Seneca 7 Relay

My mom and I headed out to Seneca Lake for the Seneca 7 Relay on Saturday afternoon.  The relay consists of a team of 7 runners that each run 3 legs around Seneca Lake for a total combined distance of 77.7 miles.  It is like Ragnar except all during the day.  Most of the relay exchanges are also at wineries if you are so inclined to go buy a random bottle or do some sampling when they are open.  

looking back at the part of the hill I was climbing and enjoying the view

our van coming down the road

 We spent the night in Geneva after attending packet pickup and the information session.  We brought stuff to decorate our van but they were not doing a van decorating contest this year.  Still fun that we decorated our van though.  We thought we were the 7am start but because we had some fast gals join the team we were bumped to the 8am start.  Good thing or we would have been held for approximately 40 minutes at the first check point on the course (about exchange 7?).

We met up with the gals from our local MRTT chapter in the Wegman's parking lot and they loaded their gear into the van that my uncle let us borrow for the weekend.  My mom was our driver so it worked out well for us in terms of safety and such--she focused on the road and we could cheer and watch the race out the windows driving by.  They had bike relay teams that took turns running the legs and instead of vehicles the rest of the team biked and met up at the exchanges.  Intense.  

1 mile to the scenic overlook--my first relay leg

My first relay leg was about 4 miles or a little more and was basically all uphill to a scenic overlook.  I would much rather go uphill or flat than down hill.  Our van was awesome because it was easy to spot and we stopped about halfway through all the legs that we could to cheer for our teammates before going on to the exchange point.  My mom brought a mini bull horn so we used that too.

I wore a sparkle skirt for each leg of the relay and calf sleeves for the first two legs since my calves have been getting tight (common pregnancy symptom and the sleeves just help alleviate some of the pressure I feel in them climbing hills).  I wore Happy Talk and decided to sport my reflective band for my own safety since we were running on the shoulders of a fairly well traveled route with speed limits of about 55 in places.

bathroom anyone? 

My mom was amazing at finding side streets for us to pull onto for us to park the van so we could cheer since we obviously could not pull over onto the shoulder of the road and impede the bicycle relays.  During my second leg, which was 6.1 miles, I had to use the bathroom so bad about halfway through I seriously considered sitting on someones lawn and pretending to stretch while peeing through my clothes.  At least I was well hydrated, taking good care of Critter.  All the wineries on the course were about 1/4 mile or more off course for this portion.  When I was ready to sit down and just let it go I spotted a cafe on the road that was open and they graciously let me use their bathroom when I explained I was 20 weeks pregnant.

leg #2

Running leg 2 was mostly climbing with a little bit of downhill/flat.  I drank most of my camelback and wore my Fantasia sparkle skirt.  This was the only leg I wore my camelback for since my other legs were shorter and I could get away with just my amphipod bottles in my skirt pockets.  I also had a fruit snack about 35 minutes into this leg to make sure I kept my energy levels up.

 Wearing my camelback I get super sweaty so my mom stood outside the van while we cheered for our next runner trying to get my shirt to dry out waving it around.  She is so awesome!  Final leg of the relay for me (runner #5) was mostly flat with a little uphill.  It was just shy of 3 miles and I wore  my Hearts, Stars, Flowers, oh my sparkle skirt and my reflective bands again.  When cars weren't coming I ran the white line but when I saw a car it was shoulder dirt running for me!

 We parked the van and were able to run with our 7th runner across the finish line just before 7 pm.  Our medals had our leg numbers on them and were nice.  Post race refreshments were cookies, chili and some delicious juice.  Our relay team did well considering I was the "slowest" one on the team for obvious reasons and they didn't mind--telling me to walk if I had to and if I needed to drop a leg one of them would pick it up for the safety of me and Critter--all discussed in the weeks prior to the relay.

 Our team was Moms RUN Seneca Seven.  Our team average pace was 8:28 miles (I am sure my average mile pace was 9:40-10:00 so they are speedy) and our total time for the 77.7 miles was 10:59:04.  Oh, and the first and second  place overall teams were all FEMALE teams.  The all male team came in 3rd overall followed by some mixed teams.