In October, Craig Berkoski and Andrew Drake ran a legendary Grand Canyon route known as a "rite of passage" for ultra runners. The so-called Rim to Rim to Rim trail involves descending 4,500 feet down the South Rim, crossing the canyon floor and the Colorado River, and then running up the nearly 8,000-foot North Rim, and back.
All told, the run is nearly 50 miles, with over 11,000 feet of elevation gain. It's not so much an organized race as a calling. Because of the mileage, there's not enough time to complete the course during daylight, and so, by necessity, a portion of the run occurs in the dark. The trails on either rim are carved into the walls of cliffs and often narrow. "I kept thinking, I can't believe they let anybody do this," said Drake, 38, a senior environmental analyst in the East Hampton Town Department of Land Acquisition and Management. "They don't even check to see what your plan is."
"The adventure starts at the North Rim," said Berkoski, a 44-year-old farrier from Sag Harbor who, in true ultra-runner fashion, minimized the first half of the run, even though it's nearly a marathon long. "Whatever you just did doesn't matter, because it's time to turn around and climb out. You're halfway there but have another 24 miles to go."
Drake ran the route on Oct. 12, the weekend before Berkoski, when the park was still open for the season. This added a layer of temptation, because when he arrived at the North Rim, which took six hours, he could have hopped on a shuttle bus that would have taken him back to the South Rim. "If you don't think you can make it out, you can make it back. We had an out."
He had real questions about making it out. On the North Rim he was overcome with leg cramps. "It was hard to move. I think I had taken in too much salt. It was 100 degrees across the canyon, and I was trying to balance the salt I was losing in sweat. I overdid it and got dehydrated, which led to cramping. I called my wife. She said, 'You didn't fly all the way over there to go one way. Go ahead and do it.' She was encouraging, and it was kind of what I wanted to hear."
"It took me over 11 hours to get back," he continued. "I was basically crawling out of that canyon. I wasn't expecting it to take 17.5 hours. Looking up at that South Rim on the return, you're looking up at headlamps a vertical mile above you. You can't tell if they're headlamps or stars. Getting out of there was one of the hardest things I've ever done."
Okay, so why do it at all? "It had been on my radar for a couple of years," said Berkoski, who has already completed nine marathons since beginning to run in 2017. "I had talked with my father about how I wanted to go out there." When his father died last December, he saw the run as a way to reconnect. "That was the spark I needed to say 'Let's go attempt this.' " He contacted a friend and fellow extreme sport participant, Damian Wright, who planned the excursion. "I thought about my dad a lot in the canyon. When things got hard, I was leaning on him, kind of talking to him."
A year ago, Drake was invited by another ultra-running friend, Andrew Cox, to join a group of nine. "He knew I would say yes," said Drake. It was his first time traveling to run. He usually stays local, making interesting routes for himself on the East Hampton trail system he helps maintain. (A couple of weeks after completing the Rim to Rim to Rim, Drake was only the sixth person to run the length of the 125-mile Paumanok Path without pause. It took him 36 hours.)
Both men faced weather extremes. Drake encountered heat along the canyon floor, while Berkoski ran through snow atop the North Rim. On the day Berkoski ran, the weather in the canyon was beautiful, with temperatures in the 60s. Neither man saw a rattlesnake or a mountain lion, both canyon residents. In fact, both said the run was eerily quiet, with shadows moving over the terrain more of a companion than either birds or animals.
Both men wore backpacks with water bladders to which they added supplements full of electrolytes and salts. Then there was the need for high sugar snacks. "You need quick energy and something that's easy to digest," Berkoski said. He loaded his pack with Rx Bars and Fig Newtons.
"I did all my training locally," Berkoski said. "I didn't train much on elevation, except for along Brick Kiln Road, and up Wickatuck Drive. What I did was increase my mileage per week. When I train for a marathon, I look to run 30 to 40 miles a week. For this training session, I was getting 60 to 70 weekly. I was naive. If I did it again, I would stress out more. A runner in Andy's group, Andrew Cox, basically ran a marathon over on Great Hill Road, in North Sea, just back and forth. That was smart."
While Drake did some elevation training in the Catskills, most of his training was cycling. In mid-August, he did a 200-kilometer gravel road race in Massachusetts. Only after that was completed did he focus on running, which he described as "last minute cramming."
Post-run, it took only a handful of days for the men to recuperate and plan the next thing. For Drake, there was the 125-mile Paumanok Path run. Berkoski, who is eyeing his tenth marathon, perhaps this spring, ran a portion of the trail with Drake and even set up a hot tea station to warm him in the middle of the night.
"For both runs, the greatest takeaway is gratitude," Drake said in a text. "I feel so grateful to be able to do these things." Berkoski said running helps clear his head. "Any time you do something like that, it gives you time to reflect. I've always said if you can't figure out a problem on a run, it's a big problem.