Sometimes it’s really hard to explain why it is I do this to myself. For instance, I’m sitting here at the computer, a little nauseous, knees shaking from fatigue, eyes half open, and wondering how I would describe my last two days. What words will use. Can I make you feel it. Can I make you understand it. Does it matter.

Rob and I just completed a “back to back” which is where we try to inflict multiple days of pain on ourselves to mimic the fun of the TransRockies race. Monday called for 14 miles in the canyon, seven down to the Colorado River, seven back up on Kaibab. Yesterday we hit 20 miles up in the peaks here in Flagstaff. 20 silent miles. Not good.

I am trying to remember what it is I am chasing down because it seems very far away and the price seems very high.

Monday we were off very early to the South Rim of the Canyon and on the way there realized this would be my 6th significant attempt at a serious run there in the past 6 months, without victory. I am learning the hard way. The hard stubborn stupid painful way. So it’s 7:00am and we are at the rim looking over and it hits me that running in the Grand Canyon may have forever ruined what the Grand Canyon means to me. There it is, in all it’s splendor, all it’s majestic beauty, one of the seven wonders of the world, attracting millions of people from all over the world every year, and I don’t feel speechless awe, I feel very, very nervous. A knot in my throat for what is about to come.
We fall. Down down down like dropping in an elevator, falling to the Colorado River, surprising those we approach from behind, whoosh and then we are gone again. The sun is out and burning earlier than we thought and doing this sort of thing in June in Arizona, the idea is and out as fast as possible. Down by the river there are more people and I make eye contact with no one. I want to avoid all the “what are you crazy guys doing har har har” talks, get gels, get water, start the climb back. If I look crazy enough maybe they won’t talk to me.
We begin back up and the first 20 minutes are more of a mental wrestling match than anything else. I am estimating 1:20-1:30 back up but really have no idea. How do I spend this effort over the 14% grade? I have one handheld bottle. I decide to drink from 30-60 minutes continuously. Rob and I swap leads every 12- 15 minutes but by 40 minutes he is pulling away. And there I am. Me. The Grand Canyon. And severe discomfort. Too steep. Too hot. Too unforgiving. I am getting angry but my resentment does nothing to this trail. It wastes my energy. I see Rob ahead pressing. I can’t quit. I know the trick is simply one foot in front of the other. But the Canyon breaks me. Again. This trail is the same one that almost killed me in February doing a Rim to Rim to Rim run, and because of that the fact that I am suffering so much on a Monday morning in June there, again, makes me furious again to no gain.
I know someday I will win here and it will taste so, so good.
Tuesday we know will hurt and procrastinating it the parking lot of the start of the 20 miler means we are both thinking the same thing. The course is brutal, hours of climbing. The legs are simply destroyed from the day before, they cannot make sense of what I am doing to them. Are we running from fire? War? Are we being hunted by wolves? There is no reason for this running except extreme emergency. To save lives. Nothing can be this serious.
Waterline Road is a holy place for me. So beautiful. So many great memories from my time in Flagstaff up there. I’ll remember this one too, like the rest, some good some bad. But to actually participate in this one, not to remember it years later over dinner with friends, to actually do it, to swallow and partake in it, such a cost. Such a cost.
Still, the aspens at 9000 feet, that stupid tunnel of stripes, with the light coming through, just like nothing you have ever seen, it still affects me the same, even in my distress.
I reach the cabin where a spigot of cold mountain water runs and Rob is waiting for me on a log with his head in his hands. I walk past him and we say nothing. The Canyon ruined us from the day before. We are not running we are surviving now. There is nothing to say to each other.
We finish and are met by my girlfriend, Leea, like some holy saint waiting for us with everything we need. Like a mirage in the desert. I hope its real.
It is.
Damn this is difficult.
You read this and think I must not enjoy this and you are mostly right. But to see the change from start to finish, what I can craft my body into, molecule by molecule when no one is looking. That I will enjoy. I promise.

Immediate thoughts are this:
Plain and simple I am just not fit. I have a year of being a “normal guy” under my belt, an average citizen. What my friends don’t know is that I only ran when someone asked me to. I ate lots of cheeseburgers. I stayed up late. I danced at rock shows without worrying what it would do to my morning run. There were no more morning runs. An English major, I stopped using present tense when talking about running. I used the past.
BUT this can be reversed, and certainly with two months more to do it, a lot can change. I know my body very very well. Is that the secret?
I need to learn more about the ultrarunning side of this all. I come from the track world, “distance running” is 3 mile and 6 mile races. Some of us wander off and run this 26.2 mile thing on occasion, but that’s it. The ultra world and my world do not cross. We sort of look at each other curiously and that’s about it. I believe I can learn from them. Run slower. Run more. How do they fuel. How do they think. I want to study them so I can beat them. I know Kung Fu but now must learn Jui Jitsu otherwise I am a dead man.
Rob is way ahead. What he didn’t tell you is that in that Gaspin’ in the Aspen charade over the weekend he won by 2 minutes and broke the course record. I wonder how much he has been waiting up for me in these training runs. Probably more than I thought. So polite about it though. So humble.
The “back to backs” worry me right now. My quads worry me. My fueling worries me. One thing at a time. We’ll get there.

Thanks for reading.

Mike