7 Sisters Trail Race, Willy Wonka River of Chocolate Edition!

They're mean, trust me...

This actually came up during the race, but I'll back up a bit...Jonny, Beth and I set out at 5:15 for Amherst, stopping a couple of times for breakfast-type things at DD, 'cause that's what you do in New England!  It had rained a LOT on Friday, and I knew that the trail was going to be messy, much like 2016.  We arrived, grabbed our bibs and suited up.  Jonny was in the elite wave, I was in wave #2, and Beth was in #4.  After a short warmup to assess the initial climb (very slippery), the waves got sent off!

The course that bites back!  Chomp!

The race starts at the edge of a short singletrack trail near the road, which lasts about 75 yards before the first climb, 500+ feet in the first mile or so.  The weather was overcast and the ground very wet, and it was also quite humid, so much so that I'd saturated my hat with sweat and it was dripping off the brim after mile #1.  Nice.  Now, I know the course.  Beth knows the course.  Jonny didn't know the course, and I tried to explain it as best I could:  very technical, always up or down (no real flats), and runners never a chance to get into a real rhythm.  Add wetness, and the difficulty factor goes through the roof.  It's a course with the very real possibility of injury.  A great course, but unforgiving.  That said, I threw my designs on going sub-3:00 out completely, and resolved to just have fun and survive!

#255, and a sweet tech shirt from Atayne, my favorites!

The trail was a mess.   A soupy mud (Think Wonka's Chocolate River, or Ghostbusters 2's River of Slime) was flowing down many sections of the trail, and I saw numerous wipeouts.  Crazy.  I plowed through the first muddy section I came to, got wet and carried on.  Knowing this course definitely helps, and I was able to give people around me a heads-up about where we were.  The guy I ran with for quite a while at the Goat Hill 50k was out taking pictures!

I saw Jonny right near the summit cabin, and he looked determined.  Not thrilled, but focused.  I bombed the descent to the turnaround as much as I could, grabbed a refill of Tailwind and scarfed a couple of orange slices and bananas, thanked the volunteers and bolted.  I had my Li'l Rhody shirt on and one of the volunteers shouted "Hey, Westerly!!!"  Well, hey!

After the turn comes the long, slow climb back to the cabin (saw Beth at this point, gave her a hug and chatted for a minute about the race).  The beauty of that climb is the knowledge that once you reach the cabin, there's still several miles to go, but the worst is behind you.  Except this one long climb, about two miles from the finish, that never seems to end and I always almost stop midway because my legs are screaming "NO MORE!!!".  That part sucks.  Every time.

I knew that sub-3 was not even close to happening, but damned if I didn't have a great time with my partners in pain.  We ended up having a pretty sizeable group bunch up in the last descent, and I almost wiped out in the last 0.3 miles, saved only by my handheld bottle...I finished well, and in a time of 3:26.  Not what I'd hoped for, but I emerged unscathed from the 7 Sisters course for the third time!

Post-race!

RD Amy Rusiecki is to be commended for putting together such an incredible race, and with so many runners to manage, she has assembled a crew of awesome volunteers.  They were all over the course!  Cheering, feeding, drumming?  Everywhere!  What a race.  It's a tough race that seemingly everyone wants a piece of, until they realize how effing hard it's gonna be.

I'm honestly not sure why I've been gravitating toward the oddball, tough races (especially the last couple of years), other than I'm trying to test my limits, and testing them means committing to races that I may/may not finish.  Way outside my comfort zone. 7 Sisters, Cayuga, Breakneck Point, Kismet Cliff, and some upcoming unmentionables...and I don't have anything to prove to anyone, really, except maybe myself.  So I'll keep at it.  It's fun, I get to meet great people along the way, see some incredible places, and push myself.  100 miles is a goal.  It's gonna happen.  Then some other things on the radar that I've shared with a couple people.  I'm keeping it fun in my own way, and if you're not having fun, why the Hell do it?

Delicious beer, Courtesy Jonny H.!

Next up:  Cayuga Trails 50!