Outlaw 100 - Round Rock

Our third race is a wrap!  We rolled just over 100 miles in the Round Rock Outlaw 100.

We tried to leave Dallas at a reasonable time, but both of got hung up at work.  Follow that with a stop at store for white bread (love those carbs) and road snacks, a fuel stop (40 gallons takes a while), a quick dinner we called in to Pei Wei, and a beer run.  It was right about 8 PM we were finally getting on the road.  Luckily traffic wasn't terrible getting out of town and we made pretty decent time to Round Rock.

Interestingly, spicy Pad Thai makes a great high carb meal just before a race.  I was a little worried that would come back to haunt me, but it turned out perfect.  Jon saved his leftover spicy DanDan Noodles for breakfast, which he later decided was a mistake.  Note to self: despite our iron guts, spicy sauce that close to an intense workout is a bad idea.

Dad was on this ride, contemplating the 100 miler.  Here he is with Jon about 7:50 AM, right before we rolled.

Dad and Jon at the start line

We left Old Settlers Park with a police escort with just under 1,000 other riders.  As you can see from the course map, every few miles we caught a turn somewhere.  Quite a bit of the countryside was just gorgeous, but we also hit some rougher, run down parts.  Several mile were on a disintegrated, at one time concrete, road that had turned to loose gravel.  That really slowed everyone down.  Another section was old blacktop poured on sand.  It looked like an old dirt road with the hump the in the middle and deep tire tracks.  Luckily most of the serious potholes had been patched, but it was still a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

Lots of up and down on this course.  I don't think there was really a steady elevation gain, but constant up a 100 feet, down a hundred feet, repeat for the next 100 miles.  Not as bad as some of the west Austin hills, just the slow rolling hills of south Texas.  It made for a more difficult ride than anticipated since there weren't any decent flat areas to gain speed on.  Couple that with the twisty course and a shifting wind that always seemed to be catching our face... let's just say it was fun.

We made decent speed through to our first stop at around mile 57, rolling about 18 miles an hour.  Funny thing about this one, they put the "Watering Hole" sign at the beginning of Granger Dam but the rest stop was 2.5 miles away on the other side of the dam.  It was kind of a cruel trick.  Overall this ride only had moderate support.  Rest stop 5 was out of water when we got there, luckily more was delivered - but thirsty riders sucked it up nearly as fast as it was unloaded.  Everyone was friendly and helpful though.

Jon and Dan at just over half way

When Dad hit the cut-off he decided the 63 miler was a better choice.  He held strong and knocked it out in 6 hours.  Jon and I clocked in right at 7 hours for the 100.  Slower than our normal pace, but not bad overall.  This puts us 300 miles in to our 1300 mile adventure.  Only 1000 miles and 10 months to go!