R2R2R

I take a break from my usual posts about food to bring you my latest adventure.

R2R2R of the Grand Canyon.

47 miles.

11,000 feet of vert.

5 years in the making.

I truly have been trying to do this for 5 years, but things kept stopping me: training/running partner bailed on me, 2 pregnancies, 2 post-partum/nursing times of life, injury, weather, etc. Covid tried to stop us this year and I said, "NO!"

Appendicitis tried to stop us this year and my husband said, "NO!"

So please join me, for photo overload of the most amazing and difficult thing I have ever done.

Over Labor Day weekend, my husband got his appendix out. Right in the thick of our longest, hardest runs....by the time he was fully recovered and running long again, we were two weeks out. I asked if he still wanted to go? If we should delay it? If just I should do it? He said, "No," to all of the above. He felt fine.

The original plan was that my parents, aunt, and uncle were coming down to also see and hike in the Grand Canyon. My parents would take my kids while we ran, and then we would resume our parental responsibilities. So, two or three days before we are supposed to leave, we find out my aunt has COVID-19! What do we do? My mom didn't want to do the super long drive if her dear friend, my aunt, wasn't coming. They also felt guilty about doing the trip without my Aunt and Uncle...what to do? My dad, bless his heart, trained so hard to hike down the Phantom Ranch and back and still really wanted to go. My mom offered to keep the kids at home and have us just go, but my five-year-old really wanted to see the Grand Canyon. He was so excited for the trip.

So, mom stayed home, dad drove separately with my sister, who was running with us, and he watched my kids while we ran. My dad is amazing.

So....driving from Salt Lake City to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is a long drive. Especially with

children. I just want to say, they did great. Thank goodness for Disney+, Netflix, the library, stickers, pom pom balls, all the snacks, etc.

So, night before we started to prep. Never mess with your routine. Everything except my water bladder is pictured because that was in the fridge getting cold: water, gatorade, extra gatorade powder, peanut butter and honey sandwich, boiled potatoes with coconut oil and salt, Honey Stingerz, baby food, fruit snacks, sport beans, clif bars, lara bars, fruit leather, toilet paper,

sunglasses, poles, phone, watch charger/battery pack, tampons (yippee skippy for being a girl...), chap stick, credit card (for lemonade), 2 pairs of socks, extra batteries, rain/wind jacket, shoes, socks, tank top, shorts, long sleeve, gloves (didn't need), 2 buffs (one for head, one to act as a mask), hat, head lamp. My sister had the sunscreen, my husband had the first-aid kit.

It is a lot of stuff. I borrowed a larger pack from my good friend, who works for Black Diamond. It was great...until I was only in a tank top. We will just say it is a proto type. It is technically a small men's pack, they are working on a women's specific pack and I had some feedback for them.

So, we set our alarms for 3 AM and got to bed. I was really nervous I wasn't going to be able to sleep. I had been having stress dreams about this for weeks. Normally the night before a race or even a normal long run, if I am doing it with people, I have a hard time falling asleep. Not tonight. I fell right asleep, I didn't constantly wake up, everything was great.

3 AM came, we suited up, grabbed our breakfast and drove into the park.

We wanted to do a Y shaped run: down South Kaibab, up North Kaibab, down North Kaibab, up Bright Angel. The only problem is there is NO PARKING allowed at the South Kaibab Trailhead. We wanted to be 2 hours into our run by the time the hiker bus started running at 6 AM. Luckily the Rangers were really helpful in helping me figure our the logistics of everything via email beforehand. We had to park about 3/4 a mile away at a picnic area, but it was a nice way to warm up before the big descent.

My husband, Derek, and sister, Lisa, before the fun started. Lisa's boyfriend was supposed to come (and destroy us all) but he got tendonitis in his foot. But he let Lisa borrow is Kogalla Light which was so bright it was like day time. We took this picture to commemorate the beginning of the day and to show our mom we were totally safe in the dark.

