What?
Run the 23.5 miles of the Grand Canyon from Rim to Rim, North to South
Where?
Arizona, the home and heart of Emily’s dad and his lovely wife Debra who’ll be putting us up the week before, attempting to rest and relax before the big challenge.
Why?
To set our own challenge and give our training purpose. We’re firm believers in training for purpose but with the the current trend being abs, and the mantra being anything in a snazzy studio it’s easy to get caught up in the hype.
It’s time to take our focus away from how fast we can run or how heavy we can lift and bring it back to enjoying the journey, and the real reason we’re where we are today. This being the love and desire to continue challenging our bodies, mind and in some cases sanity.
It’s not there to just look at right?
Who?
This one’s simple… US. Twice the Health, two girls with too much positive attitude for their own good convinced they’ll complete the 23 miles just as they did the London marathon… smiling and singing.
The Nitty Gritty:
Run North Rim to Bottom
- 29th May 2016
- Start at 8,241ft (4:45am)
- Finish at 2,480ft (7:15am)
- Drop of 5,761ft
- Total distance 14miles
- Number of water stops = 6
Run Bottom to South Rim
- Start at 2,480ft (7:15am)
- Finish at 6,860ft (11:15pm)
- Incline of 4,380ft
- Total distance 9.5miles
- Number of water stops = 4
Heat of the Moment
- North Rim – Max 22.8-16.7 Celcius / Min 4.4-1.1 Celcius
- Bottom – Max 38.3-32.8 Celcius / Min 21.7-16.7 Celcius
- South Rim = Max 27.2-21.1 Celcius / Min 8.3-3.9 Celcius
Prepping to Pace
We see only one way to prepare for such a challenge and that’s with more slightly smaller challenges to ready our run, and conquer that Canyon. We’ll be taking part in a number of half marathons including Cambridge (28.02.16), Surrey (12.03.16) and Hackney (08.05.16). We’ll also be challenging ourselves with ‘London’s toughest’, an obstacle course known for it heights and heros!
We’re also hoping to hit the heights of the city by tackling the towers, running a selection of London’s tallest skyscrapers. With each challenge we’ll include footage from start to finish including pictures upon completion to be posted as part of our journey across our social media platforms and website. The list includes The Gherkin, BT Tower and the Shard. Many offer events whereby slightly crazy challenge hungry individual attempt to race the stairs in a set number of minutes. Ideally we’d hope to climb them outside of these events, but we’ll be looking into both options.
Another element of training we’ve added in is ‘Running London’ essentially to ‘Run the Canyon’. We’ll be climbing the ‘20 Tallest Accessible Tube Staircases’ dotted around London in 3 days, covering an area of London a day. Each day we’ll cover the climb from start to finish producing a video of the day using a GoPro.
DAY 1 – 6 Stations / 691 Steps / 3.6 Miles
- Oval (104)
- Elephant & Castle (117)
- Borough (102)
- Bank (128)
- Moorgate (131)
- Old Street (109)
DAY 2 – 7 Stations / 963 Steps/ 4.4 Miles
- Queensway (126)
- Edgeware Road (125)
- Regents Park (96)
- Goodge Street (136)
- Russell Square (171)
- Tottencourt Road (116)
- Covent Garden (193)
DAY 3 – 7 Stations / 1,096 Steps / 6.4 Miles
- Highgate (107)
- Archway (113)
- Tufnell Park (116)
- Caledonia Road (134)
- Kentish Town (117)
- Belize Park (189)
- Hampstead (320)
TTH x
