A little Texas Independence Relay strategy ...

Yes, I know that it is a wee bit early for this, but why wait until the last minute?

Especially since Bill Dwyer has already gone on a course reconnaisance mission. We'll all have fun regardless, but it would be a little sweet to beat Bill's team along the way.

Let's face it, we'll both be Mixed Open teams and I'm sure that the Houston Striders, On The Run, Bayou City Road Runners or the Tornados will put together a team that will likely win the division with a string of runners cranking off 6-to-7-minute miles.

There are going to be at least two other teams that are made up prominently of The Woodlands Running Club members - led by Gary Van Kuiken and Alana-Rose Lynes.

At the HARRA Board Meeting a couple of Mondays ago, I heard that the Houston Harriers' Stephen Major was putting together a team. It's going to be a lot of fun as I think that we'll end up seeing many, many people that we run races with and against here in the greater Houston area out on the 207-mile course.

I've been looking at the legs of the race - other than the prologue and the epilogue miles at the beginning and the end - and I know Dave Smart has been too.

If you plan on running the race's 40 legs in the traditional order (1-2-3...), here is what the mileage breakdown looks like:

1 - 19.16 miles
2 - 18.15 miles
3 - 27.26 miles
4 - 19.29 miles
5 - 11.12 miles
6 - 14.24 miles
7 - 18.38 miles
8 - 15.79 miles
9 - 12.8 miles
10 - 14.61 miles
11 - 19.69 miles
12 - 13.57 miles

In this model, those runners who start the race will also finish it. However, their miles are a little top-sided as to the rest of the team.

But since we're competing against Bill's team (and we expect to start at about the same time, be close to them much of the race and probably be in close communications), I've started to think about holding back the last four (4) legs -- legs 37-40. If I do this and we keep the linear rotation, then the mileage shifts accordingly (for the first four runners):

1 - 14.88 miles
2 - 12.86 miles
3 - 22.54 miles
4 - 15.72 miles

The initial thought process is probably to put a team's fastest runner in leg 3 because of the long 9.78-mile, but that runner also has to be strong as that has an elevation increase of approximately 200 feet. The first runner in the second van - at leg 7 - also faces a similar elevation climb (not real substantial though) - but over 4 less miles.

At that point, though, it is pretty much downhill all the way to the San Jacinto Monument.

Runners who cover legs 1-6, 13-18 and 25-30 will be in Van #1 while runners who cover legs 7-12, 19-24 and 31-36 will be in Van #2.

(By the way, the mileage counts for Van #1 is 91.35 miles and Van #2 is 94.84 miles.)

One option that I'm toying with is to let the six individuals in each van trade off legs within their 6-leg rotation. I want everybody to get the opportunity to run an approximately equal amount of miles - since we're paying for them equally! (But I also know that Joe's going to be coming back from an injury and Karen will only be six weeks out from her first marathon as well.)

Now what about the last four (4) legs?

What I've proposed to Bill is that if the two teams were within 30 minutes of each other (in preparation for the last 17.86 miles) that we employ one of two strategies:

a.) Put the four fastest runners with the most fresh legs and sprint to the finish. (We'll be at a little of a disadvantage in that model. So hopefully, we'll be ahead at that point.)
b.) Seed the runners 1-12 before the start and for the last four legs, have one runner from each of four pools (1-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10-12) run. Their speeds will be about the same and it'll be interesting to see if similarly-paced runners can outmotor the other at the end.

I mean, the bottom line is: It's a race!

(Final note to myself: Make "wrong way turn" sign for Andrew!)