The Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim (R3) Part I
Part I
Twenty-four hours straight. 50 miles of extremes. 20,000 feet of elevation change. Temperatures ranging from 28 to 106 degrees. Snakes. Worst of all, the birds.
It started in my junior year of high school. My parents encouraged us to challenge ourselves, and I’d done all sorts of wild, maybe foolish, things. I had decided that by the time I was eighteen I would have completed each of the Ironman distances individually—2 miles of swimming, 100 plus miles of bicycling, and a marathon’s worth of running.
Since I had grown up racing road bikes, the 100 plus miles of riding were already done. Swimming two miles was harder. I swam during my freshman year of college and knocked it out on a Saturday night after studying for most of the day. The marathon fell when a friend and I, inspired by another friend who was trying to run 75 miles in a day, decided that, “Really, how hard could it be…” It turned out to be pretty hard.
With those notches in my belt, I continued to look for the next opportunity to push my limits. I managed a solo 200 mile bike ride in one day a year or so later. But then my jackpot idea arrived. During the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, the idea of going across the Grand Canyon and back in a day somehow managed to surface in my mind.
It was an original idea for me. I didn’t know if anyone else had done it, and I thought it’d be great to “conquer” it. A month later at my next door neighbor’s garage sale, I was thumbing through an old box of Arizona Highway’s when a beautiful cover photo of the Grand Canyon at sunset caught my eye. Beneath was the title of the main article in that month’s issue, “Grand Canyon—Rim to Rim to Rim.”
On one hand, I was a little unhappy. I couldn’t be the first. On the other hand, I was elated. Someone else had done it before, so it 'should' be possible. My neighbor gave me the magazine and I read the article several times. It detailed the journeys of several runners in a yearly race across the canyon and back. Elite runners that year did it in about 12-15 hours.
I began rolling the idea snowball around in my head, letting it gather more and more weight. I pushed it to the edge of action hill, where it needed nothing but a nudge to push it into possible. The nudge it needed was someone to go along.
My parents wouldn’t let me do something of that scope unless someone went with me. Who though really wants to try to go across the largest canyon in the world and back in one day?
Nobody.
It took two years to find the right person.
Part II coming soon... (Part II is now available here)
Twenty-four hours straight. 50 miles of extremes. 20,000 feet of elevation change. Temperatures ranging from 28 to 106 degrees. Snakes. Worst of all, the birds.
It started in my junior year of high school. My parents encouraged us to challenge ourselves, and I’d done all sorts of wild, maybe foolish, things. I had decided that by the time I was eighteen I would have completed each of the Ironman distances individually—2 miles of swimming, 100 plus miles of bicycling, and a marathon’s worth of running.
Since I had grown up racing road bikes, the 100 plus miles of riding were already done. Swimming two miles was harder. I swam during my freshman year of college and knocked it out on a Saturday night after studying for most of the day. The marathon fell when a friend and I, inspired by another friend who was trying to run 75 miles in a day, decided that, “Really, how hard could it be…” It turned out to be pretty hard.
With those notches in my belt, I continued to look for the next opportunity to push my limits. I managed a solo 200 mile bike ride in one day a year or so later. But then my jackpot idea arrived. During the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, the idea of going across the Grand Canyon and back in a day somehow managed to surface in my mind.
It was an original idea for me. I didn’t know if anyone else had done it, and I thought it’d be great to “conquer” it. A month later at my next door neighbor’s garage sale, I was thumbing through an old box of Arizona Highway’s when a beautiful cover photo of the Grand Canyon at sunset caught my eye. Beneath was the title of the main article in that month’s issue, “Grand Canyon—Rim to Rim to Rim.”
On one hand, I was a little unhappy. I couldn’t be the first. On the other hand, I was elated. Someone else had done it before, so it 'should' be possible. My neighbor gave me the magazine and I read the article several times. It detailed the journeys of several runners in a yearly race across the canyon and back. Elite runners that year did it in about 12-15 hours.
I began rolling the idea snowball around in my head, letting it gather more and more weight. I pushed it to the edge of action hill, where it needed nothing but a nudge to push it into possible. The nudge it needed was someone to go along.
My parents wouldn’t let me do something of that scope unless someone went with me. Who though really wants to try to go across the largest canyon in the world and back in one day?
Nobody.
It took two years to find the right person.
Part II coming soon... (Part II is now available here)
posted by Eddy Zakes at 4:44 PM
5 Comments:
Wow,
that was good. well written, and inspiring. Keep it coming. You should write them at home so you just have to type them at work. Then you could get more out of the box and into your readers minds, to do its deeds. Thanks.
May more field trips await you.
I echo Dan and say well written. You should consider getting it published.
looking good Eddy.
looking forward to hearing the rest.
patti
Wow!
What an amazing Kid!
You must have great parents to let you do such a cool thing!
(or they're nuts!)
Guess who loves you!
Folks, there's a reason we call him "Special Ed." The man is border-line insane!
I enjoyed reading part one and eagerly await the future installments. Thanks also for the mini-shoutout for our ill-prepared freshman marathon :)
Miles
Post a Comment
<< Home