Rim2Rim2Rim-5/16

I am back from the Grand Canyon safely. Here is my story….
Short version- One big hole in the ground, 45 miles with 2 big climbs.

Long version-
Honey, Chip, Andrew, Kirk and I did the rim 2 rim 2 rim on Fri night under an almost full moon and it was an epic journey. We drove up (3hrs 13 minutes, new record) Fri afternoon and after reviewing our plans we decided to park at Bright Angel trailhead and take a shuttle to South Kaiboob TH.
After the 3 day shuttle stopping at every pinecone so foreigners can take pictures, we got to transfer to another shuttle. As I saw the other shuttle we needed across the way, I started running to make sure he didn’t leave us. Little did I know as I was crossing this closed dirt area that a huge elk was standing in and all these people were trying to take its picture and it ran off and scared the crap out of everyone? Oh well, I wasn’t going to miss another shuttle.
We descended into the canyon at 6:30pm Fri evening via South Kaiboob. After stopping at a few places to take it the sunset views and get some pics, we got into a good rhythm and just kept cruising all the way into Phantom Ranch at about 7:45. After a 10 minute break at PR we headed out for cottonwood thru box canyon, the coolest place to run anywhere, period. With some new trail work and bridges over the swamp we didn’t even have to get our feet wet. Cruising into Cottonwood, we stopped to grab some water as we would probably blow thru the ranger station and head straight up to the north rim. Once we got to the Supai Tunnel it started getting chili so we all put on shells and gloves and headed up the longest 1.5 miles on earth. With Chip and Andrew pulling us along, we made it to the top at 11:45 for a time of 5:15 for the first half of the trip. 21.5 miles down 23.5 to go.
Being 35 degrees at the top we needed to get down soon so we started cooking along at a pretty good pace and stopped at the tunnel to grab some water and take a few pictures and decided to blow thru the ranger station and head straight for Cottonwood. Chip was running so strong here I couldn’t keep up. Being the rookie of the trip, maybe he forgot we had one more big hill to go up. After everyone rolled into CW, we headed out for PR and I kind of fell apart tripping on every rock I could see. Every time Honey came around a corner in box canyon, there I was, lying on the ground cussing and throwing my Clif bar into the river. We finally made it to Phantom at 2:45am. I wanted to be done with this thing SOOOO bad; we only had 9.5 to go, straight up. I took an idea from Krupika and took 3 gels and 2 s-caps within a half hour and started to feel better. We were going up devils corkscrew and I was feeling pretty good. Getting to Indian Gardens, Andrew and I took off and headed up the final 4.5 miles of switchbacks-(the new longest 4.5 miles on earth) This trail is brutally tough. Beaten up by the mules and so much traffic even if it wasn’t straight up you couldn’t run it. Now the sun was starting to rise and we were waking up to see some people coming down and starring at us like we were idiots, they are right, we are. This is a crazy run. Every time you think you are at the top there is another switchback. I wasn’t sure I was done until I was sitting in my car. Andrew and I crawled out of the canyon at 5:58am for a total of 11.5 hours for the 45 miles. The rest of the crew cruised in with in the next 10 minutes to half hour.
So I put to rest the curse of the flowered shirt. I wore the same shirt I wore at ZG, a Hawaiian aloha print. Someone said after ZG, maybe I would have done better if I didn’t wear flowers like a girl. I am superstitious so I had to give it another try. It wasn’t the shirt. All is good in the canyon and it is the best training run you can do and the every runner should experience a night in the canyon with good friends. I will be back in the fall. See the link below for photos of our adventure. Chip is runner of the week for his great showing in the canyon, Honey is runner up for putting up with all the boys for a night. Great job to all, thanks for the company. See you Wed am.
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