Nephew Takes 3rd at 7 Sisters

Congratulations to team Inov-8's Ben Nephew who once again flexed his range at the 7 Sisters race against some tough east coast contenders. You can read his race report below.

7 Sisters 2009

Throwing Down on the Sisters

Hang on everyone; this was one of the more exciting New England trail races. The 7 Sisters 12 mile trail race is the most demanding sub-ultra trail race in New England. If you are from the East, it’s as technical as it gets, and if you are from the West, you can’t even comprehend how horrible the footing is on this course. It will rip the soles right off your shoes. The course climbs 3700 feet over the 12 miles of the out and back course, with numerous climbs requiring the use of hands, especially fingernails. Most descents require rosary beads and a quick Hail Mary (pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our deaths…). There is never an easy year at this race, but the competition that showed up this year made the race particularly demanding.
Both Leigh Schmitt and I have won the race a couple times in the past, although Paul Low has dominated the race in recent years. Greg Hammett won 6 trail races last year, and had just won the Northern Nipmuck 16 mile in a solid time over Brian Rusiecki, who was right behind me at the Peak Snowshoe marathon this winter. Greg had mentioned that Brian was doing DOUBLE 7 Sisters in training, so I was expecting him to be pretty strong. In addition to the above 4, Kevin Tilton emailed me to tell me he was coming down from NH to run the race. Kevin has been on two U.S. mountain running teams, and had placed 2nd to my 3rd at the Merrimack River 10 mile trail race two weeks ago. When I saw that the weather would be nice and cool for the race, I began to think I had a chance at breaking 1:50, which has only been done by 4 people (including Leigh).
As the race started straight up the first 500 ft climb, I was not surprised to see someone go flying by me into the lead. For some reason, there are always at least one or two guys who take off at a ridiculous pace, in spite of the difficulty of the course and the presence of a quality field. This year, it was a gentleman in cut-off hiking pants. He actually looked pretty fit, and I was surprised that the lead pack caught him and passed within a few minutes. By the time we reached the first summit, I had been passed by Kevin, Leigh, and Brian. Leigh and Brian were setting an aggressive pace, with several exchanges of the lead, and I was content to hang off the back at that point.
The racing between Leigh and Brian certainly kept things moving along. I noted that we passed the water stop at around 19 minutes, and that I thought we usually passed it at around 20 minutes. Apparently, this pace was not quick enough for Kevin, as he took the lead around 25 minutes into the race. Kevin is a very strong climber, and he quickly gapped Leigh, Brian, and myself. Although he had a good lead, I was surprised to see that he couldn’t really get away from us. I was hoping that he was keeping enough in the tank for the second half, which is always hard to do the first time racing 7 Sisters. I was still perfectly happy following Brian, who clearly knew how to run the ultra technical descents on the course. On one loose, steep downhill, Leigh ended up saving himself by grabbing a tree, which he swung from like Tarzan.
By about 40 minutes into the race, Leigh mentioned something about running negative splits, and I remarked that he was either smoking crack, or being sarcastic. The four of us were hammering, and it was clear the second half was going to involve a great deal of suffering. On the long downhill to the turn around, the pace lagged a bit after we passed Kevin. He had turned his ankle on an exposed rock slab, and had to take some time to get back to speed. We hit the turn at about 52:15, which was over a minute faster than I had ever run the first half. Oh well, time to hang on!
Kevin immediately started to pull away on the 850ft climb, but we managed to maintain contact 10-20 seconds back. I felt comfortable on the climbs, and began to think I had a shot at the win. However, Leigh and Brian were really flying on the downhills and over the extremely rough sections, and Kevin was still holding a safe lead. Brian stopped trying to pass Leigh, and I started to notice that he also looked pretty comfortable on the climbs. Usually, at this point in the race, none of the top three can see each other, and here the four of us were within a few seconds. It would have been fun if it wasn’t so painful. We were all starting to suffer from the fast pace, and Kevin’s lead was shrinking by the minute. We all knew there was a huge climb up Mt. Hitchcock just past the last water stop which was going to be the place where the gauntlet was thrown down, whether we wanted it or not. It’s the type of late race wall that exaggerates any slight differences in fitness or endurance. Climbing hills you need to claw up with your fingernails tends to do that.
The four of us were all together as we hit the bottom of the hill, and then the race exploded. Brian flew by Leigh and went right after Kevin, who was still climbing well. I struggled past Leigh and tried to get as far away as possible. Brian continued to surge past Kevin sometime soon after Hitchcock, and just disappeared. I knew he looked strong on the earlier climbs, but that was insane. It happened so fast, at first I thought he missed a turn. I myself passed Kevin when he slightly missed a turn, with Leigh trying to run me down. On the second to last climb, I knew I had to put some time on Leigh prior to the final downhill, and pushed so hard my knees almost buckled as my quads started to go numb. Leigh finally broke, and I quickly pulled away on the upper section of the climb.
Unfortunately for me, Leigh wasn’t ready to call it a day and kept me in sight up the final climb. My legs were trashed by the time we started the final descent, which includes talus, ledges, and boulder fields. At one point, I dropped 6 feet off a ledge onto a flat boulder. I tried to throw myself down the mountain, but my coordination was lacking, and Leigh bounded by as I jokingly threw an elbow. We’ve had a number of close finishes, and he always manages to hammer the downhill finish. As I struggled with my dying legs, Leigh pulled away from me. I decided to give it one last shot, and finally managed to open my stride up and pick up the pace. I bounded down the last 200 meters not really caring where my feet landed, just trying to reel in Leigh. When I realized I had a shot at getting by him at the pace I was going, I scanned the finish area for passing room. The finish of the race consists of the bottom of a steep singletrack intersecting with a road. There was no room to pass, but all I could think about was cutting between two trees and smashing into the side of a truck at full speed. At the last second, I decided against it, and finished with my hand grabbing Leigh’s singlet to avoid pushing him into traffic.
Brian ran a personal record by about 7 minutes to win in 1:47:46, with Leigh and I at 1:48:18. That was a 2 minute PR for myself, and Leigh just about matched his fastest time. This was the first time three runners had ever broken 1:50, and Kevin ran a very strong 1:51:20 in his first attempt at the race. Oh, and six days after this race, Brian, Leigh, and I are all running the Northface 50 miler in NY with 7200 feet of climbing!