Choose Your Route...

...But choose wisely

It is never too early to begin the difficult process of selecting which set of legs you want to run in the Back. [Insert funny leg joke here. E.g., "my own legs of course" or "an Ethiopian's legs"]. Legs in this context refers to the three seperate routes you will run during the back. The 36 legs of the Back are divided into twelve groups of three. Our chore is to pick which group of three legs we each want to run. This exercise is largely based on which of two "vans" we want to be in. Obviously each van includes 6 of the 12 runners. The van selection is fairly critical as you seldom see or spend time with occupants of the opposing van during the race. So, at this early stage in the planning process, the best thing to do is to think about who you want (or do not want) in the van with you and glance over the legs and get a feel for which ones you would like to run, aren't opposed to running, and/or will not run.

Mike Morgan mentioned to me that we either let him run this leg or he's quitting the team.

I think we can accomodate Mike's request. For the rest of you, take a look at the legs and provide us with your feelings/demands. By the way, Runner #7's legs are reserved for Wasatch Back blog creators. Oh wait, I'm a Wasatch Back blog creator. Fine, I'll take them.

Lace 'Em Up Folks

Don't let this be you.

Many of you are concerned about how to train for the Wasatch Back. The answer is simple: there is nothing you can do to fully prepare for the Back. However, if you don't want to end up like the guy above, you can follow the training schedule provided by our dear friends at Ragnar (the organizers of the race). This may disturb some of you, so read ahead with caution, but the training schedule officially begins February 1st. Sorry Trent. There are actually two training schedules, one for Patrick Newman and one for everyone else. I didn't list the schedule here because I could not find a non-tedious way to transfer the schedule from the Ragnar site to this post. However, here are the links: Patrick Newman Training Schedule and Non-Patrick Newman Training Schedule.

Except for Trent, don't worry about religiously sticking to the training schedules. If you do your best, you'll be fine. If you don't, well, falling across the finish line isn't that embarrassing.