Grand Canyon: South Rim to Colorado River (and then some)

Well I just got back from two weeks of training at the Grand Canyon National Park. I was there for work and what better place to go to training than at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. The training was awesome but what was better than that was being at one of mother natures hughest playgrounds. Every morning before class I ran on the Rim trail that runs along the south rim from Mather Point to the Bright Angel Lodge. It was awesome because where I was staying was less than a 1/2 mile from the rim's edge. Every morning I also got the opportunity to run along side Elk and Deer. No Bighorn Sheep =(!!!! Seeing the sun rise over the canyon rocked!!! Besides running on the rim trail I also ran around the village.
When class was over, the training facility had mountain bikes, so I x-trained and rode a bike in the afternoon. My longest jaunt was from the village all the way out to Hermits Rest. Round trip it was a 18 mile bike ride. I finished at sunset and that was amazing.

The highlight of the trip was my 31 mile adventure in the canyon on Saturday. I ended up running 26 miles and walking the final 6 for a total of 31. My original plan was to see if I could do a rim to rim to rim. However, after reaching phantom ranch and heading up towards cottonwood falls, I knew I wasnt supposed to do that today. My mind was saying go for it, but my big toe and lack of proper training told me to not attempt it. So I didnt. I did see lots of rim runners that morning. I started out at 5 am in the darkness and my adventure was bright angel falls trail to tonto east, tonto east to south kaibab tip off point, south kaibab tip off point to phantom ranch, phantom ranch up north kaibab about 2 1/2 miles, turned around and went back to phantom ranch, doodled around the river trail, up bright angel to indian garden, out to plateau point, turned around and hiked out to the bright angel saloon. The last 5 miles I hiked. My big toe was spent, and I two weeks later I am missing a toe nail. It was awesome, and I did learn a few things. I carried way to much stuff. My pack was way to heavy. I was too well prepared. I could have cut my food supply by half. Also by having a heavy pack it slowed me down a lot. I should have worn lighter trail shoes, I wore my la sportivas and they were too heavy. Those trails are easy running and if you know how to trail run you could wear light shoes. I also had too many extra clothes, it was cold in the morning but once I started running for an hour and the sun came up I was down to shorts and a teeshirt. You hear all these horror stories about people dying in the canyon because they werent prepared, so I heeded on the side of caution. However, like last time when Sheila and I hiked out in 2007, I passed large people or people smoking and they were walking down. They had no business being in that canyon! Anyways round trip was 8 hour 15 minutes. Awesome trip and glad to be home to Sheila my little Anna.