Prelude to the Big Ditch
I wake up on Sunday morning, and my legs are shockingly....fine! The balls of me feet are pretty sore because I ran the 1/2 marathon of the long course in racing flats. The course was very rocky and my flats just didn't have the support I needed. I knew that going into the race and had I brought my light weight trainers I would have worn those. So, I'm the last one in the house to wake up, as usual...this girl loves her beauty sleep! I actually didn't wake up on my own, Troy came in and told me that Michelle was heading out for one hour of active recovery. I was out of bed in 5 seconds. I can't miss this! We decided that a bike ride was in order. The thought of running when we were going to run 46 the next day just sounded silly.
We hopped on our bikes and had a great jaunt down the local Henderson NV bike path. We ran into a guy that does a marathon training program for local Vegas runners and stopped to talk to him for awhile. Turns out he is good friends with the RAGE race director, so we had a laugh about that. The biking felt so good on my body, except the whole "sitting" on my saddle part. My uhhh, "area where I sit on my saddle" was extremely sore. I rode on the nose of my saddle for most the race and since we haven't been doing much bike speed work, I was, lets say, "a little tender". Other than that...I was in great shape!
Back to the house, goodbye to Tyler and family and we hit the road. First off was an amazing and extremely decadent trip to Trader Joes where I proceeded to purchase half of the store. Man do we need one of those in Denver, I love that place. Then it was off to the Grand Canyon. The trip went really fast, I was so excited to see the canyon.
Let me say, it was every bit as exciting as I remembered it. From the Bright Angel Lodge I could see the entire canyon I was about to run through laid out right in front of me. Click on the link below for a picture that shows the canyon where we will run. What a canyon huh???
So, we are pulling into the lodge parking lot and I get a call from Steve. He told me that he drove to the Grand Canyon yesterday, took one look into it and he and Andrea decided to drive home. What!? I was like "You are joking". He said "I'm serious as a heart attack, that canyon was crazy, we said no way and drove home". I was floored, and a little sad. After a couple minutes of conversation I start to hear Dave in the background. Dave flew in just to run the canyon with us. I called his bluff and told him I could hear Dave. That was such a mean joke to play on me, and I'm so gullible. After all the planning I did for this adventure, Steve-O was definitely taking advantage of me. Stinker!
The whole group met up for dinner, except Andrea who was asleep for her 1am start time. Everyone was ready and there wasn't a whole lot to say except good luck! Michelle and Keith were to start at 3am, Dave and I at 3:30 and the boys at 4am. We were ready to get it on!
I fell asleep after dinner and slept the most peaceful sleep. It was dark and quiet there on the canyon rim.