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Competitive Running

Olivier L.
Olivier L. Sendmail

Ragnar leg rating

asked 4 months ago | Report

I am the team captain for a Ragnar team and I am working on the best way to assign legs. I don't understand the rating for each leg though. Each leg has a distance and I can see the elevation. So Ragnar runners, what would make a short leg in a slight downhill difficult? Thank you.

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  • Derrick L.
    Derrick L. Sendmail

    Honestly I feel like the rankings are always off. After planning two Ragnars we decided that the staff does the rankings randomly. There really is no method to the madness on leg rankings. Sorry that doesn't help much but I would disregard the Ragnar ranking and check elevation gain and distance and from there assign runners.

    answered 4 months ago |Report

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  • Lamond V.
    Lamond V. Sendmail

    Challenge is to match individuals with the legs that suit them best. Plus you have to figure out the right combination of personalities in van 1 and van 2. Reality is some runners do great on downhills while others get knee pain from anything with a downhill. If somebody has issues with pain on downhills I would avoid putting them on legs with downhills for at least their first two legs. Most people can handle uphill, but many have to run/walk them. Since I run/walk my longer runs anyway, on my last relay I was assigned to two uphill legs.

    answered 4 months ago |Report

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  • Tom D.
    Tom D. Sendmail

    Downhill running can really take its toll on your legs. My last leg in a Ragnar relay last summer was 9 miles downhill with a 1500+ foot drop. I was fine while I was running it, but paid for it the next few days. If it is a downhill leg early in the race it could hobble a runner that isn't used to downhill running and hasn't trained for it. I believe that is why they give it a fairly high difficulty rating. And for what it's worth, I agree with Lamond's and Derrick's advice.

    answered 3 months ago |Report

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