Southern States 100 Course Guide

The first miles: a noon start that runs straight into the dark

A noon start is the thing most people underrate here. You get only a few hours of daylight before the sun goes down, and then you are running the bulk of the first hundred miles in the dark on unfamiliar singletrack. So the early miles are about discipline, not enthusiasm. Settle into an easy hike-run rhythm, eat from the start, and get your night kit sorted before you actually need it.

The Pinhoti out here is honest southern trail: rooty, leaf-covered, runnable in places and grabby in others, with steady ups and downs rather than long smooth grades. Do not try to bank time on the runnable early section. The course gives that time back later, and the runners who blow the first 30 miles chasing a split are the ones limping through the second night.

The long middle: widely spaced aid and the cumulative climb

The middle of this race is where it quietly gets hard. Aid stations 6 to 14.6 miles apart means you are routinely 2-plus hours between support, in the dark, managing your own water and food and lights. None of the climbs are monsters, but they never stop, and that rolling Pinhoti vert grinds your legs down over the hours. This is a patience race. Keep eating, keep your feet dry and happy, and keep the math simple: get to the next aid, reset, repeat.

Drop bags ride to nearly every aid station, so use them. Stage spare lights and batteries, dry socks, a warm layer for the low-temperature pre-dawn hours, and your own food in case the aid spread does not sit right with your stomach. A well-packed drop bag is free speed on a course this remote.

The night, the lows, and a pacer at Coleman Lake

The second half of a hundred is a mental game, and on this course it plays out alone in the woods at 3 a.m. Expect a low. Everybody gets one. The trick is to treat it as weather, not a verdict: eat something, fix whatever is actually wrong (cold, low blood sugar, a hot spot on your foot), and keep walking until it passes. It always passes.

Pacers are allowed starting at the Coleman Lake aid station, and that is a real gift. Line up someone to run you through the dark and the late miles. A good pacer keeps you eating, keeps you moving, and keeps your head out of the hole when the wheels get wobbly. If you can have one, plan your race around picking them up at Coleman Lake.

The finish: the long climb up Mount Cheaha

It ends on top of Mount Cheaha at Bald Rock, the highest point in Alabama, and the route saves a long final climb for the end. After 90-plus miles of cumulative Pinhoti vert, a sustained climb to the summit is a cruel and fitting way to finish. Save something for it. Runners who emptied the tank in the dark are the ones reduced to a crawl on that last grade.

The Bald Rock Lodge sits steps from the line, so once you are done the logistics are easy. But get there first: keep your effort honest through the night so the Cheaha climb is a hard finish, not a survival march.

Pace the rollers by effort, not the watch

Your flat-ground pace is meaningless on this much rolling climb. What matters is steady, repeatable effort: power-hike the ups, keep the descents controlled so you do not trash your quads early, and never let the runnable bits trick you into a hard surge. A grade-adjusted pace turns your real flat fitness into honest climbing and descending targets, so you can hold an effort you can actually sustain for a day and a half instead of redlining the first night.

Build a finish window and back it into the aid stations

Do not guess your Cheaha finish off a road time. The cumulative vert, the technical Pinhoti footing, the night, and the long aid gaps all add real hours, and a 52-hour cutoff means time management is the whole game. Build a vert-aware finish window, then back it into the aid-station splits so you know how much buffer you actually have at each checkpoint. That turns "keep moving" into a real plan, and it tells you when you can rest and when you cannot.

Carbs: steady, real, and trained for the long haul

Over a hundred miles, aim for a carb rate you can actually keep down for hours, often somewhere around 60 to 90 grams per hour, and lean lower if your stomach is struggling in the night. The mistake is treating a hundred like a 50K and going hard on gels early, then having your gut quit at 2 a.m. Mix in real food at aid stations, keep something going down every 30 minutes, and practice your exact race fueling on long back-to-back training runs so it is boring, not an experiment.

Carry for the gaps, and plan for the cold dark hours

With aid 6 to 14.6 miles apart, you have to carry enough fluid, calories, and sodium to cover the longest gap, not the average one. Fill up like the next aid is far, because sometimes it is. Sodium needs go up with effort and sweat, so dial it to your own body (weigh yourself before and after a long run to find your real sweat rate) rather than a generic number.

Nighttime fueling is its own skill. Appetite drops, food gets less appealing, and the pre-dawn cold makes you want to stop eating. Pre-stage easy-to-stomach calories in your drop bags, keep warm so your gut keeps working, and force a few bites at every aid even when you do not feel like it. That is what keeps the second-night low from turning into a death march.