Home   Heart of the South 500 2008; 517 miles.   The fifth running of the HOS 500 had three firsts.  The first is it rained the first 24 hours, secondly two of the solos and a team are registered for RAAM and two for RAAM of the West and lastly the two man team did the race twice!   The fifth edition saw John Schlitter, of the Bacchetta recumbent team, set the fastest pace, finishing in 34+39. He is registered for solo RAAM this June. This is a record for the new recumbent classification.    Mark Pattinson, also registered for solo RAAM, kept smiling and eating up miles, getting ready for June, finishing in 35+22.   Kevin Kaiser and Jeff   Bauer (Gran Fondo Fixers) are registered for RAAM as a two person team riding fixed gear machines.  Watching them ascend the two long climbs of this route was impressive; they finished in 33+20 hours-for the first 517 miles.   Tracy McKay and Julie Gazmararian are registered for the 1000 mile of the West, he finished in 39+21 and she finished in 44+10.   The other solo contenders all came to qualify for RAAM.  Andy Sweet came from Illinois, his family are all tri-athletes and he had never ridden more that 234 miles (38+00). Angus Benson-Blair is a British Army major stationed at Fort Campbell on exchange duty (39+12).   The last entry is a four person team of local area cyclists who wanted to do something unique, and did so, finishing in 35+48 with an average age of 54, setting a record for that age class.   The Race:   There is always a possibility of lousy weather in early April in Alabama and Georgia, and we got our fill this year.  Both states have been in the grip of an extreme (worst kind) drought for two years--Georgia found a 100 year old survey that shows their border should include part of the Tennessee River--negotiations are underway.   Anyhow, this weekend put a dent in the drought.  A cold front moved through Friday, producing severe weather Friday afternoon, which passed through by 8PM. But, the front was slow moving; oriented SE to NW (the direction of the route) and once the edge passed a 100 mile wide area of rain followed. The front moved slowly and the riders were in rain 70% of the time for 24 hours, only coming out of it once they passed TS 4 at over 300 miles.  Another opportunity to improve mental toughness!!    The dogwoods, azaleas, redbuds, cherry trees were all blooming as they are supposed to at this time of the year and were especially noticeable against the grey skies.  But all wished for the normal spring sun and mild temperatures that we normally see.     The race has a new, and hopefully permanent, start location at the Hilton Perimeter Park with easy access and to hotels, bike stores and restaurants, but it has increased the length of the race to 517 miles.    The six solos started two minutes apart at 8PM and the teams started two minutes apart at midnight—it was raining for both starts.   All the riders struggled with steady rain, temperatures in the high 50’s.  Luckily there was no severe weather or wind but keeping warm was a challenge. The top of Fort Mountain was engulfed in clouds and watching a rider appear out of the mist (See pictures on website) 75 feet away was surreal.   As the race progressed the rain was definitely an inconvenience; but as I took pictures all riders were in good spirits, waving, joking, commenting on their choice of rain gear, etc.!!!  The positive attitudes from all was a real testament to those who chose this sport, bring it on-we can handle it!!   The male solo race: At TS 1 (74 miles) Schlitter took the lead with McKay at +28 minutes, Pattinson +42, Sweet +46 and Benson-Blair +55.  By TS 2 (159 miles) Schlitter had increased his lead to 1+07 and the four others were within 47 minutes of one another.  At the TS 3 (219 miles) the separation was as follows, Schlitter in the lead, McKay at 1+17, Pattinson 1+30, Benson-Blair 2+05, Sweet 2+38. After the first major climbing stage over Fort Mountain Schlitter was still in the lead but Pattinson took over second at 1+42 behind, Sweet at 2+48, Benson-Blair at 3+48 and McKay at 3+59.   At TS 5 (380 miles) Schlitter maintained the lead but Pattinson picked up six minutes at 1+36 back, Sweet at 2+49, McKay at 4+49  Blair 5+22.  Between TS 5 and 6 there is 2500 feet of climbing consisting of numerous, steep .5 to 1.5 mile hills along with the final 3.5 mile climb to Mount Cheaha—the highest point in Alabama.  