{"id":602,"date":"2018-11-22T22:47:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-22T22:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desertrunaround.wordpress.com\/?p=602"},"modified":"2023-09-29T21:57:34","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T20:57:34","slug":"2018-flagstaff-to-grand-canyon-stagecoach-line-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/azventurer.me\/index.php\/2018\/11\/22\/2018-flagstaff-to-grand-canyon-stagecoach-line-100\/","title":{"rendered":"2018 Flagstaff to Grand Canyon Stagecoach Line 100"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Prologue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It was 2014. Early that year, I ran my first half-marathon. Then, for the first time, I trained consistently with long runs through the summer. I started trail running. At group runs and races, I rubbed elbows with marathoners and… ultramarathoners? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had known of marathons for a long time, but ultramarathons were new to me. I had never even heard of people running 50 or 100 miles, and there I was, all of a sudden, meeting some of them. I was surprised at how normal they seemed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I finished my first Ragnar Trail, running my 15-mile share of the overall distance, and thought to myself, \u201cI think I could probably do twice that, as part of an ultra team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And somewhere around that time, as I was stirring this soup of thoughts and ideas around in my brain, I stumbled across the movie \u201cFinding Traction,\u201d<\/a> a documentary of Nikki Kimball\u2019s attempt to set a new fastest known time traversing a 273-mile trail in the northeastern US. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was riveted. I had never seen anything like it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the course of her attempt, as I watched the miles and the days take their toll on her, something happened inside me that I have been utterly unable to explain to anyone who has asked why I do this. All I can say is that it happened. I watched her struggle through pain and fatigue and exhaustion, and her suffering called to me. I wanted to face something like that, to see how I would measure up against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was how and when my dream to run a 100 mile race was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Start: Hotshots Ranch to Hart Prairie (miles 0-9.5)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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It was a cool morning. Chilly for this Phoenix boy who spent all summer running in the heat, but not terribly so. Much more comfortable than the freezing-temperature start of Bryce Canyon had been several months earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was struck by how humble this race seemed compared to everything else I had been doing lately. There was a single folding check-in table with a couple of people working it. The deposit area for drop bags was just a series of black plastic garbage bags you tossed your stuff into. There was no timing mat at the start line. Heck, there wasn\u2019t an arch or anything there, either. Just an opening in a fence that we would all run through, with a couple of signs beside it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You never know what kind of a race you\u2019re going to end up with until you get out there, and I think I fell in love with this one right then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started in spectacular form. About a hundred yards up the trail, I realized my sunglasses weren\u2019t on top of my head where I had left them. I had been taking my hat on and off to get adjusted for the start and must have knocked them off. Crap. Good thing I noticed early enough to go back and get them. I started jogging back to the start, and it occurred to me that they might have gotten caught in the hat, which was currently hanging around my neck. I checked it, and there they were. I turned around again and started back up the trail, and laughed. This really is kind of my life in a nutshell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I got that all sorted and out of the way, I actually began the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started with a long, gradual climb up to about 8800 feet. It looks steep in the elevation profile the race provides, but it was a climb of about 1400 feet over about 5 miles. Which is to say: it wasn\u2019t actually very steep. I hiked it anyway. I did not intend to do anything even remotely strenuous in the first five miles of a 100-mile race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was largely uneventful, but went well. The weather stayed cool, and we spent the entirety of the climb in a pine forest. When we got to the top of the climb and started descending, we went out into open meadows and the trail got rocky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was a brief moment of concern when some runners ahead of me became convinced we were on the wrong trail. I thought the whole thing was a little silly. The turns had all been clearly marked. Why would we have missed one? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a quick discussion and map check, we decided that we were okay and shortly after found a landmark that had been mentioned in the race briefing. All good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We left the trail for a forest road and continued on into the Hart Prairie aid station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hart Prairie to Kelly Tank (9.5-21)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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From Hart Prairie, we climbed again, and this section of the trail passed near Humphreys Peak. We ran through fields, and the course connected with the AZ Trail proper, which it stayed on through the remainder of the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As we passed the highest point of the race and started downhill, the trail took us into an aspen forest. It was beautiful. Not quite late or cold enough in the year for their leaves to have started turning, but it seemed like they were close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And that was when my first bad news of the day came. My right knee started hurting, with an old familiar pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a brief history of the recurring problem I’ve had with runner\u2019s knee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n