I would like to say that this trip was everything I was hoping for and more, and in some ways it was. But as far as kicking @$$ and taking names, it might have fallen a few meters short. Back in 2022, I traveled with friends and my oldest daughter to the holy land of distance running, Flagstaff, AZ, conceptualizing I would flog myself twice a day and try to live the life of a semi-pro runner. Turns out we visited more like true vacationers, hitting up the sites and compromising on the elite “experience.” While I enjoyed the concept, the trip was a bit of a bust with resembling a true pro-elite sort of status. Instead of relaxing before and afternoon session, we went sight seeing and had 15,000 steps in before we reverted to workout status. Not conducive to being a (semi) pro.
This time around it was merely a sight seeing mission, fitting in runs around the places we wanted to visit. Out there with my wife, who while having joined me on a Southwest excursion in the past, had never been to the Grand Canyon, or flown south of Las Vegas. I had stumbled across a couple of great runs in other places online, easy to do these days, and wanted to make the pilgrimage and thought we could (re)visit the Grand Canyon and hit some of these other sites in the process.
And in some ways this was the first vacation I had been on with just my wife for any extended period of time. We had traveled with friends or family, done some long weekends, but with different school vacations for most of our life together, this is truly the first time it’s just been me and her. While we get along just great, you never know what after 29 years together will look like for 8 days straight in various airBnbs across Arizona, but we’d certainly find out.
It turns out things were good. First on the list of places to check out and run was Watson Lake in Prescott, AZ. I first stumbled upon Watson Lake and the specific reason for coming, the Granite Dells by following the Cocodona 250 on Instagram. This portion of the 250 mile course from Phoenix up to and through Prescott, Sedona and finishing in Flagstaff ran through this geological anomaly which seems other than earth-like. Part of Prescott Parks and Rec, with lots of other trails along with the Peavine rail trail, the Dells were easy to access and Watson Lake was easy to circumnavigate, which is exactly what we did.
And the run was great. Other than the face plant less than half a mile into the run, along the flat stretch of the Peavine trail, which was hugely embarrassing and witnessed, you couldn’t have kicked off this running vacation any better than that. Winding our way through the Dells, on sinuous trails that demanded your attention, with small stretches with good enough footing you could check out the scenery, I was able to fall into an easy rhythm, something I haven’t been feeling of late. And while the heat index was climbing, and I was feeling it, I was probably having the best run I had in months. A slow hobble back to the car had me feeling good about the trip.
Next up was a return to the Hangover Trail. While I’m not sure how the trail acquired name, I certainly would not want to run this with a hangover; it did live up to what I remembered of it. The footing was technical, sometimes resembling a dry, cobbled river bed, with some steep climbs and some steep drop offs. We met only six other people during the 3 hours we were out, one on bicycle which is incomprehensible to me, considering there were places on the trail I liked having three points of contact at all times. The climax of the trail, both in altitude and views, has you looking down on Sedona proper, about a 1000 feet above what we had gained over the first four miles. We got back to our rental car five miles, tons of sweat and dust accumulation later.
The following day was our rest day, knowing the next run on our list was the 4.5 miles down to Havasupai Gardens on the Bright Angel trail in the Grand Canyon. We did venture to Walnut Canyon, a set of cliff dwellings dating back more than a 1000 years which included somewhere along the realm of 640+ steps to access the dwellings. Not to mention our AirBnb in Flagstaff was walking distance to downtown, so we included our gift shopping and dinner plans around bipedal movement, meaning our rest days were accumulating just under 20,000 steps. Not withstanding, this was going to be a very active vacation.
Not needing the early start of last time, getting to the canyon rim by 4am for Elizabeth’s Rim2Rim2Rim run, we decided to enter the park through the less popular Eastern entrance, encountering only 13 cars from the time we left Flagstaff; almost 1:45 in driving time. Once we hit the park things got a little bit busier, with all the parking at the Bright Angel trailhead accounted for so we meandered along the road to the exterior parking lots, serviced by the trolley system and found a roadside spot only a quarter mile away from the trailhead. While the morning temperatures were cool, we knew once we dropped below the canyon rim, out of the wind, things would heat up rather quickly. While most people descending the canyon were donned in fleece and down parkas, we were in wicking t-shirts and shorts. As envisioned, it didn’t take long to heat up.
Our descent into the canyon was perforated with large hiking groups and a mule train headed for Phantom Ranch. We got stymied for a bit in the first mile, but soon after got by the mule train and had the trail mostly to ourselves. While there were plenty of people on the trail, they were sporadic enough for us to work our way around them. Gretchen left me in the copious dust which exists at this level of the canyon. In some cases it’s more than an inch thick, and creates low level clouds around the lower leg that might remind someone of the dust bowl. And me with plenty of leg hair and a penchant for sweating, my legs got darker and thicker the rest of the way. We finally made our way to Havasupai Gardens and the water spigot 4.5 miles down the canyon.
