The Texas Hill Country 600K (375 miles) is an ultra-cycling race held in March and managed by Race Across America (RAAM) director, George Thomas. The race is hosted in Helotes, Texas and follows a loop of rural roads with over 13,400 feet of climbing.
Mike Wilson, ultra cyclist and long time SRM athlete, participated in the event despite the dreadful weather conditions predicted. As expected, it rained steadily throughout his entire race and the temperature hovered around a chilly 43°F. Mike conquered the course and the conditions in 27 hours and finished in second place behind Joel Sothern.
The SRM Training System was an important tool as Mike monitored his pace and nutrition during the race. His 27 hour triumph through harsh conditions was also a testament to SRM’s quality and durability and we are thrilled to have been a part of his great accomplishment.
Below is Mike’s story and race review. We wish him all the best this season and look forward to hearing more about his epic journeys to come!
Texas Hill Country 600K: Come and Take It
By Mike Wilson
Watching the 2011 Texas Hill Country 600k from my computer was torture. I was busy preparing for the Heart of the South 500, so I knew there was no practical way I could do both. But it didn’t make it any easier to watch American phenom Chris Ragsdale, Slovenian powerhouse Marko Baloh and perennial contender Kurt Searvogel battle it out. Nevertheless, I pulled out the calendar and marked 2012 with a big circle around San Antonio in March.
I live in San Diego and generally speaking, we have about the best training weather year round you could imagine. With small variations, it barely rains and is never that cold unless you really go looking for trouble in the mountains. Not to say that Texas is really that much different but lets face it, it sure can be a mixed bag in the Spring.
When I started working on my annual training plan with Solo RAAM as the season objective in June, Texas started to make even more sense with the varying terrain and the opportunity for inclement weather training. You read that right; I said opportunity for weather training. Nobody said it was going to be easy and I was prepared to work for it.
We started watching the forecast at the beginning of the week as we were packing up the RAAM van for the 20-hour drive out to Texas. It didn’t look good and started to look considerably worse. As race director George Thomas started sending out final instructions, comments about the weather started to fly. I responded to his message, no problem, we're prepared to come and take it.
Fast forward to the start line. It’d rained constantly since we arrived. The roads were soaked. I believe half the field didn’t even show up with the forecast not improving. After a brief rollout, Joel Sothern and Matt Carnal went surging forward while John Caton, the GI-ailing Jerry Arnold and myself settled into our tempos.
It was raining steadily and forty-three degrees Fahrenheit. And it almost never changed. My girlfriend and Hill Country crew chief, Andrea Alfaro, kept a feed and condition log marked each hour with a number of criteria (including the temperature), which never varied more than three degrees F for the first 23 hours of the race. I had my heart rate and power zones well established for the SRM (which is remarkably easy to ready, even when wet).
There was a brief period later Saturday where the showers abated and morale improved. I told George it was about an hour but it was honestly more like 45 minutes – well, until the hail started. And then the rain returned steadily and universally. Joel and Matt stayed up the road ahead as Jerry succumbed to his GI issues. John and I swapped positions and road steady on into the evening.
I really didn’t think the rain was demoralizing as much as everyone seemed to think, but I was truly annoyed at how much slower we were going as a result. Being the Texas Hill Country –there are lots and lots of ups and downs. The problem with wet downhill’s is that many are accompanied with a rain-run off ditch at the bottom. Some had water, some had algae and some were relatively clear. But you could never really tell until the last possible moment and carrying too much speed into one with a bad condition would have been a sure crash. That’s the real problem with rain; you lose speed on the downhill’s big-time (another lesson from Pete Penseyres).
Thank God George had connected us with Vickie Tyer as a driver and brilliant navigator. In addition to being a credentialed ultra racer herself, Vickie is a Texas Hill Country Hall of Famer, having participated as a racer or a crew person in every running of the race (including driver/navigator for Marko’s team in 2011). With her keen knowledge of the race course, we were able to preserve as much speed as possible without fear of running off course, which proved to be a real issue as Matt Carnal discovered in the early hours of Sunday.
We stopped briefly in Junction to swap rain gear out and warm my hands – they were going south, swelling and I was having a hard time shifting gears. Funny thing, I had never raced at night with rain. I thought I was being clever with having the crew Rain-X my clear glasses but it t turns out Rain-X doesn’t work on plastic (darn it). I normally like racing at night – less to focus on outside the direct view of going fast. Not so much in the wet when you can see even less than normal.
Hours passed and the rain continued. Andrea came on the PA early Sunday and mentioned that Matt Carnal had gone slightly off course and was now close. It wasn’t long before we passed him on the side of the road with what appeared to be an injury. I hadn’t seen John in some time but it was dark and I couldn’t really remember where we were in order from that point.
I started to get pretty sleepy in the last hours of the night and a jumping jack stop was ordered up by the crew. Dawn was welcomed by lightning and thunder across the brilliant Texas sky. On through the night and into the day, before we knew it were the rolling hills into Kendalia. It wasn’t long before George and Vicky Ford were welcoming us into Leon Springs and TS8. George waved us over as the winner of “Amelia’s Prime”, which included a lovely and much-appreciated peppermint hot chocolate and a tasty pastry. God bless that wonderful young lady!
Its funny, Vicky Ford had apologized in advance for all the Texas chip seal roads starting on Friday night and boy, she wasn’t kidding. I can honestly report though – after a few hours of the rain and the cold, I didn’t really notice the roads. Maybe I was hydroplaning over them and smoothing out the bumps!
Without further delay, we were on to the finish line and finally some clearing and sunshine to greet us back in Helotes. George presented a beautiful medal shaped in the shape of Texas and confirmed that we had finished second. Many congratulations to Joel Sothern, a fellow Californian and clearly a racer who brought a big level of fitness to San Antonio!
With my season built around Solo RAAM, I didn’t enter the race looking for results, which might actually be the reason was a bit easier for me to finish than some others. My race plan was built around pacing (my coach literally wrote the book on it, Dr. Arnie Baker) and learning everything we could about racing in inclement conditions. I can’t say that I wasn’t suffering throughout the ride, but it was controlled suffering and a learning experience. We were close enough with my gear to stay where we needed to be in pacing, in relative comfort and to learn the changes needed to be made in case of multiple days of rain in June.
Even with these harsh conditions, the Texas Hill Country 600k is a beautiful race and organized by one of the best event producers in the business, George Thomas and the whole Race Across Oregon team. I can only dream of what this event would be like to race with full speed and fitness, but what I can confirm is this event is yet another crown jewel of the ultra cycling season. Thanks to George Thomas, Vicky Ford, Andrea Alfaro, Vickie Tyer, all the other racers and crew, my sponsors Kali Protectives, Hi-Tech Bikes, La Rocque Better Roofs and SRM Training Systems. |
Q.: SRM launched a limited edition SRM PowerControl 7 for the 25th anniversary of the company. What criteria did you use to choose the beneficiary charity organization?
