The fifth running of the Heart of the South 500 on April 4, 2008 had three firsts. The first is that it rained the first 24 hours, secondly two of the solos and a team are registered for the Race Across America and two for the Race Across the West and lastly the two-man team did the race twice!

John Schlitter, of the Bacchetta recumbent team, set the fastest pace, finishing in 34 hours 39 minutes, a record for recumbents. He is registered for solo RAAM this June.

Mark Pattinson, also registered for solo RAAM, kept smiling and eating up miles, getting ready for June. He finished in 35 hours 22 minutes. Pattinson had previously qualified for RAAM at the 2006 HoS.

Kevin Kaiser and Jeff Bauer (Gran Fondo Fixers) will race RAAM as a two-person team riding fixed gear machines. Watching them ascend the two long climbs in the Heart of the South was impressive; they finished in 33:20 for the first 517 miles and then rode the course again!

Tracy McKay and Julie Gazmararian will be competing in the 1,000-mile Race Across the West. McKay finished the HoS 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 is all tri-athletes and he had never ridden more that 234 miles; he finished in 38:00. Angus Benson-Blair, a British Army major stationed at Fort Campbell on exchange duty, finished in 39:12.

The last entry was a four-person team of local 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 drought for two years. However, this weekend put a dent in the drought. A cold front moved through Friday, April 4, producing severe weather Friday afternoon. The solo riders started at 8 p.m. Friday night and the teams started at midnight. The front passed through about 8 p.m.; however, it was slow moving, oriented SE to NW (the direction of the route) and a 100-mile wide area of rain followed the front. 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. An opportunity to improve mental toughness!!

The dogwoods, azaleas, redbuds, cherry trees were all blooming and were especially noticeable against the grey skies. We all wished for the normal spring sun and mild temperatures.

The race has a new start location at the Hilton Perimeter Park with easy access to hotels, bike stores and restaurants. This increased the length of the race to 517 miles.

The six solos started two minutes apart at 8 p.m. and the teams started two minutes apart at midnight—it was raining for both starts.

All the riders struggled with steady rain with 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 75-feet away was surreal.

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 attitude was a testament to those who choose this sport.

The male solo race: Schlitter took the lead at Time Station 1 (74 miles) with McKay 28 minutes back, Pattinson 42 minutes behind, Sweet 46 minutes behind and Benson-Blair 55 minutes behind. At each Time Station Schlitter increased his lead with McKay in second and Pattinson in third. Schlitter, racing in his recumbent, kept the lead through the first major climbing stage over Fort Mountain. Pattinson moved up to second at 1:42, Sweet at 2:48, Benson-Blair at 3:48 and McKay dropped to 3:59.

Between TS 5 and 6 there is 2,500 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. On this section Pattinson closed to within five minutes of Schlitter at TS 6 (463 miles) at 3:17 Sunday morning. John Schlitter was taking a nap, woke up motivated and finished in 34 hours 39 minutes and Mark Pattinson came in 43 minutes later at 35:22. Both of these gentlemen will race in this year’s RAAM. Schlitter 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.”

An excited Andy Sweet finished in exactly 38 hours. He had never ridden more than 230 miles. He and his wife are active tri-athletes having done the Ironman in the past. Biking is a new found passion. He is now RAAM qualified.

Angus Benson-Blair had been trailing both Sweet and McKay until Fort Mountain where he passed McKay. 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 Benson-Blair, “…I am feeling good, on track for this June.” His time was 39:21.

Julie Gazmararian said at the start she was nervous about riding in so much rain and she intended to ride a steady race, watching out for the down hills. Good strategy! She rode exactly that race and finished at 44:10 setting the record. Afterwards Gazmararian said the hardest part was “starting the ride in the rain and continuing to ride in the rain for the next 21 hours. . . I had to dig pretty deep to keep going.” Overall she “loved the course (when it was not raining and I could see it) -- I will definitely be back next year!”

The four-person team Alabike Cyclononiacs started at midnight and the Gran Fondo Fixies, riding fixed gear bikes, started two minutes later. At TS 1 Fixies had a 24-minute lead over Alabike, at TS 2 that lead shrunk to 15 minutes, at TS 3 it was 26 minutes and after climbing Fort Mountain on their fixies, they had a 30-minute lead at TS 4 (320 miles)! Between TS 4 and 5 the Fixies opened the gap to 1:36 and on the next stage including the climb of Mount Cheaha they built their lead to 2:29 at TS 6.

Team Gran Fondo Fixies of Kevin Kaiser and Jeff Bauer on their fixed gear (42-18) machines finished in 33:20. Bauer was riding the finishing leg and after a very quick stop for photos he started off on their next 517 miles for a total of 1,034 by Monday night. The total time for 1,034 miles was 67:49. Their crew really appreciated this opportunity to see how everything worked, or didn’t, before RAAM.

The Alabike team finished two hours after Fixies, riding in together with one mini van. They started with two; however, partway though the race they had to proceed with just 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.

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 p.m.. The 200 will start at 5 a.m. on Saturday, April 4th.

Ya’ll come on down now, ya hear!

Heart of the South website