1. The Ragnar app will give you maps on your phone, but Rank Strangers have an old school Excel spreadsheet to show our leg assignments - example pictured below. There are 36 “legs” in the race, ranging in length from 3 miles to 8.6 miles. You will be assigned 3 legs for a total of between 10.6 and 20.8 miles.
Rank Strangers typically finishes in the middle of the back. Our priority is fun, not fast, although we have a number of experienced marathoners (including Boston qualifiers), and even Iron Men. That hasn’t stopped some of our runners from blazing to fast times on their legs, however.
When will you run? The exact times depend on which van you join and everyone else’s pace, but you will get runs in the morning, afternoon and night (read: dark, with headlamp and blinky vest).
2. The team provides required "safety gear" -- reflective vests and night lights -- though some people bring their own to eliminate the chance they'll end up sharing sweaty stuff. You will have at least one (1) night run where the gear is required.
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Perhaps the most significant
development since our first race in 2005:
Hefty's jumbo bag - keeps each shift's
gear dry and then seals it away.
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3. This packing list from our blog (www.rankstrangers.info) dates from our first year and is a sentimental favorite: http://rankstrangers.blogspot.com/p/packing-checklist.html
4. Sleep will be lacking. Grab it when you can. In the van, in a field, wherever...
5. Race morning details will be ironed out once Ragnar shares information such as start location and maps. I've got a tentative schedule below. (minor revisions 4/25/2018)
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| Headlamp and blinky vest required for night runs. |
Chicago-area runners can meet me in River North and ride to the start, or meet at the start in Morton Grove to attend Ragnar’s “safety briefing".
“Madison van” runners coming from Chicago will be united with their team at the transition area in Northern Illinois shortly after noon on Friday. There are non-Wisconsin people in the Chicago van. We will hand off runners along with the slap bracelet at the first transition area!
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| Grab sleep when you can! |
Madison van: Pete, Cathy, Margaret, Gina, Amanda, Alexander
Chicago van: Eric, Renee, Steve, Melinda, Susanna, Jason
Here's a tentative schedule:
Thursday, May 17
Pick up rental vans in Madison and Chicago (Pete & Eric)
Friday, May 18
6:00AM – Chicago van leaves downtown for Morton Grove (Linne Woods) start
7:30 – Start registration
6:30 – Chicago van members meet at Linne Woods
8:30 – Madison van departs for Illinois
7 – Race start
11:30 – Madison van starts registration at transition area
1pm – Van transition
Saturday, May 19
3pm – Finish @ Madison
5pm – Chicago van departs for Chicago
8:30pm – Chicago van arrives at downtown Chicago
6. More resources
The Rank Stranger story: (2012) http://rankstrangers.blogspot.com/2012/05/rank-stranger-story.html
Training tips, circa 2011: http://rankstrangers.blogspot.com/p/2011-tips.html
6. Schedule example. See below for a sample of our schedule spreadsheet. You will see that….
Mark’s projected minutes-per-mile pace is at best (fastest) 9 minute miles. Worst (slowest) – 10.5 minutes per mile.
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| Schedule example |
Total mileage for Mark is 15.5 miles. Mark’s first leg, starting at 9AM on Friday, is 5.2 miles.
Mark’s second leg (#13 overall) is 4.8 miles. He’ll start between 6:13PM and 7:18PM – depends on how we do on the intervening 11 legs. If we all nail our “high” pace, it’ll be 6:13PM. It is not unknown for us to get ahead of schedule – this is why your van will be watching you closely; cell phones keep the vans in synch.
Mark’s third leg (#25) is 5.4 miles and starts between 3:44AM and 5:57AM on Saturday. The grey shading reminds us it will be dark.
(Don’t get attached to the “From” and “To” times. They’ll change when we plug in the predictions from all runners).