At this point Gretch was still full of it, but I was a little tight from concentrating on the footing on the way down. She set off at a gait faster than I was interested in covering, and for the total of the ascent I was on my own. As I moved higher in the canyon, so did the atmospheric temperature in the canyon as well. Evaporation rates rose, increasing the tendency towards chafing, something I battled all the way to the rim. Spent from 3000 feet of elevation gain, unseasonable temperatures (for someone coming from NH) and being a mile high in elevation from where we started, I exited the canyon sufficiently spent and in need of not just water, but some sweetness of a Sprite and some nibbling on a ice cream cone my wife picked out. On the way back to the AirBnb, with Gretch taking a solid snooze, I pondered whether I’d be up for the walk into town, considering the condition of my inner thighs, or we’d simply order out, driving to pick up our dinner.
We elected to walk downtown to Urban Pine Eatery, half a mile from where we were stationed. I had spent the rest of the afternoon airing my rashed body parts in the sunroom, hoping for some miracle cure which might make the coming days a touch easier. By chance I had purchased some healing ointment, using traditional SW herbs, and figuring why not?
After our Grand Canyon experience, we opted for another 20,000 step rest day, recognizing we wanted to do one or two runs in Sedona the next day. We ended up hitting up Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monuments, scratching my itch for geologic phenomena and indigenous culture. While this was a mostly roadside adventure, without the on-foot mileage of the other days, we made up for it walking across town to visit the Willow Hill Environmental Center, passing the NAU track, where three years prior I witnessed Nico Young, Luis Grijalva, George Kusche and Abdi Nur crush a threshold session at altitude. Not exactly intentional, but we did spend some time looking through the fence, trying to recognize anyone we would know. Turns out all the distance stars were in PA for the Penn Relays.
On our penultimate day, we hit Sedona, looking to run to Devil’s Bridge and potentially to Cathedral Rock, depending on how things went. Even with a fairly early start, we encountered plenty of people at the trailhead, making running in a bit difficult. It seemed everyone else had the same Friday plan, and by the time we dissected our way to the natural bridge, there were probably 100 people waiting for their 15 minutes of fame. I quickly turned tail and headed back to the car with Gretchen in tow. We opted to get out of Dodge, heading south towards Phoenix where would catch our plane out the next day.
We made ancillary stops at Motezuma’s Castle National Monument and Hayden’s Butte, known locally as “A” mountain. A mountain, identified by the large “A” epoxied to the side of the mountain in Tempe, serves as a monument to Arizona State University, but also as a local park and challenge to those looking to get some running in. While I’d have a hard time calling it an urban running oasis, with its location across the street from the Tempe Town Lake and the various causeways and people parks, Hayden’s Butte offers some off-road running, along with some opportunity for elevation gain inside the city limits. We elected the straight up hike to the top, looking over the city proper as well as Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, where we would be flying out the next day. Killing enough time to check into our AirBnb, we headed outside the city limits and settled in for the evening.
Our final day included no running, recognizing we didn’t have an opportunity to shower once we left the AirBnb, electing to lean into local culture and festive opportunities across the city. We hit up a local farmer’s market for some shopping and breakfast, checked out some petroglyphs outside town, visited a free contemporary art museum and hung out at Arizona Falls, a hydroelectric dam and park where seeing moving water in the desert is a luxury. Might not have been the best Phoenix has to offer, but it was pretty darn good.
A couple hours later we were on the red-eye back to reality, finishing our trip up early Sunday morning with a quiet drive back from Manchester. While Gretchen catnapped in the passenger seat, I got to reflect on the totality of the trip, both the scheduled activities and the ones I had left space for this time around. I luck out that my wife has the same type of curiosity I do, and our interests intersect in a way we can each find something we like in the other person’s activities. While I’m not a shopper, Gretchen likes handmade artwork over designer fashion when hitting the shops.
And I was able to string together a number of days of running, in a way I haven’t been really able to in a while. I was worried my lack of mileage compounding my various ailments around my legs and how good they work would mean I had bitten off a little more than I could chew. And while there were no record breaking performances or truly insane adventures, we got to see some really cool stuff under our own power; stuff most visitors to the region only drive by. So in that vein it was good.
They say youth is wasted on the young and I find that hard to disagree with. I wish we had made these types of trips when we were younger, when I could simply kick open the door and run whatever I wanted. But life brings us a variety of scenarios, like building a resume, raising children, paying the mortgage. It can be hard to recognize the timeline, and we all underestimate how long we will be in our prime, able to make all the choices the way we would like. But a worse sin I feel is to throw in the towel once we can’t do these things the way we would choose to envision it. There is no Rim to Rim in my future and I think I can come to terms with that. While I might not like it, I’m going to live with it, and scale my adventures around what I can still challenge myself with.
I’ll see you out there.
