The HellKaat Hundie is a 100 mile gravel road race in Hudsonville, Michigan. The race is sponsored by a local bike shop called 3rd Coast Cycles, and proceeds from the race go to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The 50 mile option is called the HellKitten Fiddie, and for those not wanting to race 50 or 100 miles, there’s an Itty Bitty Kitty 25 mile fun ride. The winner in each division of the HellKaat Hundie was to be awarded a pair of “Hundie Undies”, and the winner in each division of the 50 mile race was to be awarded “Kitten Mittens”. When I read about the race on-line, it all sounded just too creative to not be a fun experience.
Marc and our friend James signed up for the 100 mile race, and I signed up for the 50 mile race. I had only been given the doctor’s all clear to get back on the bike six weeks earlier, since fracturing my humerus in December. Also, I wasn’t sure how I would handle an all-out race of 100 miles, because it had been at least six months since I had ridden a century. I also wasn’t really sure how my arm would handle a 50 mile ride if road conditions were bad. I had raced the Dirty Mudd’r 37 mile race the weekend prior, and the 22 mile Barry Roubaix the weekend before the Dirty Mudd’r. Luckily, the road conditions in both of the races were perfect and my arm felt fine. The gravel roads in Streator, Illinois, where the Dirty Mudd’r is held, are usually covered in inches of freshly poured gravel. This year the roads had been freshly graded and the gravel was thick for only a few miles. This made for a much faster race. It was also sunny and over 70 degrees for both races! I managed to win 1st place at the Dirty Mudd’r, and although I was tired, I was really anxious to do another race because I felt like my arm and shoulders were starting to get back to normal.
We decided to get a hotel the night before the race because the start time was 7:00 am Indiana time, and it was at least a two hour drive to Hudsonville. We both had to work Friday the 29th. Then we had to pack, load the bikes, and drive to Michigan City to pick up James. We arrived at our hotel at almost 11:00 pm Michigan time. We figured we would have to get up by 5:30 am in order to pick up our packets and numbers before the race. This is always the hardest part of racing – the time change and the early start time.
The next morning we woke up, re-packed, and went to the lobby for the hotel’s continental breakfast. James was extremely happy to see that the hotel had a waffle maker! He talked Marc and me into the perfect pre-race breakfast – a waffle with peanut butter and sliced bananas and just a drizzle of syrup. Even though it tasted great, I always have a difficult time eating so early in the morning. I only managed to eat half a waffle and half a banana. I made a mental note to eat a gel five minutes before the race.
As we went outside to load the bikes James commented on how awesome the sunrise was. It was cold, about 40 degrees, but it looked like it was going to be a clear day! I walked to the edge of the parking lot to take a photo, and then posted the photo on Instagram and labeled it #coldmichiganmorning.
We were then on our way to the bike shop to pick up our packets. Shortly after we picked up our packets and put the number plates on our bikes, we were all called into the empty shop next to the bike shop for a pre-race meeting to go over the ground rules. We would have a neutral start and police escort for about a mile to get out of the city, then we were on our own. This was a non-supported race, so there were no sag stops or police blocking traffic. We were to stop at a halfway check point to get a sticker for our number plates.
After the meeting, it was time to line up for the race. There was no time for any warm up. I quickly snapped a picture of a smiling James and Marc in front of me, then I snapped a picture of the riders behind me, then barely got my gloves on and my phone back in my jersey pocket before it was time to start.
As we rolled out it occurred to me that I had forgotten to eat a gel. I figured I would eat one while we slowly rolled out. The race wasn’t supposed to start until we crested the top of a paved hill as we headed out of town. Well, we rolled out, but it wasn’t slow! Riders were going over 20 mph from the very beginning and were already passing each other long before we got to the hill. I was not warmed up and I was already suffering. There was no time to eat a gel. I struggled to stay as close to the front of the pack as I could, but as we climbed the hill I was totally blow away by half of the riders. Within just a few miles I could barely see the lead pack, and the race settled into just me and a few others. There was a terrible east (or was it west?!) headwind almost immediately. I looked at the sky and couldn’t tell what direction I was facing because the partly sunny day had quickly turned into a cold, overcast sky. I passed a man with a “Grayhound Racing Team” jersey early on in the race, and he caught up and stayed with me for awhile. He was much older and heavier than I am, and I thought that I should have been able to keep a faster pace. We talked for a while, then two of his friends who were doing the hundie caught up to us. I then passed them and spent quite a few miles drafting behind a man and a woman. I thought she looked my age, so I tried hard to keep up with the two of them. They would pass me on hills, then I would struggle for a half a mile to catch back up to them.
