In her hotel near the Grand Canyon, Emily Riehl woke at 3 a.m. She dressed in layers, packed her gear, and at 5 a.m., her wife dropped her off at the chilly South Rim trailhead.
Over the next 15 hours, Riehl ran down to the Colorado River, watching the sunrise light up the canyon’s iconic striations. She ran up to the North Rim, where she allowed herself a 15-minute break. In the afternoon heat, she retraced her steps. Forty-six miles later, just after sunset, she was back at the South Rim.
This Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim venture (R2R2R) is a holy grail among distance runners. The quest is extreme: sweltering temperatures in the valley, arduously steep, elevations of 7,000-8,000 feet. Peak physical condition and proper gear and nutrition are imperative.
A bucket-list adventure
A runner since junior high, her days of club rugby and Australian rules football now behind her, Riehl trained hard for 17 weeks. The Kelly Miller Professor in the Department of Mathematics boosted her stamina and surefootedness with runs in the hills of Berkeley, Santa Fe, and Shenandoah National Park. Mostly, she logs about 10 hours a week on trails near campus and home, and has completed more than a dozen 50K races and a 50-miler.
During this 40th-birthday, bucket-list adventure, she filtered water along the way and consumed 200 calories in energy gels every hour. The spectacular scenery kept her going most of the time, but in rougher moments, when she wondered why she was doing this, she remembered that “there’s something really satisfying about putting yourself in a difficult situation and then getting through it.” After a day of rest, she and her wife backpacked back down to camp for three nights.
Riehl’s met quite a few fellow distance-running scientists, and she theorizes that stamina is the common denominator. In both, “you have to work hard every single day for a long period of time before you see any rewards,” she says. “And the process too—running isn’t sustainable if you don’t enjoy going out and doing the training.”
Riehl’s R2R2R was last year. This year, she completed the Boston Marathon with a time of 3:22:41. She isn’t sure what challenge will come next, but she is sure there will be one.