Katie and Katie Run the Tahoe Rim Trail
The Experience of a Lifetime
$5,600 donated. 200 miles of running. 136 days of Summer.
14 days of Tahoe Rim Trail running. 500 photos taken.
1 million memories made.
It all began one day when Katie T. was running her routine loop around the Glenshire trails. The thought popped into her head that there has so be something more than this…. The Tahoe Rim Trail. With a quick search on TahoeRimTrail.com she found a way to break the trail up into 14 day hikes (runs). The next day at work she presented the idea to Katie C. We would run a section of the Tahoe Rim Trail once a week till we made it all the way around. Without hesitation, Katie C. said YES!
That’s not it! For each run we would run for a local cause or charity and donate money as we celebrated another piece of the Tahoe Rim Trail completed.
Now back up and think about logistics. There are many pieces to this puzzle that we worked through as we ran our way around the Lake.
Both Katies compiled the list of local causes/organizations/inspirations that they felt strongly about donating to. The first one of course being the Tahoe Rim Trail Foundation! This was an amazing motivation to be running for something greater than just us. Each week we would reflect on the chosen cause and relate this back to our run. For the #FightHardy day we wanted to send Whitney all our love to get her back on her feet and running. On the Keep Tahoe Blue day we could not be more appreciative of that Big Blue Lake we continued to see in front of us. On the Max Krieg day we got to remember his love for life and his laughter. For each an every day we are thankful for these organizations who are making our area a better place to be as they care for others and protect the environment that we live in, and for the people in some cases who are no longer with us who have touched our hearts that we will never forget.
Each run = $ Donation
Section 1: Tahoe Rim Trail Association
Section 2: Boys and Girls Club of North Lake Tahoe
Section 3: Whitney Hardy #FightHardy
Section 4: Girls on the Run Sierra
Section 5: League to Save Lake Tahoe (Keep Tahoe Blue)
Section 6: The Sivao Family- Jonathan Sivao fighting cancer
Section 7: In Memory of Greg Tiller: Tahoe Forest Hospice
Section 8: Project MANA
Section 9: Truckee Donner Land Trust
Section 10: Tahoe SAFE Alliance
Section 11: Truckee Trails Foundation
Section 12: In Memory of Max Krieg: Excellence in Education
Section 13: In Honor of Dr. Brooks Bloomfield of Doctors Office For Pets: MSA Coalition Section 14: High Fives Foundation
Mapping Out the Course
Where do we start? Do we jump around or go on a consistent path? Where are the trailheads? How do we get there? What do we do for food and water? Due to forest service gate closings, knowledge of the trail and proximity, we decide to start at Mt. Rose Meadows and run to Tunnel Creek. This started our adventure running clockwise around the lake. We decided we wanted to do it all in one direction in the correct order so we wouldn’t leave all the hard or far ones to the end. This proved to be a bit harder on some days as running the opposite direction would have been easier but we felt that it would be cool to do it this way so made it a ‘rule’ for ourselves. No short cuts.
Training for the Rim
It was Tuesday, May 20th when Katie T. came to the office with this idea. Katie C. was so pumped on it that she wanted to get started right away! How about Thursday?… Well, turns out that there is a huge storm that day, run cancelled, super bummed. Was this going to be the beginning of the end for our adventure? Run rescheduled for Tuesday, May 27th. Bright blue skies, warm sun shining, Katie T's birthday, a perfect start to our adventure.
Prior to this day, Katie T. was starting to ramp up her running as she was thinking about a marathon in November. An average run for her was about 5-7 miles. Katie C. was getting back on her feet after a long running hiatus due to pregnancy and was up to an average run of about 3-4 miles. So, our first run of 12 miles was the longest run for both of us in a long time. The 18 mile run the following week shaped us up real fast. We were diving into this full speed and training as we go.
The first couple weeks we shuttled ourselves by driving all the way to the end of our run section, dropping a car, driving to the start, running and then driving back to the start to pick up the other car. When we drove an hour, one way, to get to Spooner Lake for the second run, we knew that we were going to need help getting to the next sections. From here on out we are so thankful to our family who helped get us to and from the runs. Katie C.’s mom, Ann, was a huge help for most of our runs. Katie C.’s Aunt, Nancy, stepped in to take us to the end to drop a car and the start to drop us off for run #8. Katie T’s husband Brad took a whole day to get us to run #5 and Katie T.’s mom, Sue, got us to our furthest point at Echo Lake for run #7. We are so thankful to these people for helping us make this goal a reality.
Mom Takes a Day to Run
Sometimes these run days would start early in the morning and we wouldn’t make it home until well after after 5 at night. This happened especially when we were doing the South Lake sections. Katie T. with 2 children and Katie C. with one, this means childcare needs to be arranged for the day from daycare to babysitters to Grandparents to Daddy duty. Some days this meant an extra day at daycare or another day with the babysitter and the dads were always there to take on some early mornings alone and a few late nights with the kiddos. Again we are thankful to have such great support from these people that helped make things work so that we had enough time to run these long sections.
Work Balance
The Real Estate world doesn’t have set hours-it is always active 24 hours a day 7 days a week. For a day of running we would need to schedule around meetings and appointments but could always finish follow-up after running, dinner, kids bath time and bedtime, usually into the late hours of the night. As for phone calls, emails and urgent matters, we would stop on the trail and Katie T. would take care of business. This was just yet another piece of the puzzle that had to fall into place to clear the day for a run. Fortunately we have some extremely accomplished runners at work who understood our addiction and helped us out at the office while encouraging us on our journey (Thanks JB & JT).
The Puzzle Comes Together
There are a lot of reasons why this pipe dream of Katie T’s could not work but we threw all those reasons aside and focused on the ways that it can work. Each week we would put our heads together, compare work schedules, life schedules and driver availability and most weeks this summer we made a Tahoe Rim Trail run happen. No matter what it took to get out on the trail, once we were our there, all our troubles seemed to melt away as we climbed, weaved and bobbed through the forest surrounding Lake Tahoe. Each and every run left us with a great appreciation for the trail, the outdoors, the Big Blue Lake we call home and running itself. With such a large area covered we got to experience all the different landscapes that the area has to offer. Highlights from unbelievable views of the Lake, wildflowers that towered over our head, rock formations that could be sculptures in a city museum, mountain cliffs that towered above, bald mountaintops that reminded you of a vast desert. The sights were always in front, behind and around us leaving us with a “WOW” around every corner.
We feel very fortunate to have been able to experience and complete this epic journey. We hope that you are inspired to get out on the Tahoe Rim Trail too, we promise it will be worth it! Stay tuned for news about plans for our next great running adventure …
Katie Tyler
Realtor®
BRE 01442453
c 530 277 1012
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