Seven Sisters

2009 - May 3rd

A few weeks back Todd and I were at the West Hartford Reservoir running with some friends. Todd mentioned that he thought I could never do a crazy trail race called 7 Sisters. that he runs every year. He meant that the race wasn't really the type of race that I like to run and I wouldn't (not coudn't) every do it. Well, I took it as if he didn't think I was capable of running the race. Not to be told I can't do something I told him I was doing it this year.

Today was race day. It is held in the Holyoke Range near Amherst, Mass. Although I had never the race before, I had an idea of what I was getting into. Todd and I have brought the dogs there to go hiking in the late fall. It is an out and back course that starts at the Notch Visitor's Center and travels over the seven main hills (the sisters) and the little hills (the little sisters) in between them. The course even travels up the stairs and around the wrap around porch of the Summit House on the top of one of the hills. If you are ever driving north on I-91 north of Springfield, look off to your right and you can see the Summit House not far from the interstate. The turn around point is in someone's backyard.

I was excited to gather data from my Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS watch. The watch only has an eight hour battery life when in training mode, so I was sure to charge it completely before we left. After I put it on this morning it said 100% charge. There was something wrong, though. It is supposed to go into stand by mode after a few minutes of inactivity when not in training mode to save battery life. My watch wasn't going into stand by. Also, it lost memory of my profile information and the default training display that I had never touched was changed. While Todd drove, I setup my watch again. I was able to fix everything except stand by mode. It was still chewing up battery life. By the time I was done with the setup, it was at 83% charge. Luckily on the way out of the house I grabbed the charger and was able to fully charge it by the time we arrived at the visitor's center. I left it on the charger until about 10 minutes before the start to get as much charge as I could.

The race draws runners from all over the area. I recognized some people, but for the most part they were strangers. At the start line I visited with Mary Lou and Laura. Mary Lou came to the Asta Challange a few months ago and Laura runs a lot of the same trail races that I do. After the race started the first climb was very slow. Up front Todd and his friends may have been able to run or walk quickly, but back where I was at we were moving at a slow crawl. We walked for a good fifteen minutes before the pack started to spread out and I could start to run.

The first half of the race went relatively well. I walked or speed walked the big hills, jogged the smaller hills and tried to run the "flats". My watch was acting up so I decided to forget about it and just run the race. I haven't checked what my heart rate was, but I didn't feel winded and my legs were holding out. At the four mile mark there is a water stop where we cross a road and head up a hill to the Summit house. This is where I caught site of the fast runners on their way back. There were three men that came screaming down the hill to the road at around one hour ten minutes.

My goal was to make it to the road crossing before seeing Todd. Mission accomplished. My re-adjusted goal was to make it to the Summit house first. A few minutes later my second goal was accomplished. Since I didn't know anything else about the course I couldn't think of another goal and just decided to run and eventually I would see Todd. I was running with a group of three or four men. I told them the story about Todd not thinking I could do this race. They all agreed they would push him off the trail when they saw him. Pretty soon I heard Todd yell out to me before I could see him. He looked like he was having a good race and I assured him I was fine. Luckily the men were far enough behind me that Todd safely stayed on the trail.

Then a few minutes later it happened. I was running on a huge slab of rock. A tree root had grown up between the cracks and I stumbled over it. As I was falling I tried to minimize the damage by tucking and rolling. Unfortunately that caused me to slide on my side and end up on my back with my head facing downhill in a prickly bush. A nice man on his way back stopped and pulled me out of my perdicament. Besides some road rash and a few cuts I was fine. The rest of trip out on the course went fine. I stopped for oranges and blue Gatorade at the turn around, before heading back.

My legs were tired, but I was doing okay. I ran for a few miles with a couple women and we chatted easily. The last water stop was two miles from the finish and I hit the wall. The women took off without me and soon they were out of site. The only people from the race around were a young couple who had hit the wall worse than me and were barely walking. I trugged on. Besides singing "Cheeseburgers in Paradise", all I could think of was the rusty pipes less than a mile from the finish. I knew when I reached them I was golden. It was all down hill from there.

The last part of the race is very rocky and can't be run easily. I was so desparate to finish that I did my best to navigate the loose rock as quickly as possible. A few hundred yards from the finish a man appeared out of no where. He was going much faster than I and I was barely able to get out of his way in time. He had a big smile on his face. He knew he was almost finished! As I neared the finish line I heard Todd, "You look better when you are skipping!" I still don't know why he said that, but it made me smile as I crossed the finish line.

Since I had given up on my watch I had no idea how long it took me. I wanted to run it in under four hours. I had reached the turn around in one hour and forty five minutes, which meant I was on track to finish in 3:30. Since I hit the wall I doubted I had made the 3:30, but I hoped I was still under 4:00. I turned to the race officials and asked for my time. 3:36!!! I looked at Todd and said, "I rock!". 3:36 and I had hit the wall? How did this happen? I was so excited! Later I looked at Todd and told him that I couldn't wait until next year so I could do it again.