My Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim Run - Sober and Alive

[Music] [Applause] [Music] four years ago i could have never have imagined this is where i would be sober running the grand canyon running ultra marathons that's crazy it is wednesday just a few days before the grand canyon ramp to rim i'm doing my last training run it's the short well a 10k except with everything in my backpack just to get used to running the full backpack i got my poles my food kind of just been running so far for 35 minutes and it's kind of surreal just thinking about you know a year ago from today i just got to the grand canyon and i was like wow i'm gonna run this and i just made that decision and for whatever reason i actually i kept with it and throughout the year i've been training i've so far in one year i've run a total of 1800 miles i've ran two marathons i ran a 50k ultra marathon and a 50 mile ultra marathon i'm really excited but really nervous that i'm about to do this this is a quite the big jump for me so all right it is time to pack i want to share with you what i'm going to bring with me on my run across the grand canyon so since this is self-supported something i'm not used to i'm going to be carrying a lot in a backpacking with me so um it's crucial that i bring enough food and enough things to hold my water but for now here's what i have i have the heron project running shirt and the heron project running hat um let's see i have a rain jacket just in case it rains or it gets cold that's coming with me this is solomon brand i really like it next up we have arm warmers at the top of the south rims probably going to be cold especially when we start so i'm going to start out with these but not only that these are going to be in case it gets really hot in the box there's a really cold river that we're going to be running along so i can dump these in there and put them up on my arm to cool my body a now trick then this is the same thing this is just a buff i can put it around my neck and dunk it in water to cool down if it's too hot during the day my running sneakers of choice are actually brooks i run in the cascadia 16s i did my 50 miler in them and i had no issues whatsoever and i really liked how light and stable they are along with the the comfort um i'm bringing a filter to put on top of my bottle just in case i need to i run out of water mid run between water sources i can dunk my bottle in a river and this will filter out the water from the river to make it clean um i'm bringing an emergency blanket god forbid but in case i have to camp out in the canyon it gets really cold this is supposed to help out athletic tape just in case once again god forbid but i roll an ankle or something um and this will help me tape it up um ibuprofen just in case bringing some wipes also just in case something happens again i'm also bringing my garmin mini uh this is a satellite gps so uh friends and family can track me as i go um i can also message or send an sos in case i run uh into some trouble an it ban strap as i've been training with this i've been having a lot of it band issues so this is hopefully going to come with me this is the vest i chose the salomon advanced skin 12. it allows me to bring 12 liters i'll have two water bottles up front 500 mils each but i also bought the 1.5 liter bladder which goes in the back here as well so i can fill it up in the back bringing the poles these are some black diamond aluminum poles they're pretty light these will help me going up the north rim and the south rim uh now as for food i'm bringing a bunch of gels i've been training with gels for the last year so i enjoy the goose they're 100 calories each i'm bringing 12 of them so that's 1200 calories right there i got some clif bars um just a variety of them i've also been training with these they're about 200 calories 250 calories each so bring six of them um i also really enjoy stroopwafels each i'm bringing six of them um most of the stuff i have is really sweet so i know i'm probably gonna want something savory so i've got some cheez-its here i have no idea how many calories i have here but um i've also got some salt sticks this is um these are just chews for electrolytes just in case it gets really hot and i sweat a lot this will replace my electrolytes along with the water last but not least tailwind this is a huge source of my fuel for when i've been training on all my runs i use tailwind this is just powder you throw in your my water bottle it is 200 calories for each package it also has electrolytes as well so keeps me hydrated and gives me fuel i think i have 15 of them total so that'll be a total of 3 000 calories in just these things um i have over 5000 calories i think the rest is up to me um all packed officially suitcases are closed tomorrow morning our flight leaves i think eight in the morning we arrive in phoenix at 9 30 in the morning we're gonna hang out in phoenix for the day then on friday we drive out to the grand canyon and on saturday at 3 a.m we start and just to kind of think how this last year went just the whole thought that i just went to the grand canyon last year and decided i was going to do it and now i'm doing it all the work that i've done like i've watched so many videos on room to rent rim i've done so much research i went on facebook groups i've done so much training running um i had so many people watch so many youtube videos on runners i've gotten injured overcame injuries i think the biggest thing that that i've gotten from this whole thing is is already done it's not even the grand canyon it's just the what i've done this entire year coming up to right now is is the win that's that's the takeaway from this i've already won it doesn't matter what happens at the grand canyon but just the sheer fact that i'm gonna do it i trained i have not the ability to do it and to know that i'm gonna go do it is just insane one of the best parts of running that i've learned is sometimes after like an hour and a half two hours of running you get into this meditative state and it's like your mind is just visualizing stuff and you're kind of feeling the things that that you're visualizing for me i could whenever things would start to really hurt i would just visualize crossing the finish line of a 50 miler and just like feeling what that would be and it's like you're supposed to hurt but that's like the epic part and it would just feel crazy and that is just like how i take in all the hard stuff and um it really allowed me to see myself you know here i am like i'm struggling but i'm really pushing through it and i could see that when i was running there's something about that that's just it's almost life-changing anyway tomorrow we go can't see anything but time where are you going i'm going to the grand canyon baby all right we got everything packed here in phoenix and we are ready to go to grand canyon three hours and 30 minutes we also picked up my sister walking to the grand canyon first time in a year so the trail starts up there goes down this thing there's trails there you end up at the end and you go down and you end up there's a beautiful river right there so there's a bridge that crosses that river and you end up by phantom ranch and then you run through here this is the box and you end up somewheres up here all right the south kabob trap head this is where we start tomorrow you ready all right we're at the