⏵ Course guide · Texas ultra
Rocky Raccoon 100 Course Guide
Rocky Raccoon is the flat, fast one. Five 20 mile loops on soft pine-needle singletrack at Huntsville State Park in the East Texas pines, almost no climbing, frequent aid, and a generous clock, which is why it is the classic 100 mile PR course and one of the best first hundreds out there. It is also a longtime Western States qualifier. I will walk you through the loops and where this race actually gets decided, then give you pacing and fueling built for a flat, rooty, all-night hundred, plus free tools to dial in your own numbers.
The course: where Rocky Raccoon is won and lost
The 100 mile is five identical 20 mile loops out of the start/finish area at Huntsville State Park, and the 100K is a short 2 mile lap followed by three of those 20 mile loops. It is soft pine-needle singletrack and a bit of jeep road through the pines, with wooden bridges and lake views, only about 1,250 feet of gain per loop, and a lot of flat, runnable trail. There are no real climbs here. This race is decided by patience, by your feet and your stomach, and by how you handle running the same loop over and over.
The loops: friendly footing, sneaky early speed
Each 20 mile loop rolls through the East Texas pine forest on a bed of needles and dirt, with frequent aid and very little vert. It is genuinely runnable, and that is the trap. With no climbs to force you to back off, the early loops feel absurdly easy, and the single most common way to wreck a Rocky Raccoon is to bank time on loops one and two that you pay back with interest on loops four and five. Run the first 40 miles slower than feels right. You want to come through the first two loops thinking you are being lazy.
Treat the loop as your unit of management instead of the mile. Because you come back through the same start/finish and the same aid roughly every 20 miles, you can run a simple, repeatable plan: a target loop split you do not beat, a fueling routine you hit every lap, and a quick, disciplined stop each time through so the day does not leak away in the chairs.
The roots: the real technical hazard
People hear the name and expect rock. It is the opposite. Rocky Raccoon is more rooty than rocky, and the endless tree roots are the actual hazard out here. Fresh and in daylight they are nothing. Tired, in the dark, on loop four, they reach up and grab your toes, and a hard face-plant late in a 100 can end your day or at least your pace. Pick your feet up, run a bright light at night with fresh batteries in your drop bag, and stay mentally switched on through the rooty sections even when you are exhausted.
This is also a course where your shoes and your feet matter. The soft surface is kind, but 100 miles of pine needles, the odd creek crossing or mud, and all those roots add up. Practice your sock and shoe setup, manage hot spots early at your drop bags, and do not let a small foot problem on loop two become the thing that stops you on loop five.
The night, and running the loop in your head
You will be out here through the night in the pine forest, and the back half is a head game as much as a physical one. The same loop that felt great in the morning sun feels long and dark and lonely at 3 AM, and the low between roughly mile 60 and mile 85 is where most finishes are saved or lost. The aid stations stay open and stocked all night, so use them as checkpoints to reset: warm food, a caffeine boost if you planned one, dry layers, and back out before you cool off and stiffen up.
Break the race into loops, then break each loop into the next aid station, and never let yourself think about the whole distance left. A pacer for the later laps is a huge help here, both for the night roots and for someone to keep you moving and eating when your brain wants to quit. If the lows hit, keep walking, keep eating, and trust that they pass. On a flat course with a 30 hour clock, forward motion almost always gets you to the finish.
Aid stations, crew, and drop bags
Rocky Raccoon is famous for its aid. The stations along the loop are frequent, roughly every 3 to 6 miles, and the support is some of the best known anywhere, hot and cold food all day and night. Because the 100 mile loops back through the same spots every 20 miles, your crew sees you on a predictable schedule and you can stage drop bags at the designated aid stations to reload food, batteries, layers, and fresh socks each lap.
Use that structure. Build a quick checklist for what you grab each time through, keep your stops short and purposeful so you are not losing half an hour a lap to the chair, and put a warm layer and a backup light in the bags you will reach during the cold pre-dawn hours. Confirm the current aid station locations, the crew access points, and the pacer rules on the official race site, since they can shift between years.
