Grand Canyon - Rim to Rim to Rim - 10/20

Round 3 - The Grand Canyon - Rim to Rim to Rim

Basics
42 miles
~11,000 feet of descent
~11,000 feet of climbing

What a beautiful trail/run. If you're in shape for this ... get on it! Starting on the South Kaibab trail (awesome views the whole way), down to Bright Angel campground, up to the North Rim then back down and out to the South Rim on the South Kaibab. You could go on the Bright Angel trail instead of the Kaibab for either the up or down. I picked the South Kaibab because it's shorter, but I'm not sure it's that much faster. There is really just a small yearly preferred window to do this run, either early/mid October or late April. Later in the year (end of October), it get's cold/icy higher up (N. Rim) and the water is turned off at Cottonwood and Supai (could still treat from the Angel Creek if you needed to though). During the summer ... don't even try it (unless you are one of those rad Badwater runners .. even then it just seems sketchy) .... May-September the average max in the inner gorge is 90+ and you are at the lower elevations for ~17 miles.

So October 20th is about optimal. I felt I was in OK shape for this one. I had done a strong 18 mile, 3000ft climb the week before and I had a big base of running this summer. Drove up the night before, got to sleep around 1:00. Woke up to a perfect day, good temps (~50 at the rim) with a light wind .. started down the trail just after 7:00AM. The first 6 miles are STEEP! 4700 feet down with a average grade of 752ft/mile (14%). Spent a little bit of time behind a mule train ... special ... then down to the bottom ... amazing how quick this section goes. I had run down and out before, so I knew to keep it slow on the section, but still it beats you up. The next section has a really mild grade only climbing 1500ft in the next 7.1 miles (211 ft/mile - 4%). I ran through this section, but it seemed a lot slower than I wanted ... just feeling it from the start. The 7 miles up to the rim is awesome ... ran sections, but most of the switchbacks were just too steep (4250 climb, 616ft/mile, 12%). A little bit of rest at the rim then back in the hole! 7 quick miles down to Cottonwood, then 7 miles of work to Bright Angel Campground. I really worked on this section trying to keep up a good pace - the low grade and distance (miles 28-35) make this feel almost flat. Even in October this section and the inner gorge are hot (~85F). Took it easy up the lower gorge then power hiked to the top. The last few hours were perfect ... sun down, 2/3rd moon out, the entire Canyon lit up, stiff wind at the top ... doesn't get much better. The last shuttle bus pulled up about 10 seconds after I topped out ... PERFECT!

Total Time - 12:36
Liquids 320 oz - 20#'s! of water/cytomax ~ 1080 calories
Gels ~ 1500 calories
Ran ~30 out of 42 miles.

AFTERMATH - This run KILLED my calves for the next few days. I just hobbled around in pain ...

Training Thoughts - Probably need to run more hard down-hills to help train for this. Immediately afterwards thought - never again - but .. after a couple of days ... I'm ready to go! The last 7 miles to the North Rim are definitely runable, just need to really dig in.

The grade on the climbs is really steep. For comparison:
Bishop High Sierra 50 (up-section) ~ 16 miles, 5400 ft, ~6%
La Luz trail run , 9 miles, 4700 ft, averages ~10%
Pikes Peak Marathon (up) - 13.3 miles, 7815 ft, ~11%
Wasatch Steeplechase (up) - 6 miles, 4500 ft, ~14%

Trail Distances/Elevations
Start - S. Kaibab Trailhead - 7,200 ft
6.3 Miles - Colorado River - 2,460 ft
6.9 Bright Angel Campground - 2,500 ft (Water)
14.0 Cottonwood Campground - 4,000 ft (Water)
20.9 North Rim - 8,200 ft.
27.8 Cottonwood Campground - 4,000 ft
34.9 Bright Angel Campground - 2500
35.5 Colorado River - 2460
41.8 South Rim - S. Kaibab Trailhead - 7,200 ft
(Water also at 19.1/22.7 - Supai Tunnel)

Still have the public enemy CD in my head
Startled several hikers coming down from the North Rim singing (and if you've heard my singing - that's scary enough)

I'M LIKE THAT DOLL CHUCKIE BABY
KEEP COMING BACK TO LIVE LOVE LIFE LIKE I'M CRAZY

Bouldering Megaday - 10/16

Finally ready for round 2!

400 pts. of bouldering in a day - Harder than I thought!

Knees finally recovered enough from the Everest challenge to move to the next round. Scoring this as V1=1 pt, V2=2 pt, V3=3 pt, .... didn't sound that hard? But once I started to do the math it seemed a little more extreme. If I did V1s only, this would be 400 problems. At say 1 minute per problem, this ends up being 6.7 hours of climbing. Moving it up a notch or two helps with the volume, but the difficulty (and rest required) starts to overwhelm the volume pretty quickly ... I would expect that 40 V10s (not that i'm doing v10 right now) in a day would be pretty radical for even the very best climbers, so I plan on keeping it pretty easy.

Doing this at a gym (West LA) ... I know sort of lame ... but the convenience (and cushy landing) was a big sell.

Started at 8:30 ---- Initially sort of slow (checking all the problems out) only 26 pts in the first hour! .... need to step it up a notch .... let's try upping the grade ... 20 V4's later ... I'm done with V4 for a bit .... let's try some volume .... 52 V2's later .. it's time for lunch .... let's try some really easy volume ... 50 V1's later .... yeah time for a break (252 so far) ... off to work in Chatsworth for a couple of hours .... then back to the gym. Only 3:15 left('till the gym closes) to finish up 148 more points. 70 more V2s and 2 more V4s (just to keep it real in the last hour) and done. With 30 minutes left to go figured out my math was wrong and had to plug in another 10 V2s.

Totals
V1 - 60 X 1 = 60
V2 - 126 X 2 = 252
V4 - 22 = 88
208 problems for 400 pts.
8.5 hours of climbing
2.45 minutes/problem
24.5 problems/hour
~2000 feet of total climbing

The knees started to act up towards the end ... 208 problems up also means 208 X 6ft drops down. Skin SO does not feel loved. Last couple of hours were just dragging my ass up every time ... most of the day had the latest public enemy CD running through my head:

YOU DON'T STAND FOR SOMETHING
YOU FALL FOR ANYTHING
HARDER THAN YOU THINK
IT'S A BEAUTIFUL THING