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Day 1: Nearly a marathon in a day (24 miles)

06.06.2010

Our seventeen Project Athena "second academy" hikers gathered at the South Rim of the canyon, the trailhead to the Bright Angel Trail, at 5:30am. When we did this hike last October, we had set out in pitch darkness and under a chilly wind, but this time of year was notably different - the glow of dawn plenty enough to give us some idea of the depth of the canyon we were about to descend (even though we could get good views of the bottom or the other side, we at least got some idea of the scale).

After last year’s inaugural R2R2R hike, we wondered if we could ever fully repeat the experience - get together a group that gelled so much, that offered so much unconditional love and support, to help one another through and form, over the course of three days, some truly deep friendships. But it had already started the evening before, when we met in Robyn’s hotel room and each participant had a chance to talk about his or her story.

Our official Athenaship recipient was Amy Glover. Amy, accompanied by her best friend Jen talked about Amy’s illness - a rare lung disease that has caused her lung to collapse five times over the last two years. Both were Amy and Jen shed tears as they shared the story - how many nights Jen has spent in the hospital room with Amy, and their devastation each time that Amy seemed to be getting over it, and starting to train again and get back to her usual life patterns, only to be hit by (as Jen puts it) another “lung-pop�.

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