Derek was our fearless leader ready to start the adventure.

Running down the South Kaibab Trail was so fun. The stars were amazing. So many of them, I haven't seen stars like that in a long time because I have little kids so we go to bed before they all come out when we camp. But no moon. It was so dark that if you turned off your light, you could not see your hand if it was in front of your face. But look at those lights, we were totally good.

We made it to the tunnel in pretty good time, it was still pitch black and we still had the energy and desire for shenanigans.

You will have to forgive the blurry and grainy pictures. It was dark. We were moving. Not great for high quality photos. But we made it to the river in good time. Still dark. Crushing milage to beat the heat. The heat wave from the summer didn't end...a week before it was still triple digits in the bottom of the canyon during the day. Normally in October it is nice. Forecast was for 94 degrees, so we wanted to do as much in the dark as we could.

We made it to Phantom Ranch, topped off our water, passed a huge group of dudes from North Carolina, and headed off. Still dark. Doing great.

The canyon section between Phantom Ranch the the death climb that is the North Kaibab Trail is so beautiful. There are like 8 of these little bridges. At first I was so enamored with them, and then I realized there were a lot of them. But it was so beautiful. I call this one, "What the he** is wrong with my wife?"

Daylight broke, we were moving like the Flash. So fast, the entire picture is blurry!

I could not get over these canyon walls. So amazing.

Anyway, at about mile 15ish...Derek hurt his calf. Not good.

At first he thought he was cramping. He took a salt tab. We ate. We drank. But it wasn't improving. Definitely a strain. Luckily, he is a physical therapist and knew exactly what to do and what not to do to keep from injuring it for real. I guess that is what happens when you get an appendectomy 6 weeks before and it screws up your training. So, our awesome pace slowed down a LOT. Running was painful and downhill was painful. So we power hiked.

A pipe broke and made for some fun obstacles. Derek is a gazelle. He has these long legs and just steps and pops over things like this. Thank you Lisa for photographing how awkward I am.

I was so enamored with the beauty of this canyon and I really wanted to drink this little waterfall. On the way back, I may have needed to be talked out of jumping in. It was so hot on the way back.

We kept of trekking through the early morning shadows and loving the morning light on the cliffs.

Then we started to climb. Up, up, up we went. And we were not moving fast. I was praying that Derek would be alright. We had a little pow-wow. Is he going to turn around and start heading back? "Hell no," was his answer. So we kept climbing.

We got to the Supai Tunnel and a Ranger was hanging out there. He told us, 1.7 miles to go, that isn't what I calculated by my watch, I thought we were closer. He was right. I was wrong. Stupid watch...Derek toyed with the idea of turning back, but knew he would run out of water before making it back to Manzanita Rest Area. The closest water was the top.

We made it to the last look out before the top. So beautiful. So steep. This is so cheesy but I kept telling myself the Little Engine That Could story in my head (I have a 2 year-old who loves trains) and also kept hearing Shaun T from Insanity (that I haven't done in like 8 years) yelling at me, "You. Can. Do It!"

Almost there. You climb out of red rock desert and into a forest. It is so beautiful. The closer you get to the top, the bigger the trees get.

We made it! It was cold up there and I have food in my teeth in this picture and I do not care. We got water, stretched, and rested. We met a guy waiting for that big group of dudes from North Carolina, and another guy waiting for a group of ladies. We had not seen the ladies. We took a long rest so Derek could assess and work on his leg. He debated asking for a ride back around with one of the guys but decided against it.

Derek took like a 4 minute head start and honestly, it took a long time to catch him. He was cruising. And we had fun running to catch him.

He was hurting. But is the strongest, most resilient, person. He stayed so positive. I would have been dropping F bombs and so angry. He just accepted that it happened and he had to finish. Thank goodness for poles, he would do this skipping motion to spare his leg and kept saying that his good calf was going to be huge by the end of this.