Pacing strategy for a flat, fast hundred
A flat, runnable 100 like Rocky Raccoon rewards even, patient pacing and a disciplined start more than anything else. There are no climbs to hide your mistakes, so the whole game is not overcooking the first half and keeping your splits steady deep into the night.
Negative-split it, or at least do not blow up early
The best Rocky Raccoon races are run even or slightly negative. Pick a loop split you can hold all day, and treat your first two loops as the easy ones even though every part of you wants to run faster. The flat course makes a fast start feel free, but it is a loan against your back half, and the runners who fade hardest here are almost always the ones who banked too much early. If you are chasing a PR or a Western States qualifying time, the math still says start controlled and finish strong.
Because it is flat, your normal flat-ground pace actually means something here, unlike on a mountain course. Use a grade-adjusted pace to fold in the tiny rollers and set an honest, sustainable loop pace, then hold yourself to it early when it feels too easy.
Build a finish prediction and work it back into the cutoffs
On a course this consistent, a realistic finish prediction is genuinely useful: you can set a target loop split, plan your aid stops, and know exactly how much buffer you are carrying against the 30 hour limit and the 7:41 AM final lap cutoff. Do not guess off a road time, but a flat trail 100 lines up closer to your road fitness than a mountain race does, so a solid prediction here is very doable.
Work your plan backward from the cutoffs with margin built in. Even though 30 hours is generous, knowing your numbers keeps you honest in the dark hours when it is tempting to sit too long, and it tells you the difference between a stop you can afford and one you cannot.
⏵ Free tools to pace this course
- Grade-adjusted pace calculator to fold the small rollers into an honest, sustainable loop pace you can hold all day.
- Race-time calculator for a finish prediction on this flat profile, so you can plan your splits against the 30 hour cutoff.
- Race-equivalent calculator to turn a recent race result into a Rocky Raccoon goal you can actually hold for 100 miles.
Fueling strategy for a 100 mile day and night
On a flat course you are running more of the time and for many hours, so your gut is under real, steady load. Fueling is what fails most people at Rocky Raccoon, not the legs, so build a plan you can hit every single loop.
Carbs: steady, trained, and never skipped
For a 100 mile effort, aim for roughly 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour, leaning toward the high end only if your gut is trained for it, using a glucose-plus-fructose blend so you can absorb more than a single sugar allows. Because the course is flat and you are running so much of it, you cannot coast on long climbs to settle your stomach, so keep the intake steady and rehearse your exact hourly number on long runs until 80-plus grams an hour feels routine, not like an experiment on race day.
Late in a hundred your appetite disappears and real food gets hard to stomach. The frequent, well-stocked aid stations help, but have a backup of easy liquid calories and gels for when chewing feels impossible, and keep eating on a schedule even when you do not want to. The runners who finish strong here are the ones who never stopped fueling.
Sodium and fluid: plan for whatever February gives you
Bias your sodium toward 500 to 700 milligrams per liter of fluid, and higher if you are a heavy or salty sweater, then adjust to the day, because Huntsville in February is unpredictable. A warm, humid mid-70s year pulls a lot of sweat and salt out of you and your fluid needs jump, while a cold year hides your losses and you have to remember to keep drinking even when you do not feel thirsty. Cramping, a sloshing stomach, and that hollow, wrung-out late feeling are usually fluid and sodium problems, not fitness ones.
Weigh yourself before and after a long run to learn your real sweat rate, then build your plan around your own number and pack for both warm and cold in your drop bags. Run your race-day plan with the free ultra fueling calculator for a carb, sodium, and fluid target per hour.
⏵ Build your fueling plan
Get a carb, sodium, fluid, and caffeine plan per hour built for your weight, your goal time, and the Rocky Raccoon distance with the free ultra fueling calculator. Browse the rest of the free running tools at the tools hub.
This guide is independent and for planning and training only, and it reflects publicly available information about the Rocky Raccoon 100. Race details, including the date, loop layout, aid stations, cutoffs, pacer and drop bag rules, and Western States qualifier status, can change year to year. So always confirm the current specifics on the official Tejas Trails race website before you register, train, or travel. The fueling and pacing advice is general and not medical advice.