At Phantom Ranch, we were both feeling everything and the hardwork was setting in really quickly! We both knew that we only had 10 more miles to go, but after doing this thing for ALL DAY LONG, 10 miles was a really long way. Not even considering the fact that they were all straight up miles out of the canyon. It was time to dig deep.
This bridge will always be a special place for me. I love it so much. Going across it is an experience in itself with the water rushing underneath you and the bridge moving suspended in the wind. It was such a victory to get back to this bridge and I slowly walked back across it enjoying every step.
There was no running at my current speed, but I had settled into a very consistent forward motion and felt strong again both in body and in mind. It was going to be a hard pull to crawl out of the canyon but I was confident that we could do it.
As we started back up Devils Corkscrew, the sun began to fully set and we enjoyed the last few lingering minutes of the canyon views.
Towards the top of Devils Corkscrew Bob started complaining of being overly hot, nauseous, and fatigued. It really wasn't hot, and I had about a 20 minute period of time where I was doing a bit of worrying over him.
We got to the top of the DC and sat him down. I sprayed him with water and we took a few minutes to cool him down and evaluate if we were gonna have trouble.
He started feeling better and we continued up to Indian Garden where we found a river for him to darn near lay in and that was the ticket. When you push your body as hard as we did you honestly don't have any real idea how its going to act. You just solve problems and keep moving forward.....relentlessly.
As the darkness settled back in, the miles got very long. The elevation coupled with darkness and deeply fatigued bodies made the going very slow. When you are used to running 1 mile in under 10 minutes it hard to wrap your mind around a 30 minute mile. And honestly....that was us cruising!
At the Indian Garden rest stop we had 4.6 miles of straight up left. Thankfully there were 3 clear rest areas to aim for so we were able to break it up into 1.5 mile segments. Quite honestly.....that was all we could handle. We counted spiders and frogs, I thought about anything and everything. I dreamed of eating soup and reaching the top.
We had made it to 3 mile rest house.
A 5k......thats it. A 5k of stairs. We can do this. More thinking, more dreaming, more wondering how people do this all the time, more prayer, more telling each other "Good Job honey, we got this."
We made it to 1.5 mile rest house.
Bob and I really make a good couple because we crash at different times and seem to be strong when the other is weak. Its amazing. I had crashed hard at mile 35, but was honestly feeling deeply strong and capable during the climb. Bob was hurting, he was tired, he had crashed.....and hard. So we stopped and rested. I think this picture captures all of the feels in the moment. So close to the top, to finishing the thing, and yet 1.5 more miles......50 more minutes. The canyon just wouldn't quit. As Bob said so eloquently "You can't beat the Grand Canyon. If anything on a good day, you can cheat it." This place was humbling. It does not care how many races you have done or medals you have. It demands respect and everything you got.
Finally we came up through the two tunnels and the lights at the top of the rim were within our grasp. We were there.
We came around our final switchback, and there it was, the top, the finish line. We had done it, we had both finished, the day was ours!
And I got to eat my soup.
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