We met a super nice guy named Will. We kept leap frogging him. He took this picture and eventually we stayed together for awhile.

I cannot get over how pretty it is.

Lisa paying homage to Mother Earth and requesting the breeze continue so it didn't feel so hot.

So obliged. But I still soaked my hat any time we refilled water or were near a stream.

Coming through the canyon section in the bottom in the light was an entirely new experience. It was even more beautiful.

About 2 miles from Phantom Ranch, Derek stopped and said, "We need to talk."

"Oh no," I thought.

He told my sister and I we needed to go ahead. That we needed to make up time. Because my dad has had the kids all day and at this pace he will all night. He is hiking to Phantom Ranch and back tomorrow and I don't want him to have to stay up super late. "You guys get to the top and call him so you can start running the shuttle. Then he can go back to the hotel and Katie and the kids can wait for me."

"Absolutely not," was my reaction. I was not going to leave him alone and injured in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. No matter how much he assured me he wasn't sick. He would be fine and make it, just slowly, I did not want to leave.

We left him. We saw reason. But I was inwardly freaking out the entire time. We saw a helicopter pick up gear. That was cool. We were running. We felt like we were flying. We were doing an 11:30 pace....

We made it to Phantom Ranch. I was totally prepared to pay $12 for that lemonade. It was only $5! So Lisa and I each got one, drank half, combined them, and left them for Derek. I scratched his name onto the cup and hoped he would find it. (PS: he did! But the jacket he stashed earlier was gone.)

We refilled our water and kept moving.

We made it to the river. It was so beautiful. I felt giddy.

All three of us river guided on the Colorado. That is how Derek and I met and fell in love. So it is a really special place to us and it was amazing.

So we obviously had to go to it. I splashed it on my face, legs, dunked my hat, and felt its magic.

I was really hoping that magic would spur me to the end. I don't know if it was that or sheer willpower.

But we kept moving. Look, I am climbing so fast I am blurry.

I was rapidly getting dark. Like I am talking from light to pitch black in a manner of minutes. We were hoping we would make it before dark. But Derek's injury really put us behind schedule. I was tired and hungry but so sick of all the food I had and didn't want any of it...but alas, I succumbed and ate it anyway.

The night before Derek saw a Wendy's commercial about a burger on a pretzel roll bun. So at the 3 mile rest stop, we had service and called my dad and told him to get one for Derek.

We made it in one piece. It was amazing. It was brutal. It was long. I am so amazed by what the human body can do and so grateful for mine. But it was dark and I was freaking out about Derek.

But I saw my babies. I got Wendy's for Derek. My dad and Lisa left to go get our car and I ate all the french fries and a bag of grapes my dad had while I waited for Derek. He was only about 40 minutes behind us. Those long gazelle legs move him uphill fast. But we were both so tired and he only cared about that burger. He was so stoked. That we didn't even take a picture. We just left.

I was so tired I didn't want dinner. Just the fries and grapes. Shower. Kiss the babies. Bed.

We had decided that in order to make the epic drive worth it with kids, we needed to make it a real vacation. So we went to the rim with the kids and obviously they never look at the camera at the same time or at all. This is the best shot out of six.

We are huge fans of the Jr. Ranger Program. Grant has the book in his hand. We gladly weren't as sore as we thought we'd be.

Once, he finished and got his badge. We headed to Bryce Canyon to camp. It was cold, but we were prepared.

This will be our Christmas Card photo this year because EVERYONE IS LOOKING AT THE CAMERA AND SMILING! Plus is is beautiful. Grant, my five-year-old, was enamored with Bryce Canyon. Here are some quotes, "Daddy, sometimes you have to just stop and look at it." And he repeatedly told us he wants to live there.

We hiked 9 miles. Grant is a champion. The downhill was excruciating. He loves to run and do races and since I wasn't carrying a kid, I got to race....downhill...I could not have beat him if I tried. I just hobbled. But it was so beautiful and amazing.