. We got our fair share of funny looks.We stopped at Phantom Ranch to eat a little and grab some water before heading onto the North rim. We were still feeling pretty good up to this point. I started to strip off layers as it warmed up. There was one deer just hanging out by the water stop. He didn't seem to be bothered by us at all. We started out on the next 14 miles to get to the North Rim. The trail was nice and easy for a while just winding along next to a creek. I was taking a lot of pictures and some video.Eventually it started to wind up and we passed Ribbon Falls. We didn't detour to visit it and just kept trucking. I was starting to feel the fatigue in my legs as I was now past my longest run of the year. Cotton Wood campground came at 14 miles. We stopped again to eat and rest a little. Next up was Roaring Springs.This was perfect as there was water to reload with. I checked my pack bladder to see how much water I had. It looked like I had enough but the reality is I should have reloaded. After more food and a quick drink we started up the steep trail. On the way up we came around a bend and were faced with a heavily iced over section of trail. Crossing would have been dumb. If anything happened it was a shallow drop to a slick section and then a major drop into oblivion. There was a section to boulder down and up to get around the ice. We wisely opted for that.Somewhere around three miles from the top Mykl start to drop back and bonk a little bit. He ate his sandwich and took some time to digest before catching up to where Dennis and I had found some nice rocks to sit on and enjoy the view. The Supai Tunnel was the next major marker along the trail. It's a tunnel blasted out of the rock.After that there are only two more miles to the top, but each mile climbs about 700 feet. This section was really more of a hike with very little running. Mykl was going to give up once he ran out of water but Dennis and I threatened to drag him up if necessary. I ran out of water soon after that as well. About a half mile from the top we saw two other rim to rim runners coming back. They had started about 1 hour and 20 minutes before us. As Dennis and I were hiking together he busted out a Golden Delicious apple. I said "where did you pull that from??" He was kind enough to give me a bite. That was heaven right there, especially since I was out of water. Once we hit the top we took a break to grab some food and Dennis being a camel shared his extra water with Mykl and I. It took about 7 hours to reach the North rim.We started to bomb back down the trail since we were out of water. It was only about 4.5ish miles back to the water stop at Roaring Springs but it was not fast going. When we were a mile out from the water stop we caught the other two runners and passed them. One guy asked me if I was an ultra runner. My response was "this was my first run over 10 miles this year" so not really. Which is pretty close to accurate, I may have rounded down a little, by one mile. They thought we were nuts. We made it to the water stop and I drank about 1.5 liters of water (with some Gatorade mixed in). This was probably our longest stop at 30 minutes since we had to wait for Mykl to catch back up. At this time I put on my extra socks I had brought and I sat in the sun for a while to warm up and snack some more. Those clean socks felt sooooo good.We got moving again and eventually made it back to Cotton Wood campground. Mykl was having knee problems at this point and couldn't run. This was bad news since we had another 18 miles to go. 9 miles of it was relatively flat. Being a physical therapist he gave me some line like his crucial anterior ligament was failing to stabilize his patella femoral groove or something. I just chocked it up to his knee hurt. I have no idea what he really said. He started power walking while I rested in the shade and Dennis was using the facilities. About 15 minutes later we got rolling again and eventually caught up to him. We stopped behind a big rock offering the only shade we could get to. There we busted out the med kit and helped him tape his knee up. Mykl started on his way while Dennis and I cleanup up the trash and packed up the kit. It took us a couple of miles to catch back up to him. This was good news as it meant he was running. We were making good time. I eventually drank all of my Gatorade bladder and switched to my water only bladder for the last few miles into Phantom Ranch. I had to stop frequently to stretch out my left hip to keep my knee loose. Otherwise I was doing pretty good.When we arrived at the Ranch we sat around for a while drinking water,eating, and commiserating on how bad we were feeling. The hardest part was left. The climb back out. We only had a few hours of daylight left. I was pretty sure we weren't going to make it back before sunset and we would be pulling the lamps out again. We started moving again and I had totally forgotten about the soft sand along the river. That sucked. The Devil's corkscrew took forever to get through but eventually we hit Indian Garden. Dennis and I were about 15 minutes ahead of Mykl so we tanked up on water, put on some additional layers since we were chilling down and laid down on some benches. It felt good to prop up my legs and close my eyes. I was starting to get pretty sleepy on the trail. Once we had regrouped and fed ourselves we headed up for the final 4.6 miles. We passed a group of deer just hanging out on the trail. We caught up with some others for the final ascent. At this point we were just hiking along with no running. Dennis and I took turns pulling Mykl along. He would grab onto our packs and get a nice tow for a while. Once he let go it was like having rocket boosters moving up was much easier. I was hiking next to someone else on the trail when their phone rang. I was thinking cell reception?!? Holy crap I'm going to call Suzie and let her know where I was. That was a total surprise and relief.Once we hit the three mile rest house I was getting tired and I wanted it over with ASAP. I started to run 20 meters and alternate it with walking 5 meters (or treacherous sections). I was making good time here. Pretty quickly I came up on the 1.5 mile rest house and I stopped to break out my light. With about one mile to go I needed to use the light and my legs had finally quit. I was resigned to hiking the last part in. Another hiker without a lamp caught me to share in the light. When I saw the final tunnel I knew I was almost there and it was just another few meters. Getting done was just amazing. Dennis and I stumbled over to the car. I had planned ahead and packed some spare clothing and a down jacket. The temps were down in the 30's and it was cold once the sweat started to chill. I changed into warm dry clothing and ran the car heater for Dennis. It took a while to get warm and he was shivering for a while. We pounded some Gatorade and called Mykl to see where he was. He had picked up some light less stragglers and was working his way to the top slowly but safely.It was an amazing adventure but I was just glad to be done. I knew it was going to be hard, but it was a little harder than I hoped for being so under trained. It took us a total of 15 hours and 22 minutes to complete. With all of the resting and picture taking we had about 2.5 hours of rest/downtime included in the 15 hours. A big thanks to my wife for giving me the pass to get away while she took care of the family. This was my longest workout ever and my first run over 26.2 miles. It was definitely epic.