Because this was a non-supported race, we had to stop at busy intersections, which there seemed to be a lot of. I began to get frustrated by all of the pavement and stopping. We would ride gravel for a few miles, then turn onto a paved road to get to the next section of gravel. The race also turned about to be a lot hillier than I expected, and it was difficult to get gels out of the pouch on the front of my bike one handed while maneuvering the hills, many of which were washboard and rutted.
When we got to the checkpoint at mile 26, I rolled up, got my sticker, and immediately took off. There was a convenience store at the checkpoint, and I noticed there were dozens of riders who had stopped. The couple that I had been following had stopped as well, and I never saw them again. At the end of the road the 50 milers separated from the 100 milers. The 50 milers followed the yellow sign to the left, and the 100 milers followed the sign to the right. This is where, I would learn later, that Marc had taken a wrong turn because he had not seen the sign, but had followed a group of riders to the left. He ended up not finishing the 100 mile race because he didn’t realize his mistake until he was almost back to town.
The few riders that were with me by this time all turned to the right, and I found myself alone on the 50 mile route. The next five miles or so were torturous. The roads were rutted and filled with pot holes, and the hills were nonstop. There was no way to get enough speed going to get to the top of the next hill, as most of the hills were steady inclines and were not rolling. By mile 35 I was exhausted. I had my head down, trying to just focus on pedaling, and I ended up missing a sign to turn. My Garmin flashed that I was off course, so I turned around and rode back to the last intersection. I had missed the sign telling me to turn left!
Shortly after I turned left I heard a man and woman’s voice behind me, and I assumed it was the couple I had been following earlier. Since I had not seen any other women who looked like they were in my age group pass me, I knew if I let this woman pass me it could cost me first place. I struggled to stay far enough ahead of them that I couldn’t hear them, and then I could hear them getting closer again. It was at this point that I got my second wind because the roads had turned into either smooth, hard packed dirt, or pavement. I also had a tailwind! I started riding as hard as I could and was riding well over 20 mph for about 5 miles. I didn’t think there was any way they could catch me. Then I came to an intersection where a man in a pickup truck told me to turn right. I thought he was messing with me, because there was no sign. He insisted that the sign had been stolen, so I turned right. It was shortly after this that my Garmin kept flashing that I was off course! I stopped twice and looked behind me to see if there were other riders behind me, and I could see the man and woman in the distance. So I hoped the man in the pickup hadn’t steered us all in the wrong direction, and I kept riding. I caught up with a man on a mountain bike, and he said we were on course. He said he had already taken a wrong turn and had gone four miles out of his way.
After passing the man on the MTB, I looked down at my Garmin, and it said that I had a little over two miles until the finish. I was starting to get completely worn out by this point, when I saw a hill ahead. I thought it was particularly cruel for there to be such a big hill so close to the finish. It was on this hill that I was passed by the man and woman, and I thought “where did they come from?!” because I thought they had fallen far behind. This was a woman I had not seen before on the course, and she looked older than me. I had very little left, but I kept telling myself that the finish was just more than a mile away and I needed to ride it like a Strava segment! So I sprinted as hard and fast as I could and caught up with them just as they rounded the corner which was less than a quarter of a mile from the finish line. I saw the man go off the road to the left, and I realized what he was doing. He was getting to the left side of the road because we had to turn left ahead on a busy road. If there was on-coming traffic I would have to stop, and they would just turn the corner. Out of the corner of my eye I then saw them both stop and I wondered what had happened. Maybe he had was confused by the intersection, which was a three way road? I didn’t look back at that point, and rode as hard and fast as I could towards the finish line. Marc was there, and took my picture. I wondered if he had crashed or had a flat, only to find out about his wrong turn.
We found out a few minutes later that I had gotten 1st place in the Women’s Masters division. After the ceremony, the woman who got second place by 20 seconds introduced herself and said her name was Rhonda. She said that she had been trying to catch up to me for miles, and when she passed me she thought I was too young to be in her age group. She said her husband had dropped a chain when I saw them stop shortly before the finish line, and he had yelled at her to keep going. She said she told him not to worry because I wasn’t in her age group! She said by the time she tried to sprint and catch me, it was too late. She also complemented me and said that I was doing it all alone and she had her husband to pull for her.
James ended up finishing the 100 miler at over 18 mph, an incredible pace for a gravel hundie, and he finished 10th overall. This is a race that we definitely want to do again.