This stage tightened up the two leaders. Schlitter passed TS 6 (463 miles) at 0317 Sunday morning with Pattinson 5 minutes behind (but he started two minutes later so he actually was only three minutes behind)!  John was taking a nap, woke up motivated and finished in 34+39, Mark Pattinson  came in 43 minutes later at 35+22.  Both of these gentlemen will race in this year’s RAAM.  John stated, “If you are going to do RAAM-you need to do the Heart of the South 500 to get ready, a really tough course.” See John’s info at www.bacchettabikes.com.   Andy Sweet was the next solo to finish with a time of exactly 38 hours and excited.  He had never ridden more than 230 miles in the past.  He and his wife are active tri-athletes having done the Iron Man in the past.  Biking is a new found passion. He is now RAAM qualified.   Angus Benson-Blair has been trailing both Andy and Tracy until Fort Mountain where he passed McKay and gained time through TS 5 and 6.  He finished at 3+12 excited about qualifying for RAAM after two previous attempts.  He said, “I really didn’t mind the weather, reminds me of home!” He is going back to Germany in July and then to Afghanistan for a second tour.  We will keep him in our prayers.    Tracy. McKay rolled in a few minutes after Angus, “…I am feeling good, on track for this June.” His time was 39+21.   The female solo race: Julie Gazmararian had said at the start she was nervous about riding in so much rain and intended to ride a steady race, watching out for the down hills.  Good strategy!   She rode exactly that race, TS 1 at 4+58, TS 2 at 11+00, TS 3 at 16+06, TS 4 at 23+30, TS 5 at 33+50, TS 6 at 40+12 and finished at 44+10 setting a new record for the 20-51 female solo classification.   Our two teams, Alabike and Fixers started at midnight and then two minutes later respectively.  At TS 1 Fixers had passed Alabike at had a 24 minute lead, at TS 2 that lead shrunk to 15 minutes, at TS 3  it was 26 minutes and after Fort Mountain, TS 4 and 320 miles, it was 30 minutes!!!  Between 4 and 5 the Fixers gained some ground and opened the gap to 1+36, the next stage included the climb of Mount Cheaha the gap at TS 6 was 2+29. There is more about why later.   Team Gran Fondo Fixies of Kevin Kaiser and Jeff Bauer are riding fixed gear machines and finished the route in 33+20.  Jeff was riding the finishing leg, rode in, allowed me to take a very quick picture and started off on their next 517 miles for a total of 1034 by Monday night. As a fixed gear (42-18) team, they will start with the RAAM solos this June.  The total time for 1034 miles was 67+49. They commented that their crew really appreciated this opportunity to see how everything worked, or didn’t, before RAAM.  Most of the crew members are ultra cyclers and felt three days really tested them like RAAM will. Heart of the South 1000?  Check out their information about RAAM, the site is www.kaisercycling.com, with a description of their HOS 500 at; http://www.kaisercycling.com/training/heartofthesouthx2.html.   The Alabike team finished 2 hours after Fixies, riding in together with one, regular sized mini van.  Once the pictures where made the story came out, since they started with two vehicles.  It appears a crew issue forced them to proceed with one vehicle.  This is another aspect of this sport, learning to adapt when the situation requires.  These folks did for sure.  Up to TS 5 they were within 30 minutes of the Gran Fondo Fixers, a well functioning and practiced crew is a key ingredient for an ultra event!  Congratulations to the team for adjusting en route!     New Records:             John Schlitter set a record for recumbents, 14.91 mph             Julie Gazmararian set a new record for 21-50 women, 11.70 mph             Alabike set a record for mixed four person teams, 14.57 mph             Gran Fondo Fixers set a record for a new fixed gear classification, 15.51 mph   The website, www.heartofthesouth500.com, will have pictures as well as this article.  I want to thank UMCA Headquarters, Tracy McKay, Flo Bradley and TJ Wooten for their help with this event.   The sixth running of the Heart of the South 500 will be held in 2009 on April 3rd, at 8 PM.  The 200 will start at 5 AM on Saturday, April 4th.   Ya’ll come on down now, ya hear!