Alamo Beer Challenge Series: Battle of Hillotes

The goal of the Alamo Beer Marathon Challenge is to get you to the finish line of the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Marathon, and this is race 3 of 4 in the series. For this race we thought: “Why not bring you to the hills and do it as a group? We’ll have one nice day of hills for breakfast, with a huge party afterwards.”

The race takes place on the outskirts of northwestern San Antonio, in a little burg called Helotes (the Spanish word for ‘corn ear,’ or ‘corn-on-the-cob’). Because Helotes lies at the beginning of the Texas Hill Country, runners affectionately nicknamed it “Hillotes.” Many runners train on the town’s hills. We consider this event as THE event. It’s designed to acclimate yourself, for when you do run a hilly race.

Training is fun and prepares you for your target events. But, you have to know exactly what to do on race day. So, this event is where you’ll test yourself. It’s your chance to check your gear, gauge your heart rate, your stamina, your brain—everything that will help your racing go smoothly. We also want you to learn all the procedures within the race: where to check in, where to put your race number, where to get your racing chip and where to properly place it. We can help you if you need it. That’s what these races are designed to do.

The 13.1 and 10k are loops, and we run on roads only open for this race. You’ll share roads with cars during this race, but you’ll also run on several roads not open to the public. The 5k is an out-and-back, and we do give you a very good hill—because we know you want the hilliness.