trailhead grand canyon about to get started good luck be safe [Applause] [Music] [Music] all right we are about two miles down still dark moon's out so far it's pretty steep we are at 5.5 miles down the canyon so far it's not a whole lot to run it's pretty technical all right this is the tunnel that'll take me to the bridge across the colorado river i am at the bottom of the grand park canyon still dark but i'll take videos when i cross it on my way back as well [Music] sun's time to come out [Music] this place is huge we got 10 miles in very humbling we are very small people this place is so humbling it's crazy [Applause] it's the south rim at about 13 miles right now another two miles or so to manzanita and we start to climb to the north rim eight more miles to the top of the rim and then we're halfway taking my good all time it's three hours and 37 minutes so far there's our trail went up there all right we're getting close to manzanita which is the stop to the climb of the north rim and uh i believe i'm looking at it oh boy it's gonna be epic all right we're about five hours in we are at almost 18 miles we are going up the north rim we have about 3 000 more feet to go nice edge pretty steep drop off here we've climbed almost 4 000 feet there's another 2 000 to go before we get to the top of the north rim so far it's manageable it's helpful to have poles for sure uh so far we're at five and a half hours so i don't know another three miles to go check out this view wow this is crazy so beautiful there we are a little more foreign all right we made it to the superior supply tunnel so far it's right about 20 miles in this time is hard but it's not as bad as i thought it was going to be so i feel really good about that i feel like i might be able to make it back that's important not sure if you can see but there's a mountain way on the distance it's so cool north rim we made it six hours 45 minutes hell yeah official until you touch the sign sandwich time oh it's crazy that there's snow up here let's get this show on the road all right the descent begins nice job down oh downhill is quite honestly just as hard it's going uphill [Applause] good we are about a marathon in and we are most of the way down maybe a mile from manzanita before we get to pick up some more water that is most of the way down the north rim really been booking it down this run is so epic wow this morning i was running the bottom of the canyon after i had made it down to south rim it's amazing what your mind can do i know i was struggling to you know not panic just like try to remain calm there's just so many doubts that pop up and they just tell you you can't do stuff the fear of not being able to do something or failing so great but then you stick with it you just stick with it and fight yourself and then once i started up the north rim i could see oh this is doable i can make it to the top and if i can make it to the top i can make it back and it kind of settled everything my nausea went away my fears went away and it's just been i've been able to enjoy the view not sure if you can see this but there's a waterfall right there there's a better view waterfall on our way back to phantom ranch 28.71 miles in about uh way too many left but i'm between mancita and phantom ranch and you got the view of the south rim right there looks far but hopefully not that far check the view out damn we're getting back to the box this is a hot spot it gets really hot here but thankfully today it's only about 70 degrees i guess mileage i'm at 32 and i'm at 9 hours and 49 minutes i'm going to tell you though i thought the first time i was passing through the camp the bottom of the canyon was just nerves coming through again though just an eerie feeling it's like a feeling of don't be fooled by the beauty this thing is also a beast and it can be ferocious and you gotta honor that better just reminds me just brought me back to alcohol i guess it's just i'm in you're singing thinking that you know alcohol used to i used to think he used to feel really good it was the answer but it's just even though it has instant gratification and it looks good everybody's doing it it's just not it's not the right answer you know four years ago i figured out it wasn't if i didn't do that it definitely would not be here running the grand canyon this ferocious beast but beautiful you know sometimes it's hard to see the progress we make when you're getting sober but today it's a good day to think about that accomplishments that you can make you make that decision to commit to yourself i think that's the one thing we all need to do whether you're struggling with alcohol or not commit to yourself be true to you do what feels good to you and good things will come you have to get used to reflecting and checking in with yourself seeing if everything's going okay as if it's not it's time to make changes anyway end of my rent i'm so grateful today to be doing this this is so hard but so worth it crazy i totally figured it out the feeling the feeling is i'm in such a huge place such magnificent place but i don't have any control over much the only control i have is me and in here i don't really have even that much control over me this place is so massive for the feeling of needing to control everything hey and letting go of that is so hard and it feels bad but the reality is especially being here it's a reminder of how small we are in this i mean i'm in the grand canyon but some of the terms of the universe were puny almost meeting us have to ask the paint whatever we want it's so crazy because you don't have control you don't know when it's going to end all right i guess those are the deep thoughts when you're at 34 miles in [Applause] made it to phantom ranch now i just gotta scale that wall crossing the colorado [Music] crazy [Music] both bridges there the other bridge is the one we took this morning for south kaibab trail such a fantastic part of the bright angel trail right along the river beautiful long way down [Music] we are almost 42 miles in just left indian gardens uh it's a little about 12 and a half hours just kind of hiking it up so far today we've done 8 200 feet of climbing and uh yeah we got two more pit stop and we go to the top all right we're making it oh hey squirrel going pretty decent for the amount of travel today i can't really complain pretty happy with it so far haven't vomit or anything i'm moving pretty slow but what can you do all right i just passed the 1.5 mile rest stop 1.5 miles to go to the top and i'm done that's where i've been today hard to imagine the final countdown is on less than a mile all right we're making it right angel i see this top oh my god [Applause] let's go leanne [Applause] can you grab this i'm gonna hug that sign 45 miles [Music] all right it is april 28th about five days after my rim to rim to rim back in wimberley texas this is my first run since the big run my legs were really sore afterwards took me a couple days to get back to normal but feeling pretty good today but there's one thing that i didn't get to do i was at the room to ramp to rim because there's a lot of people at the top and i felt weird but there's one last question what now

Channel: Mind Uncaged

Views: 2,712

Keywords: grand canyon, rim to rim to rim, ultra marathon, marathon, running

Id: 2w5OItm8dR8

Length: 31min 16sec (1876 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 30 2022