Category Archives: Running

Do rim-to-rim-to-rim runners give a crap about the Grand Canyon?

Trail through Roaring Springs Canyon in the Grand Canyon
On a rim-to-rim-to-rim hike last week I managed to have the latter seven miles of the Grand Canyon’s North Kaibab trail just about all to myself. I was accompanied on the soon to be crowded pathway by couple of ultra-runners who were taking a few hours to best the coveted route before the Canyon’s swelter season kicked in. This is clearly becoming an increasingly popular accomplishment for the high milage sect, as I passed four teams throughout the weekend.

Just above the Bridge in the Redwall, one of the runners stopped to squat behind a bush. His partner came to a rest with me on along the metal span. “No chance he’s going to bury that, huh?” I knew the answer.

I don’t expect these guys to carry trowels. Plus, where the hell would they bury it? It’s not like coconino sandstone is real easy easy to penetrate without explosives. I also know what ultra-running does to a body. I’ve seen elite runners broken apart into stumbling, incontinent zombies. It’s all part of pushing your body to such limits.

However, these guys were in control. This was an easy training run for them. Plus, there was a pit toilet just over a mile ahead at the Supai Tunnel.

It’s very possible I witnessed an isolated incident because I didn’t see any members of the other groups acquiesce to the processes of their digestive tract in such a fashion. If so, then the guy I watched bust a deuce on the North Kaibab trail is just an inconsiderate savage and not at all representative of his fellow Grand Canyon runners. Or, it’s pretty common and others do a better job of concealing it. I don’t know.

Still, I wonder what’s worse, the occasional trail dump or the trash left behind by ignorant hikers? Maybe I should ask that question to the teams of NPS workers and volunteers I came across working on the corridor trails that weekend.

What can’t be argued is that a lot of people still don’t give a shit about maintaining our national parks. Then again, I guess some people do.

Las Vegas marathon has grown up and is all Vegas


Las Vegas was my first marathon. Then, it was a very low-key affair run along a side road to Highway 15 from the desert toward the strip (not on it) to a park near the airport. A few thousand runners. No crowds. Cold as hell.

Ten years later? Yeah, things are a bit different. It was still cold, though.

The Sub Two-Hour marathon is not far away

Patrick Makau holds the world record marathon time

The current world record for the mile is 3:43:13 and is held by 37-year-old Moroccan runner Hicham El Guerrouj. There was a time when a sub-four mile was considered unrealistic.

The fastest men’s marathon run to date, with wind, is 2:03:02. Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai (who also just won New York with a new course record of 2/5/6) did it last spring in Beantown. But since Boston’s course design renders it ineligible for official running records, 2:03:38 remains the fastest marathon run to date, courtesy of Kenya’s Patrick Makau at this year’s Berlin Marathon.

Most likely, a runner will break three hours long before it can be considered official. It will happen in an obscure race with favorable wind conditions and questionable timing devices, probably by someone who isn’t a “real runner,” someone who doesn’t train to win races but rather just focused themselves on that record.

It will happen though, and probably within the next ten years. In 2001, Ethiopia’s Tesfaye Jifar set the New York Marathon’s course record with 2/7/43. It took ten years to shave more than two minutes after no one came closer to the record than 24 seconds. In fact, just two years later, a time of 2/10/30 broke the ribbon.

By examining the times, we see that the record for New York was never gradually worn down, it’s almost always, to exercise an apt cliche, “shattered.” For example, Mutai’s time this year was more than three minutes faster than last year’s finisher. In 2001, Jifar beat the 2000 winner by a little over two minutes.

If we consider that advancements in training, nutrition and equipment will progress faster in the next decade than they did in the last, it’s feasible that it could happen in the next five years. Truthfully, I’m not overly sold on how shoes will make a difference at this level.

So we now sit at 2:03:38. When this official time is surpassed, it may bring us to just above the threshold, probably around 2:01 something. Maybe we’ll sit for a few years just around the two hour mark, at which point every major marathon in the world will become the center of the running universe.

And I’ll just be happy to run a sub-4:00.