Tejas Trails
Rocky Raccoon 100, by USWE
Huntsville, TX (Huntsville State Park)
Race guide
Updated 29 June 2026
Rocky Raccoon 100 is a flat, fast hundred-miler set entirely within Huntsville State Park in east Texas, covering 160.9 km with a cumulative gain of just 454 m and a high point of 119 m. Produced by Tejas Trails, the race is one of the most popular entry points into the 100-mile distance in North America precisely because its benign elevation profile puts finishing — and fast finishing — within reach of a broad range of athletes. The course is built around five loops of roughly 32 km each, all returning to the Dogwood HQ aid station, which means crew access every loop and a deeply familiar trail underfoot by the time fatigue sets in. Do not mistake flat for easy: the cumulative mileage, the rooty and sometimes muddy singletrack, and the psychological grind of repeating the same loop five times are the real tests here.
Course & Terrain
The entire race unfolds on the interconnected singletrack trails of Huntsville State Park. Each of the five loops begins and ends at Dogwood (HQ) and visits the same intermediate checkpoints: Nature Center at 5.8 km into the loop, then DamNation twice — once outbound at roughly 10.6 km and again on the return leg at roughly 20 km — before hitting Park Road at 26.4 km and rolling back into Dogwood at 32.2 km. The trail surface is packed dirt singletrack threaded through a piney east Texas forest, with exposed roots and sandy patches throughout. Expect tight, twisting trail rather than open fire road; footing demands consistent attention even though the gradient is almost negligible. With only 454 m of total climbing across 161 km, there are no sustained climbs to speak of — the few short rollers near the lake dam are the closest thing to a hill you will encounter all day.
Decisive Sections — Where the Race Is Won or Lost
On a course this flat, the race is decided not by any single climb but by cumulative fatigue management across five identical loops. The stretch from DamNation back to Park Road (roughly km 20–26 of each loop) tends to be where runners begin to unravel in later loops, particularly loops four and five, as root-induced stumbles and mental fatigue compound each other. DamNation itself appears four times across the full distance — at roughly 10.6 km, 20 km, 148.7 km, and once more in between — and functions as the psychological halfway marker of each loop; arriving there feeling controlled is a reliable sign you are on a sustainable pace. The hard cut-off at the end of loop 4 (128.7 km, Sunday 06:00) is the race's defining constraint: runners must complete 80 miles in the available time window, leaving a further 32.2 km to be covered before the finish cut-off of Sunday 12:00. That final loop therefore has a six-hour window — generous on paper but punishing if you arrive at 128.7 km already broken.
Pacing & Fueling Strategy
Because the loops are identical, split-based pacing is unusually straightforward: lock in a loop time you can sustain for five repetitions and defend it aggressively. Most competitive finishers target even or very slightly negative splits through loops one to three, accepting a small fade on loops four and five. A common mistake is running loop one far too fast on fresh legs — the flat terrain encourages it — which devastates loops four and five when the real suffering begins. Fueling benefits enormously from the crew access at Dogwood every 32.2 km; use that window to change socks, address any hot spots, swap headlamps, and take in real food. Aid station discipline here — keeping stops under five minutes — can be the difference between making the 80-mile cut-off and missing it. Carry enough calories and fluid to cover each loop independently but lean on your crew and the four aid station stops per loop (Nature Center, DamNation ×2, Park Road) to keep weight on your vest low.
Conditions to Expect
Rocky Raccoon is held in February in east Texas, and weather is genuinely variable. Temperatures can range from near-freezing overnight lows to mild daytime highs in the mid-teens Celsius, but humidity is consistently high and the forest canopy traps moisture. Rain in the days before or during the race transforms the rooty singletrack into slick, muddy technical terrain that dramatically increases energy expenditure and the risk of falls — plan for it regardless of the forecast. Mud-capable trail shoes with decent lugs are worth packing as a backup. Nighttime sections are unavoidable given the 100-mile distance; most runners will spend at least one full night on course, so carry two headlamps or a headlamp and a waist light, with fresh batteries queued at the Dogwood crew point. Layers for the overnight low and sun protection for any daytime miles are both worth bringing.
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✓ Course data verified against the official source (2026-07-05) · official source
0 km · 72 m · —
6.6 km · 98 m · —
14.6 km · 0 m · —
22.7 km · 0 m · —
32.2 km · 103 m · —
39.1 km · 0 m · —
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55.2 km · 0 m · —
64.5 km · 116 m · —
71.6 km · 0 m · —
79.5 km · 0 m · —
87.7 km · 0 m · —
96.9 km · 108 m · —
104 km · 0 m · —
112 km · 0 m · —
120.2 km · 0 m · —
129.2 km · 79 m · Sun 07:41
136.5 km · 0 m · Sun 09:08
144.5 km · 0 m · Sun 10:44
152.6 km · 0 m · Sun 12:20
161.6 km · 0 m · Sun 14:00
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